Facebook Meta – good for the metaverse?

Meta, its shares having crashed 20% on the back of its poorly perceived fourth quarter financial results, is spending most of its earnings on the Metaverse. Is its idea of a centralised and controlled Metaverse antithetical to the idea of what a Metaverse should be?

Zuckerberg’s Facebook, now Meta, has seen a decline in users for the first time in 18 years. With platforms such as Tiktok taking away many of its users Meta is struggling to stay relevant as the younger generation see it as an out of touch platform for older people.

Bad press over the last few years with hacks and scandals involving user data has not helped the social media giant’s case at all. The question is now, was the pivot into the Metaverse a planned response to how the future is shifting in this direction, or was it one of desperation as Meta realises that the tide is now running against it.

Thus far, the successful strategy of the large corporates such as Facebook, has been to provide a walled in ecosystem where users are completely tied in and reliant upon it. 

Therefore, the thinking in Meta’s strategic management may be along the same lines for their vision of a Metaverse, where they will control entry, and have ways of making revenue on everything that happens inside.

However, it is to be wondered just how eager people will be to enter a Metaverse where everything is controlled by a corporation, including all their data and privacy, with the inherent risks that such a centralised system would have.

True decentralisation has got to be the answer here. Yes, Meta will be useful for building some of the structures and tools, given its vast wealth of resources, both monetary and in brain power. But having it in charge would just be a return to the problems that have besieged it over recent years.

According to an article published on the Cryptobanter platform, Ryan Selkis, the CEO and co-founder of the crypto research platform Messari, says that four decentralised elements are needed, those of: computing power, storage, governance, and money.

All these elements are currently being provided by various decentralised projects across the crypto sector. With no corporate or government control perhaps people might for once be able to control their own privacy, data, and money. A future surely worth striving for.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.