Meta makes a drastic decision: Is the Metaverse a wrong path?

‍Meta, which has spent tens of billions of dollars in the metaverse field for three years but has encountered setbacks everywhere, now seems to have to "cut its arm". According to a latest announcement released by Meta on Tuesday, it will close an augmented reality (AR) studio that has been in operation for many years to prioritize investment in other areas, including the booming artificial intelligence (AI) business.

The studio, called Meta Spark, allows developers to create digital filter effects and superimpose them on videos on the company's Facebook, Instagram and Messenger applications. Its original purpose was to compete with the photo-sharing app Snapchat, which is popular for its image filter effects.

Meta said in a statement on Tuesday that the studio will be closed on January 14, 2025, and third-party AR effects created in the studio (including computer-generated filters, masks and 3D objects) will be removed, but Meta will still provide internally produced AR effects.

The company wrote in the announcement, "This decision is part of our larger effort to prioritize products that we believe will best meet the future needs of consumers and business customers. We are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible."

Meta also mentioned in the Q&A guide attached to the announcement that with the closure of the Meta Spark platform, we are also shifting resources to the next generation of experiences, including new forms of devices such as glasses.

Many third-party creators are obviously very dissatisfied with Meta's sudden decision. Some creators posted in the community that they were extremely disappointed with Meta's decision, and some creators were worried that this would lead to their unemployment.

Data shows that as of January this year, Meta's Reality Labs division has lost about $50 billion on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) products. So far, the company's efforts to sell VR and AR devices (including head-mounted devices) have been struggling.

Some analysts believe that the astonishing cash consumption of Meta's Reality Labs division is not the cost of innovation, but the result of a "chaotic" culture characterized by frequent reorganizations and the appointment of senior leaders without AR or VR expertise.

Recently, Meta has begun to shift the focus of its business to artificial intelligence. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said that artificial intelligence will be the company's largest investment area this year, and the company plans to invest up to $40 billion in infrastructure to support the technology, including hardware, data centers and servers.