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Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

cnbc.com

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Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#31

Post by godelski »

It's really weird to see this headline where underneath is a stock ticker showing "AAPL -0.41%" and "META +21.0%" and then another article on the side under Trending titled "Meta shares surge 20% on soaring profit, better-than-expected guidance and first-ever dividend".

Nothing is a lie here, but clearly the headlines convey certain ideals to people and those might not really match reality. And it seems like they're just playing the field, writing positively and negatively framed articles to appeal to whichever audience wants what. Why can I not just get one self contained coherent article that's something like "Meta shares surge despite major losses ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch"? (or the reverse order). These are clearly aimed to be shared on social media and generate particular sentiment to those that only read headlines. Boy is the news a confusing mess.

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#32

Post by [deleted] »

leetharris wrote: post #30
jug wrote: post #6

> The metaverse division has now lost more than $42 billion since the end of 2020 I can't help but think of how this cash could have been spent on something that benefited everyone (in the dire covid/postcovid years no less) rather than the world's most expensive trial on whether people would rather meet in a MMO world than with their web cameras in a meeting app. Makes Star Citizen's $0.7B crowdfunding look cheap.

This is such an incredibly pessimistic and simplistic view. It is a private company funding research that will eventually lead to revolutionary devices. Imagine if people in the 1940s/50s said, "wow we could have spent all this money on something besides these giant vacuum tube machines that just add up a few numbers."

[deleted]

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#33

Post by xaellison »

leetharris wrote: post #30
jug wrote: post #6

> The metaverse division has now lost more than $42 billion since the end of 2020 I can't help but think of how this cash could have been spent on something that benefited everyone (in the dire covid/postcovid years no less) rather than the world's most expensive trial on whether people would rather meet in a MMO world than with their web cameras in a meeting app. Makes Star Citizen's $0.7B crowdfunding look cheap.

This is such an incredibly pessimistic and simplistic view. It is a private company funding research that will eventually lead to revolutionary devices. Imagine if people in the 1940s/50s said, "wow we could have spent all this money on something besides these giant vacuum tube machines that just add up a few numbers."

There's a difference between deep tech research (which truly can be revolutionary) and "revolutionary" consumer gizmos. I don't think the analogy holds.

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#34

Post by LesZedCB »

quest88 wrote: post #15
jug wrote: post #6

> The metaverse division has now lost more than $42 billion since the end of 2020 I can't help but think of how this cash could have been spent on something that benefited everyone (in the dire covid/postcovid years no less) rather than the world's most expensive trial on whether people would rather meet in a MMO world than with their web cameras in a meeting app. Makes Star Citizen's $0.7B crowdfunding look cheap.

I share your sentiments, but realistically how would one implement that? The US (where meta is based) government (ie, the people) can't agree what benefits everyone. The positive side is all of the jobs it paid for.

not allow private companies to accumulate so much capital by breaking them up and taxing them fairly. then use the budget for things like single payer healthcare and affordable housing

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#35

Post by infecto »

jug wrote: post #6

> The metaverse division has now lost more than $42 billion since the end of 2020 I can't help but think of how this cash could have been spent on something that benefited everyone (in the dire covid/postcovid years no less) rather than the world's most expensive trial on whether people would rather meet in a MMO world than with their web cameras in a meeting app. Makes Star Citizen's $0.7B crowdfunding look cheap.

I really dislike this view of the world. Maybe VR is a folly but the innovation we have gotten in this world has come from “burning money”, sometimes it does not work out.

I also how simple we like to make the argument. How we could have instead spent money that “benefited everyone”. Who decides that? I don’t think governments, nonprofits, or other gatherings of people do a better job and probably are actually much worse at it.

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#36

Post by Rebelgecko »

jug wrote: post #6

> The metaverse division has now lost more than $42 billion since the end of 2020 I can't help but think of how this cash could have been spent on something that benefited everyone (in the dire covid/postcovid years no less) rather than the world's most expensive trial on whether people would rather meet in a MMO world than with their web cameras in a meeting app. Makes Star Citizen's $0.7B crowdfunding look cheap.

When my city didn't even let people go to public parks, having an Oculus Quest helped maintain my sanity

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#37

Post by infecto »

xaellison wrote: post #33
leetharris wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an incredibly pessimistic and simplistic view. It is a private company funding research that will eventually lead to revolutionary devices. Imagine if people in the 1940s/50s said, "wow we could have spent all this money on something besides these giant vacuum tube machines that just add up a few numbers."

There's a difference between deep tech research (which truly can be revolutionary) and "revolutionary" consumer gizmos. I don't think the analogy holds.

Are any of us in the position to truly know that. I feel that throughout history there were always groups of people that dismissed new innovations. Trying to be as unbiased with that statement, I don’t know what the future holds.

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#38

Post by wantsanagent »

tomxor wrote: post #7
dpflan wrote: post #2

What is the breakdown for how this money is being used/spent? Understandably AR/VR is costly (hardware, software, etc), but I am wondering what percentage of this money is going to the AI research that can certainly help AR/VR but also be used in other contexts (as in the research allocated to AR/VR can be multi-purpose and not really a pure loss).

Yeah I'd like to know. The article keeps framing it as "The metaverse division" and "sink billions of dollars a quarter into developing the metaverse"... but Reality Labs (basically Oculus) doesn't just do stupid metaverse/horizon-blah, they make the actual Quest. So I expect a decent chunk of this was the cost of developing their two recent hardware upgrades. I believe they may be back to selling at or below cost ag…

Since we're talking about billions of dollars here, I'd like to know how far down the production stack they are investing. The displays, optics, and processors in headsets are hungry for technological advances. So is Meta custom building meta-material grown silicon lenses (or other crazy sci fi stuff), or are they just trying to commercialize other peoples breakthroughs at the lowest levels?

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#39

Post by Arrath »

xaellison wrote: post #33
leetharris wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an incredibly pessimistic and simplistic view. It is a private company funding research that will eventually lead to revolutionary devices. Imagine if people in the 1940s/50s said, "wow we could have spent all this money on something besides these giant vacuum tube machines that just add up a few numbers."

There's a difference between deep tech research (which truly can be revolutionary) and "revolutionary" consumer gizmos. I don't think the analogy holds.

I wholeheartedly agree with you in regards to VR (its a fun trinket and while I love my VR flight-sim in the end it is nothing but a toy), but I think AR certainly has potential.

For instance, just imagine wearing a set of AR goggles while and having an exploded parts diagram available at your beck and call in relation to the physical item in front of you, with assembly/disassembly steps shown should you so desire.

Re: Meta's Reality Labs loses record $4.65B ahead of Apple's Vision Pro launch

#40

Post by neogodless »

criddell wrote: post #14

How does the Apple launch tie into Meta's loss? Is the implication that the losses are going to deepen now that Apple's device is out?

The last paragraph is maybe the only relevant one:

> Sales of VR and AR headsets and glasses dropped almost 40% in 2023 to $664 million in 2023, as of Nov. 25, according to research firm Circana. An analyst at Circana told CNBC that the steep drop was likely due to a lack of new stand-alone VR headsets.

You can read that either way though... sales are dropping, but maybe only because there wasn't anything new, so maybe they'll rebound.

Beyond that, it's speculation. Meta is throwing money at the idea, and expects to throw even more at the idea.

> “We expect operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and our investments to further scale our ecosystem,” the company said in its earnings statement.

But neither can know for sure what the Total Addressable Market is because it's not yet a wholly mainstream area of consumerism. They're both hoping it becomes the next internet/cloud/music player/smartphone/wearable/app store/etc. type of play and they have a foothold and a head start that makes the investment worthwhile.

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