Zuck controls the board though! Majority voting rights. Still, have to give it to him. Need guts to make such a call. WA and Instagram, the Crown Jewels of Meta.
Then again, nobody wins all the time (cough oculus cough).
I don’t think Facebook’s social graph / ad-based business model can be connected to a successful hw/sw XR experience.
However, Oculus is way too early to call as a bad bet.
Oculus could be like late model, pre-touchscreen Blackberry.
Where it is proving potential and demand for a new type of connectivity, but unable to leap forward far enough and fast enough to counter an entrance from Apple.
It could pivot its business model and become the most successful XR platform for Android users, consolidating support from Epic, Snap and others.
If Zuck wrote that email in 2013, he knows the headwinds against this direction and I don’t think he’s reached the Bowling Alley scene of There Will Be Blood quite yet.
Not sure what you allude to with Oculus, but the Oculus Quest is the best selling VR headset ever and is growing like crazy. With their research, they've also pushed the technological boundaries (things like inside out tracking, the new pancake lenses coming with Cambria by the end of this year, passthrough).
I truly believe that VR headsets will become the major computing platform. Not in the next 5 years, and not overnight, but eventually.
They sell Quest units at a loss and absolutely nobody is using VR to interact with any of Facebook's properties in a meaningful way. As of right now, it's a total distraction to their core business.
Granted, Oculus makes fantastic products that are making VR more accessible. However, as a business, it has been investment heavy[1]. Meta continues to make 10s of billions of dollars worth of investment to build an ecosystem around it.
I don’t think Zuck foresaw the level of investment he’ll need to make before turning profit.
Oculus (and the “Metaverse”) is a 10-20 year play, betting on people changing their habits and using VR as their primary medium of engagement online. They’re trying to build an iPhone/iOS like integrated hardware and marketplace experience, but it remains to be seen if they’ll be profitable as a business.
I surely wouldn't want to bet against Zuck, having bought multiple Quest2s, it surely has hit the product-market fit! Unless Apple steals their lunch coming year, Meta is going to be a big hit.
The quest2's standalone casual gaming capabilities are great - it's easy to setup a party guest for a round of beat saber in a couple of minutes, reminiscent of how accessible the Wii was
if the rumors of Apple's device costing $2000 are correct, they're not going to push the Quest out of that market.
However, Oculus is way too early to call as a bad bet.
Oculus could be like late model, pre-touchscreen Blackberry.
Where it is proving potential and demand for a new type of connectivity, but unable to leap forward far enough and fast enough to counter an entrance from Apple.
It could pivot its business model and become the most successful XR platform for Android users, consolidating support from Epic, Snap and others.
If Zuck wrote that email in 2013, he knows the headwinds against this direction and I don’t think he’s reached the Bowling Alley scene of There Will Be Blood quite yet.