Mass layoffs and absentee bosses create a morale crisis at Meta
People look at Meta with these bizarro rose-colored glasses, as if it was once a company with some nobel mission that lost its way.<p>Facebook, from the very beginning, knew what it was doing once they found the &quot;secret&quot;. They found, by accident, the ability tap into people&#x27;s insecurities and exploit that to extract data and then serve ads that further insecurities. They found an emotional loop that printed dollars. People gave up an entire lifetime of information for free so they could feel connected.<p>The Metaverse is just trying to get lightning to strike twice. It will probably get there. As people become more isolated they will become more insecure and place an even higher value on social interaction.<p>VR sucks. Flat screens and fixed focal point lenses result in a huge out of focus area—you move your eyes within the headset and you can&#x27;t focus—which feels unnatural. Eventually we will solve this, and once we do it will go mainstream. If you can look past the crappy optics and you log into VRChat today it feels… good. It feels like you are actually interacting with people. It simply feels good. Most people just can&#x27;t look past the poor optics. You put a $2000 headset on the average person and their response is always, &quot;Cool, but it&#x27;s kinda heavy. Also, why is it so blurry?&quot; Someone will solve this, eventually.<p>Meta is banking on exactly what made Facebook. They will create a space that makes you feel good, and then get you to give up even more information and see even more ads designed explicitly to manipulate you because the advertiser knows so much about you. Honestly, it&#x27;s a brilliant idea to try and do the same thing again but harder. Possible it&#x27;s too early, but if you have billions to blow why not. Right now it&#x27;s a product that only caters to the most socially isolated individuals. That will change.<p>Why did my parents join Facebook? They did it because they were lonely. It&#x27;s why the Facebook audience is now so old. It took them a while to come up with a UI that was easy enough for old people to use it, but they did. They are trying to do the same with VR. There&#x27;s a pretty good chance of success in my opinion.