Meta recently announced the dismissal of 10,000 employees, apart from the 11,000 that it had already put on the street, in November 2022. About 50% of those affected were employees who were attached to the laboratories of the company run by Mark Zuckerberg , therefore it is logical that some projects were cancelled.
Does it affect the Metaverse? Maybe yes, but indirectly. Three initiatives that had already been announced by Meta were shelved, perhaps, never to see the light of day.
The dismissal of 11,000 employees in November 2022 and another 10,000 now in March 2023 means that some technological devices that we were looking forward to no longer arrive.
So, we are going to know which are at least three of the most important. Fortunately, the Metaverse is not there, a project that continues to be the flagship of the company that has, among other divisions, control of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
What will Meta stop working on?
The first affected project has to do precisely with these last two social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram.
According to a review by investing, Meta says goodbye (maybe it’s a see you later) to the NFTs on these two social networks. The project began, but according to figures presented by Stephane Kasriel, the company’s head of commerce and financial technology, only 2% of users wanted to enter this world.
What about smartwatches?
Meta had the intention of releasing its own smartwatch to compete against giants in this area such as Apple and Samsung.
The elements and characteristics with which these smart watches would come were filtered. But unfortunately this will not come, due to recent layoffs.
Goodbye to smart screens
Meta had started with a project they called Portal. It is a series of screens with functions similar (but less) to what a tablet does. They were an economical and interesting option that sold a lot in the worst moments of the covid-19 pandemic.
However, with the revival of the global market, users turned to mainstream devices.
A report of infobae indicates that the workers who survived the wave of layoffs were distributed by strategic locations in the company. The idea is that everyone put their maximum effort in the direction of virtual reality.
VR glasses, systems and mechanisms that support the development of the Metaverse is the focus towards which the company is aiming.