The common view towards the technology to take a great leap forward is getting tremble amidst the market downturn. Recent pandemic is said to have thrust technological advancement and brought us many new achievements. Many companies also jumped into the race of innovation and started pouring a lot of capital there. From Web 3 to Metaverse to virtual reality. But now these companies are struggling to keep on continuing with their projects.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, formerly known as Facebook, comes abruptly as one prominent name. The company took the concept of metaverse quite seriously for which it even rebranded itself signifying its dedication. Social media giant has poured a lot of capital and manpower for its goal as well. Things might be going well but did not last long.
Cut to 2022, Meta recently reported to announce laying off about 11,000 employees. It included working staff from its metaverse specific unit Reality Labs. The staff reduction is likely to affect its AR-VR gadgets production, Quest and Quest Pro and its online platform Horizon Worlds.
Meta’s going through such embattling situations puts up a question mark in front of metaverse’ progress.
While the social media company was not alone to get the impact of the slowdown, many others also opted for layoffs.
E-commerce giant Amazon also reported to reduce 10,000 employees from its working staff. This retrenchment mostly affected the team behind ‘big thing’ for Amazon’s business—Alexa.
In the long list of such companies, Apple and Microsoft also have their spots reserved. The iPhones manufacturer was rumored to develop Augmented Reality (AR) glasses, which is now said to be waiting for several more years. While the Hololens headsets from Microsoft were also reported to remain under the uncertainties.
Amidst the heavy market slowdown, it became tough for the tech companies to focus on the one side. These companies find it hard to keep their stock prices up. Let alone the research and development and bringing revolutionary products, to keep the ongoing operations continue has become the challenge.
Among so much noise of the giants developing metaverse-like big things, several analysts find it not so interesting for now given reason. They cite mobile phones as the reason for low excitement towards the digital world.
As of now, almost every other task is possible with the help of a smartphone and so it would be hard for companies to keep people’s attention towards the upcoming tech, until some breakthrough developments. Given the present scenario, the next big thing might need to wait more given the looming uncertainties of recession.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast and believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/11/25/economic-slowdown-impacting-development-in-metaverse-like-new-tech/