A little over a year ago, $META announced its name change from 'Facebook' to 'Meta' in hopes of being the forerunner of what they view as the next iteration of the internet: the metaverse. Ever since then, however, all $META seems to be experiencing is DOOM.

In a recent letter, Zuck announced that Meta will be laying off 11,000 employees, or about 13% of its current workforce. Meta isn't the only tech company leaning out; Twitter and Amazon are cutting their workforces significantly as well. While there's definitely A LOT going on at Twitter—I'm here for the show, personally—something that seems to be getting lost in everything is the fact that Meta is just not living up to the hype that it created for itself a little over a year ago.

When I see videos from popular YouTubers like Cody Ko calling the metaverse "lame," it makes me wonder whether or not Meta will truly spearhead the metaverse or not. In doing some research, there are other "metaverses" that have MUCH better capabilities, experiences, and graphics than what Meta is offering with Horizon Worlds. Not to mention, with those other offerings you can actually own all of the assets, as opposed to the overlord Meta owning everything and allowing you to have fun inside its metaverse while you own nothing.

Two metaverses that I personally feel have much more appeal to the everyday gamer/person are Somnium Space & Voxels. With these games you can truly own all of your assets and build anything that your heart desires; this is made easier if you know how to use 3D modeling software. For some other worlds, check out this creator's top 5 metaverse worlds along with explanations (Meta's Horizon Worlds is included!).

I know that it would be very naïve of me to say that "the metaverse failed" so I'm NOT going to say that. What I will say, however, is that we are still very early, and it's likely that many of the pioneers in this space will not be here in a few years for very obvious reasons, like cushioning the blow of innovation. With Dubai pledging to be a metaverse hub and creating its own metaverse strategy, it's likely that disruptive metaverse tech will hail from that side of the world rather than the US. Not to mention culture in the US is largely focused on the past and embracing victimhood, rather than the future, and promoting personal responsibility.

For now, $META has to figure out a way to cut its costs whereby it doesn't derail itself from manifesting the metaverse it envisions, and that means a leaner, more focused team. (I still think they should lean into Facebook marketplace a bit more, but maybe I'm not "forward-thinking" enough 😅)

Onward & upward in metaverse land 🚀