The Negative Appeal of the Metaverse
Perhaps, one day, we’ll all be trapped like legless rats in the “infinite office” of Meta’s Horizon Worlds and toiling in a parade of conference calls under stultifying virtual halogen lights. But for now, while I can still drag my flesh prison through the analog hallways of our meatspace, I am basking in the schadenfreude of Facebook’s metaverse stumbles: Reports in The Verge, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal show that Meta is having difficulty attracting and retaining Horizon Worlds users, even from inside the company.
According to a leaked memo sent to Meta staffers last month, many Facebook employees “don’t spend that much time in Horizon and our dogfooding dashboards show this pretty clearly.” The memo asks why this is the case, then pledges to “hold managers accountable” and make sure they’re having their teams use Horizon at a minimum of once a week.
The memo goes on to argue, essentially, that beatings will continue until morale improves:
Everyone in this organization should make it their mission to fall in love with Horizon Worlds. You can’t do that without using it. Get in there. Organize times to do it with your colleagues or friends, in both internal builds but also the public build so you can interact with our community.
The subtext of all these stories is obvious: It is
