Meta pulls Horizon Worlds from Quest after weak adoption, signalling its metaverse vision is falling short of expectations.
Background: Meta rebranded in 2021 to go all-in on the metaverse, calling it the “next frontier.”
At the centre of that vision was Horizon Worlds, a virtual space where users could work, shop and socialise as avatars.
What happened: Meta has now announced it will remove Horizon Worlds from its Quest VR store in June, after struggling to gain traction. At its peak, the platform only attracted a few hundred thousand monthly users, which is pretty miniscule compared to Meta’s billions across its core apps.
What else: The move highlights how far the metaverse vision has fallen short, with Horizon Worlds struggling to scale and becoming too costly to justify within Meta’s broader strategy.
What's the key learning?
💡Markets will back a big, bold vision… but not forever. Investors supported Meta’s metaverse push early, but patience fades without real results.
💡In 2021, the Zuck had a 10-year plan for 1 billion people in the metaverse and hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce…but 5 years after this bold vision, there are only a couple hundred thousands people on the platform
💡The problem is that big bets can become costly distractions. Meta’s Reality Labs has lost nearly $80 billion, showing the risk when vision outpaces execution.
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