Meta Inc., formerly known as Facebook, started its mass staff layoffs last week. It is expected that over 11,000 employees would be left without a job when the staff purge period ends. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the firm’s most difficult change in history is the result of miscalculations on Meta’s metaverse.
The wake-up call for the young CEO to address his lapses in judgement was the company’s 70% stock price decline. Zuckerberg attributes this to his overestimation of the growth of the metaverse, which led him to overstaff the firm and invest in allin the all the wrong technologies to make his vision into a reality.
What is the metaverse?
The metaverse is an immersive virtual world where everything seems real. This concept is usually depicted in futuristic sci-fi films such as “The Matrix,” “Ready Player One” and “Inception,” which seamlessly blends core elements of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR).
Some unique benefits of the metaverse include enhanced entertainment value and a higher level of security for gamers, as well as direct communication between vendors and users. It is like a parallel universe where anything can be made possible.
This vision got many tech enthusiasts and investors highly interested in the metaverse. Zuckerberg is one of its more avid supporters, getting hooked on being one the first ones to build and launch a metaverse. However, it seems that Zuckerberg may have missed out on key aspects of building a metaverse, which ultimately led to the mass layoffs.
How does one build a metaverse?
Although many are still debating this, one of the better options for an efficient metaverse is to build it on a scalable blockchain. A blockchain that can scale unbounded means block sizes and throughput can be increased on demand, while transaction fees are reduced to very small decimals of a cent.
Bigger data blocks are crucial to the metaverse as it would use up and generate a huge amount of data. and if each action on the metaverse is recorded as a transaction, then a high throughput is also necessary.
A scalable blockchain also enables instant microtransactions, the sending of very small amounts of money or the recording of small amounts of data on the blockchain. This can only be made possible if fees are at its lowest.
For instance, an advertiser wants to give away $3three-dollar coupons within the metaverse. If the fee to send that coupon to a consumer takes at the lowest a little less than $2 to at its highest of $ $28.58, as it would cost on the ETH blockchain, then it would be impractical for the advertiser to push through with the promotion.
How then would a metaverse company earn if businesses and advertisers—not to mention users who would have to pay $1500 for a Meta Quest Pro headset—will not be able to afford it? This is but one of the basic considerations when building a metaverse, but it is a crucial one as it pertains to revenue-making.
Eleven-thousand people are suffering fromsufferingwould have to suffer from Zuckerberg’s miscalculation, and are essentially reminders for him to hopefully learn his lesson not to be too impulsive. Moving forward, it would be best if the young CEO considers building on a scalable, efficient and economical blockchain for the sake of Meta’s remaining employees. Instead of focusing on costly gadget or accessory development, it is better to start with building a solid foundation for the metaverse.
