Meta just reported that their Reality Labs division lost $10.2 billion last year. Billion with a B. And their Horizon Worlds platform reportedly has fewer than 300,000 monthly active users.
For context, my neighborhood's Buy Nothing group on Facebook has more engagement than the metaverse.
I'm not here to dance on the grave of a concept that hasn't even fully launched yet. But I am here to point out that we're watching a textbook case of a company trying to will a market into existence rather than responding to actual consumer demand.
Remember Google Plus? Google saw Facebook's success and decided they needed a social network too. They had the resources, the engineering talent, the distribution. They had everything except a reason for people to show up. No one was asking for another social network. Google was solving a competitive problem, not a consumer problem.
Meta is doing the exact same thing, just at a much larger scale and with much worse graphics.
The metaverse pitch goes something like: "What if you could have meetings, but instead of Zoom, you're a legless avatar in a virtual conference room?" And the honest consumer response is: "Why would I want that?"
Here's where my strategy brain gets excited, though. Because there IS something real underneath all this hype. People do want more immersive digital experiences. Gaming proves this every day. Fortnite concerts, Roblox brand activations, VRChat communities. These are thriving metaverse-adjacent experiences that work because they started with joy, not with a corporate mandate.
The difference between a platform people choose and a platform people endure is whether it was built for their delight or for someone's balance sheet.The brands rushing to "get into the metaverse" right now remind me of every brand that built a Second Life presence in 2007. Remember when Reuters opened a virtual bureau? When Coca-Cola had a virtual vending machine? Of course you don't. Because none of it mattered.
My advice to any brand getting pitched a metaverse activation right now: ask your agency one question. "Where are the humans already gathering, and why?" If the answer starts with "well, they're not there YET, but..." save your money. Go buy a Wordle ad. At least people are actually using that.
The metaverse will eventually exist in some form. But it'll emerge from what people already love doing online, not from what a company that desperately needs to justify a name change tells them they should be doing.