[vrfcodf]

From the Facebook shareholder conference call after the Oculus acquisition 2 years ago https://soundcloud.com/highway62/internal-facebook-conferenc... (Note that this is an public call, those are their official statements.)

At time stamp 29:19: There might be advertising in the world, but we need to figure that down the line. That is probably where the business will come from...

And at time stamp 29:50: If we are successful in building the kind of platform that we think we can build here, there should be lots of different monetization opportunities, it is too early to make any concrete plans in terms of exactly what virtual will be.

Facebook is building the first virtual world. Think about that.

[iammyIP]

> Facebook is building the first virtual world. Think about that.

No, Facebook is a glorified chatroom with constant surveillance and ads. The only thing unique it did was to aggregate enough gravity to become the first stop for digital peasants of all ages. Facebook is not building anything virtual first here.

[nitrogen]

I think they are talking about the Metaverse.

[Animats]

There are lots of virtual worlds. There, Second Life, etc. None have become really successful, but they continue to work. Second Life supports the Oculus development unit, although not the production product. (The production Oculus is locked down; only apps from Facebook's store or with Facebook-issued "Oculus keys" will run.)

[Tepix]

Second Life was somewhat successful for a while.

VR will give these virtual worlds a lot more appeal. As will the increase of bandwidth and improved graphics. There's a reason that two of the Linden Labs guys (the company behind Second life) are (separately) working on successors.

[TrevorJ]

No, Facebook is putting billboards up on an uninhabited island and betting on the idea that people will want to live there. Good way to ensure they don't.