It’s maybe unpopular, but I agree that if you’re going to leverage your success to make a bet on the next big thing, VR/AR is a great choice. I agree it’s inevitable that many computing interfaces will eventually become a personalized virtual space, and AR will eventually become a permanent way to add our “computer brains’” data to our vision.
Obviously we’re not there yet. And there’s always going to be a contingent that thinks that future will never come. But I do think it’ll come, when that one thing or things we need VR/AR to do and can’t seem to imagine life without are eventually found. Zuck doesn’t know where the inflection point is going to happen but he’s positioning Meta to be in the ideal place to own the space. He seems to know it may not happen for a long time. He’s gambling he can afford to wait for it, which is a bet I’d take.
As others have said, the implication in this article’s title is silly… Sure r&d phase start easily explains this
What I’m curious about is how you spend that much money in such little time? Was that money actually spent or just committed?
$1900 per second is a hell of a burn rate for anything outside the US military
indeed… you’d expect big bucks on the D part… new factory, going for mass production, etc… and even then, you can only build so fast
its like they have too much money and they’re burning it away on bad ideas. Imagine how much public housing that money could have built.
I mean, you do understand that this money isn’t just vanishing right? It’s being spent on people, manufacturing, materials. It doesn’t just vanish into nothing.
Its also drawing real resources away from other things. The real estate used on these luxury failures had other potential buyers and raises costs across the board as it competes for chip factory space, marketing, etc.
If the money was taxed out of circulation it actually does essentially vanish, increasing the value of every remaining dollar if the state budget remains unchanged - its the easiest way to reduce inflation.
These big corporations with lots of money do affect everyone when they make big stupid decisions - resources get misallocated and costs go up. Money doesn’t exist in a void, the things people do with it have real world effects.
yeah it gets distributed in the economy and gets absorbed in the system. at least it’s not being hoarded or funneled outside the country.
the other poster is just parroting things they do not understand.
I doubt public housing would have made a fantastic return either.
If all you care about is money, then yeah sure. If you actually give a shit about humanity the return would be absolutely immense for society.
Think about it longer term… All the people struggling at the bottom now have secure housing. More money is free for nutrition, hygiene, they can get better jobs or afford schooling… Trades or higher education. More people have a chance to escape poverty and contribute production, get more money to spend, more money gets out into local economies. So and so forth. It’s a good idea.
Really? You don’t think that building solid foundations for people to get on their feet and start making more money themselves, money that they can turn around and spend on more products, would have a fantastic return? The benefit for the economy would be immense but corporations can’t write that into their spreadsheets changing their bottom line so it “doesn’t count”
They shouldn’t have that amount of disposable income in the first place, and a good portion should have been tax money. If that money were invested in public housing the return would be massive.
They have the best VR headset in the market. The only problem is that it’s also mining all your data.
Do they? I thought it was just the cheapest.
It’s the best for normal users (price vs performance), not for VR pros or the best experience possible.
Mandatory: fuck Facebook / Meta
That’s because they’re losing billions selling it. If it cost what it actually took to produce it wouldn’t be the best on the market anymore, they’re trying to bully out players who can’t afford to lose billions for years until they’re in total control.
Is it the cheapest? I don’t follow VR much anymore.
I agree being the best is subjective, but the UX is impeccable.
Pull out the helmet, setup the guardian and you can play pretty much anywhere.
Ok, so it sounds like you put a lot of value on a standalone experience. So something like a Switch or phone for gaming instead of a gaming PC.
That seems to be the area they win at. They don’t have the best image, refresh rate, or tracking accuracy, but they are easy to get going with, and it’s inexpensive relative to other options.
You guys do this like every quarter lol
Honestly love to see Meta losing money. Zuck is a parasite on this nation. A cancer.
So what? R&D expenses aren’t supposed to turn an immediate profit. Developing a new technology can take years before it’s earning money, and some never do. I’m all aboard the “hate meta” train, but that’s nothing.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but these companies need to pay more taxes. Losing $3.9 billion dollars on a stupid vanity project because they have nothing else to spend it on is ridiculous. Higher taxes would at least force them to be more efficient.
But VR is cool
Investment is good. Public policy is usually designed to encourage it that’s why investment has good tax avoidance that is exactly what the government wants.
You’re not really talking about higher taxes, you’re talking about reworking the corporate tax system. As things stand now higher taxes would encourage more of this sort of behavior, not less.
Corporations only pay taxes on profits, so money spent on business activities, re-invested back into the company, paid to employees, etc. is not taxed. In this system, taxes are kind of a penalty paid for taking money out of the business; the higher taxes are the less incentivized profit-taking is.
If your company made $100 million in profits at a 20% tax rate you get to take home $80 million as opposed to re-investing $100 million back in the company and not paying any taxes, so the incentive to re-invest isn’t very high. But if your company made $100 million in profits at a 40% tax rate now you can only take home $60 million as opposed to re-investing $100 million, which becomes a much better value proposition on re-investment.
Many people have no clue how taxes work, but darn it, they wanted them raised. It just encourages other behaviors, such as offshoring money, as many companies do. We really need a complete write of the tax code to encourage paying workers well, creating jobs, etc and less focus on avoiding paying the taxes. I don’t care if a company makes billions in profit if their workers are all paid well, treated well, etc. We will make it up with them having money to spend in the economy.
I am still not convinced VR is a worthy technology outside of a few niche uses. I went to the verge when that was open and that was pretty cool. At home is nothing like that.
Whether VR works for Meta or not, they have invested in technology and built careers for employees. This is why we should have corporate taxes. I’d rather see corporations keep employees and advance technology instead of giving dividends to the wealthiest people in the world. While the product might not work out, I bet there are many people who worked on it that will take those skills to new projects.
Yeah, that happens sometimes.
Zuck read Ready Player One and wants so badly to be James Halliday. He just wants to be loved. 🤣
Well he’s missing the point then. He wants to be on the software side of things not the hardware side.
They need to actually create a decent experience and then make it accessible to everyone. That’s how you make money.
Business lesson, : never build a factory because it won’t pay for itself in the first year.
And yes I know it’s hard to hear but Meta’s vr is doing really well in the areas they targeted, industry, academia, and special use. This is likely to end up a profitable part of their business for a long time.
What is “really well”?
Yeah unfortunately I agree, as much as I dread knowing Meta’s going to be behind a lot of the VR/AR developments as it gets more common, this isn’t really an indication that they screwed up. They’re not the first company I’d want to lead the VR market but it looks like they will be regardless.
I was happy and now I am sad.
They “lost” 4 billion dollars like the Pentagon “lost” 12 billion dollars in Iraq?
I guarantee you that Meta has become the biggest Top Secret spying agency for the US government.
All that money got “lost” into straight up spying programs.
Hahahahaha
You reckon Apple made money on it’s VR division either?
Almost nobody is making big money on VR, because nobody wants to work together to make it into a widely compatible common standard. If you could have one headset that worked on all platforms, for a reasonable price, you’d get a lot more take up, and nicer headsets costing more would make more sense.
Apple has the pockets to invest billions in R&D for a device 10 years down the road. Meta does not, its market share is much more volatile and it drops support for its headsets after only a few years (My Quest 1 is a fucking brick). Comparing the two is brain dead.
Take a look at Meta revenue numbers, they can afford billions in R&D investment just fine. I’m not sure what market share you’re talking about but there’s plenty of money for them to afford the VR research they do.
Meta is valued at 1.12 Trillion, which, sure, is only ~1/2 of Apples 2.6 Trillion… but Meta could invest in VR for the next 20 years without feeling the pain.
I do love my Q2 and Q3, and hope they keep pushing VR forward, which is the main (maybe only) reason i was happy to see apple join the competition.
I know it’s apples to oranges and what not, but there’s a lot of life changing things you could do for a lot of people with that kind of money.
As a society the way we allocate resources is stupid.
I thought OP wrote the headline himself but no, PCGamer “journalists” just spend way too much time on Reddit
