Anyone remember when the media was sucking Meta’s dick over the metaverse like they’re doing now with AI?
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Yeah but this also means they will shit on AI companies in a few years (I hope).
I want this level of self reflection when we look back at headlines like: “Did you know a child-raping terrorist that bankrupted every one of his businesses said he wants to invade Greenland!? See the 24-hour perpetual interview!!11”
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John Carmack had some choice words when he left Meta.
"We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy.
"It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover."
Imagine getting John Carmack on your project and ignoring him. Like, what was the point? Zuck got lucky in the beginning and was cut throat enough to hold on to it, but he has no entrepreneurial talent.
Facebook would make considerably more money if he stayed out of the decision making processes and just let talented people do it. But ego is going to ego I guess.
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Zuckerberg was paying for the Carmack name but thought he knew better.
Well obviously!
One of them is a celebrated, accomplished developer. And the other is Zuckerberg.
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I like to think of the average tech billionaire as Dustin Hoffman from Rain Man specifically in the Casino scene. He's a savant at counting cards, and Tom Cruise's character (the investors) see that and help him rack in a shitload of money at blackjack.
Then Hoffman's character decides he wants to try a roulette-type game, a game for which savant-like card counting skills offer absolutely no advantage, and the investors, unable or unwilling to see how roulette is nothing like blackjack just blindly sign on and Tom Cruise quickly loses $3,000.
Why the fuck do we think the dweeb who made Facebook in college and hasn't lived as a normal human for two decades would have any particular insight into how people would use VR?
The scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk7eA4gVDno
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Still wild to me that someone like Carmack was in all this. Like, how did he think this would turn out? I guess the salary must have been enormous.
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He had it. Once.
After that, he's just another mogul with tons of money trying to impose his products by abuse of predominant position.
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$73G to make VR Miis with no legs
Meanwhile, VRChat:
This just proves any VR project without any trans people is doomed to fail
Who else could know what it's like to walk in another's skin and see a face you don't recognize in the mirror?
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It wasn't for nothing! I'm sure Meta generated tons of patents they'll use to stifle anyone else in the industry who tries to innovate.
There's not a lot they can patent. VR existed before they started this project, inside out tracking existed before they started this project, and there are other products with similar ideas that go far further than anything metaverse ever put out (I feel like it never even released).
VR isn’t a bad idea.
…Zuckerberg is just an idiot.
That’s really what it comes down to. Facebook has some neat branches and employees, but at the end of the day, its head decision maker is chronically flakey and makes catastrophically bad financial choices, repeatedly.
He’s just so freaking rich it doesn’t even matter.
I still remember the original Metaverse pitch basically being 'We're going to copy VRChat but without any of the bits people enjoy'
Having only seen videos of VR Chat, your avatar can be a 6 foot penis or a anime girl or a skeleton with a trumpet. And I think Metaverse was trying to provide that for businesses and the general public?
How can you create a social hub where you can't be a 6 foot penis?
The original concept was more or less a virtual shopping mall with a character creator. Imagine VR chat but made by EA.
There will be a $12.99 monthly fee for imaging that
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I mean, it was doomed from the beginning. There was no vision, no problem to be solved, no benefit for the user.
Why would the world need this VR space? For meetings or chats? We have virtual meetings and this adds nothing of value. For games? The graphics are bad (to allow more people to use it) and there are better VR games. For companies to advertise? You would need something to get people to go there.
They should have created a benefit for the user first and if that is successful add more.
They could have started with a Sims clone or a WOW clone to get people interested and invested before adding the rest. Selling virtual land only makes sense if it's worth something.
Should have led with porn
Sure, if they had created for example a 'second life' clone with a very lax custom content policy it would have drawn in the pervert community to build their dream harem / larp orgies AND the house builder / interior design community AND the second life larper community.
The question is, if big companies would still have wanted to advertise there. At least the virtual land would have been a bit more interesting.
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It is weird that nobody pointed out to him that a meeting in VR is worse than a Zoom call in every practical way. I guess he reached the “surround yourself with Yes-Men” stage too long ago.
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My conspiracy theory is that it was wildly successful, because the point wasn't creating whatever VR space they claimed wanted to happen; it was to cover up the story of the Facebook papers. The timing lines up (both in October 2021 within a day or two). The additional patents acquired in the process are just a nice little bonus.
Investors ate up the idea from someone who has a history of wildly successful growth. And we all know, it would have been outcry from investors that caused any real change (in America at least) about Facebook's business practices.
Can you pls elaborate on what Facebook Papers is? I am aware of the failure that is Facebooks Metaverse, but not whatever their 'Papers' thing is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Facebook_leak
In 2021, an internal document leak from the company then known as Facebook (now Meta Platforms, or Meta) showed it was aware of harmful societal effects from its platforms, yet persisted in prioritizing profit over addressing these harms. The leak, released by whistleblower Frances Haugen, resulted in reporting from The Wall Street Journal in September, as The Facebook Files series, as well as the Facebook Papers, by a consortium of news outlets the next month.
Primarily, the reports revealed that, based on internally-commissioned studies, the company was fully aware of negative impacts on teenage users of Instagram, and the contribution of Facebook activity to violence in developing countries. Other takeaways of the leak include the impact of the company's platforms on spreading false information, and Facebook's policy of promoting inflammatory posts. Furthermore, Facebook was fully aware that harmful content was being pushed through Facebook algorithms reaching young users. The types of content included posts promoting anorexia nervosa and self-harm photos.
In October 2021, Whistleblower Aid filed eight anonymous whistleblower complaints with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on behalf of Haugen alleging securities fraud by the company, after Haugen leaked the company documents the previous month.[1][2][3] After publicly revealing her identity on 60 Minutes,[4][5] Haugen testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security about the content of the leaked documents and the complaints.[6] After the company renamed itself as Meta Platforms,[7] Whistleblower Aid filed two additional securities fraud complaints with the SEC against the company on behalf of Haugen in February 2022.[8]
In response to the media fallout, Facebook executives went on press tours to express Facebook's position amidst the frenzy.[9] Facebook also did internal damage control with employees through in person sessions and memos.[10] They went on to do a rebranding and changed their logo as well as their name to Meta.[11]
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Most reasonable explanation for this crap I heard:
- facebook is just a website that makes money through tracking and ads
- people need to use a device to access facebook, so they can get tracked and see ads
- apple and google own all your devices and started to block tracking and ads (except their own)
- Zuck saw a risky chance by investing in VR. The vision was to get everyone on their VR platform so they can continue to track you and show you ads
cuckedberg bet that VR headsets were going to take over, which even back in 2018 seemed far fetched. He'd have had a better chance to fortify his stranglehold by spending all that money making fb's own custom android and securing deals with phone manufacturers.
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I just realised what Zuck looks like in the metaverse: the evil kid from toy story!
Still looks more human than the original.
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I’m sorry, the free market allocated that cash to efficient uses.
It wasn’t even obvious how to get into this thing. We got a Quest headset, the kids use the heck out of it for gaming and hanging with friends, and I poked around in it trying to find this Zuckerberg World and you have to work to find it. I mean, if he wanted this thing to be big it should be the default, but nope. Anyway, the headsets are a ton of fun for gaming with others, but as far as VR interaction with other’s avatars for the purposes of social interaction? Nope.
as far as VR interaction with other’s avatars for the purposes of social interaction? Nope.
Except vrchat is actually HUGE. Now I'm sure the metaverse could never have unseated it as #1, but it could have been a thing if zuck actually made it not look like shit and didn't try to commodity the hell out of it.
Don't forget that it took, what, 1 week after release for someone to "grope" a journalist avatar and have meta desperately try to patch out shitty human behavior, removing avatars' hips and legs and forcing them to stay 1.5m away from each other at all times
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They could have done this AND universal healthcare. Universal Healthcare would actually save us money allowing us to put more into useless BS like Meta VR.
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There's something wrong with anyone who doesn't find that image disturbing.
Brrr.
What's really dumb is that VR could actually take off if it was done correctly, but these billionaires can't think of literally anything besides profit so they base the entire model around that and just expect people to want it. If he had dumped an iota into further development of VR tech, and invested in some actual original VR content, games, etc then people would flock to it. That and actual affordable VR since everything is still overpriced since it's considered a niche market.
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They could have created a whole grand theft auto level city and filled it with real people for cheaper wtf
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Note that this was a 10% cut. Meta has a lot of staff. They are also slightly pivoting to AR glasses, as they say Ray-Ban Display sales are much higher than anticipated. I think they see their chance of cornering the VR market as gone (probably because of android xr) (see https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-pauses-third-party-horizon-os-headsets/ ) but think they have a chance to dominate AR glasses / wearables.
Has no one commented on the side eye - “what the feck am I doing working for this idiot?”
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