After Meta Connect 2022, Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse vision is once again being criticized. But the CEO is not fazed by the prophecies of doom.
Reading the headlines, the tenor of the press seems almost unanimous: Zuckerberg's metaverse plans are out of touch with reality, embarrassing, doomed to fail. Meta is not only met with (justified) doubts. In some cases, an outright hatred can be observed, a desire to see Meta implode.
Of course, there is a huge gap between the lofty vision of the future and the technological present. But let's assume Zuckerberg is right and virtual reality and augmented reality actually prevail one day: Wouldn't it be better if the Meta-critics took Zuckerberg's ideas seriously instead of disqualifying them from the outset?
Zuckerberg has proven often enough that he has good intuition, for example when he bought Instagram and WhatsApp. In the case of the Metaverse, it seems clear that Meta's CEO is thinking long-term and trying to implement his plans at all costs - even if Meta disappears in the process.
Mark Zuckerberg wants to learn from criticism
In an interview with U.S. tech magazine The Verge, Zuckerberg says he enjoys being challenged but admits it could be difficult to distinguish between constructive critics and haters.
"If you tune out everyone who thinks that you’re not doing something right, then you’re going to miss a lot of really valuable signals to do stuff better than you’re doing it today. So, you want to not ignore critique, but at the same time, I just think that there are a lot of people who actually aren’t trying to help and aren’t trying to make things better," Zuckerberg says.
Asked about being one of the most hated people on the Internet, Zuckerberg says, "I think once you reach a certain scale, I think you get saturated."
The CEO reiterates that his Metaverse plans are long-term in nature, despite all the criticism. "It’s not like this stuff is going to be fully mature in a year or even two or three years. It’s going to take a long time to build out the next computing platform."
Meta aims to become the Android of XR computing
Zuckerberg also commented on the following topics:
- Meta Quest Pro: The headset is supposed to introduce the concept of Mixed Reality to the world and get a developer ecosystem going. The device has two target groups: One is enthusiasts who want the best VR device on the market, and the other is professional users who use the headset for productivity.
- Meta Quest Pro is also designed to introduce new technologies before they become affordable for consumers, he said."Being able to work on it and develop it actually helps us get it into the consumer one faster and better. By the time it is in the consumer one, we already have a developer ecosystem and content around it because, even if fewer people are buying the Quest 1 that’s more of a high-end device, it’ll be enough to get the developer ecosystem going."
- Meta Quest 3 and 4: "There will be a Quest 3 at some point — not this year. But I would love to get some of these features into future devices, whether it’s Quest 3, Quest 4, and the fact that we’re building Quest Pro and have that and people can start building for mixed reality and all that is, I think, a pretty big advantage on that, too."
- Meta Quest 2 sales figures: "I think we tend to not share numbers until things are a lot bigger," Zuckerberg responded when asked why Meta doesn't share sales figures.
- Profitability of Meta Quest Pro: "If you’re just saying what are the materials that go into the device, maybe we’re charging a little bit more for the device than the materials that go into it. But if you account for all the R&D and everything, then no way."
- Meta's XR business model: "The strategy overall is not to make money on the hardware, but to make it so that it can help develop the ecosystem. And then, over time, the business model will be based on software and services. So, that remains the approach."
- Open vs. closed ecosystem: Zuckerberg says he wants to build an open ecosystem for VR and AR, with Apple as a big counterpart."I think the closed ecosystem has really won in mobile. […] And I think we’re going to get a reset in the next generation of computing. So, our goal and how we approach this is not just to help build the open ecosystem in partnership with all these other companies but to make sure that, in this generation of computing, the open ecosystem wins again."