Facebook’s rebranding as Meta was done for many reasons, but primarily it was because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up distancing the company from its past controversies. With the new corporate moniker, Meta went about launching a new category of its products through its acquisition of Oculus. With its announcement of the latest Quest Pro VR headset, Meta is clearly doubling down and is claiming that VR and AR represent the future of computing.
In spite of the fact that this is the case, the growth projections that are being made for VR and AR tech are nowhere near the level that would make this tech the next stage for the evolution of computing with all things having been considered and taken into account. Statista’s latest estimates predict that the total number of AR users will hit only 100 million by 2027, and VR users are expected to grow to a meager 130 million.
That casts a shadow on Meta’s claims, and with all of that having been said and now out of the way it is important to note that almost all of Meta’s supposedly revolutionary offerings that are in the pipeline are being viewed with such skepticism. There are billions of people who use smartphones, and a product that only has tens of millions of users is little more than a niche offering.
Meta will need to kick things into high gear if it wants to make the probability of its VR and AR dreams panning out higher than might have been the case otherwise. These new pieces of tech just aren’t fulfilling any needs that users feel like they have, and early snapshots of what the Metaverse will look like have been so widely criticized that most consumers would assume that there is no point to using a VR headset at all. It will be interesting to see if the future refutes these predictions, but Meta’s bad run is not going to end anytime soon if the current trend holds and if AR and VR sales don’t pick up dramatically.
Read next: Fewer Americans Are Worried About Digital Privacy in 2022
In spite of the fact that this is the case, the growth projections that are being made for VR and AR tech are nowhere near the level that would make this tech the next stage for the evolution of computing with all things having been considered and taken into account. Statista’s latest estimates predict that the total number of AR users will hit only 100 million by 2027, and VR users are expected to grow to a meager 130 million.
That casts a shadow on Meta’s claims, and with all of that having been said and now out of the way it is important to note that almost all of Meta’s supposedly revolutionary offerings that are in the pipeline are being viewed with such skepticism. There are billions of people who use smartphones, and a product that only has tens of millions of users is little more than a niche offering.
Meta will need to kick things into high gear if it wants to make the probability of its VR and AR dreams panning out higher than might have been the case otherwise. These new pieces of tech just aren’t fulfilling any needs that users feel like they have, and early snapshots of what the Metaverse will look like have been so widely criticized that most consumers would assume that there is no point to using a VR headset at all. It will be interesting to see if the future refutes these predictions, but Meta’s bad run is not going to end anytime soon if the current trend holds and if AR and VR sales don’t pick up dramatically.
Read next: Fewer Americans Are Worried About Digital Privacy in 2022
