Facebook has a view of the world on two axes: medium and audience. Audience here means if it's 1 to 1 (eg DMing) or 1 to 1,000,000 (eg Twitter). Format is seen as a progression: text -> audio -> video -> VR -> AR.
I personally am skeptical that VR will ever be anything other than a niche and there are lots of reasons for this. Most notably after 10-15 years it's still yet to find that "killer app".
My interpretation of this situation is that Facebook is directionless but this began years ago.
This was most evident when Facebook decided to try and moderate objective truth online in response to the misinformation that really went mainstream in the 2016 election and since only ballooned further. It's a noble-sounding goal but a thankless one that you will never succeed in. People will disagree on what it's true. Additionally, Facebook's DNA is to optimize for interactions and nothing generates interactions better than misinformation, hate and preaching to the choir.
The next misstep was to merge the online messaging platforms, probably to challenge the supremacy of iMessage. Nobody was happy about this. People don't actually want interoperability between FB Messenger, WhatsApp and IG Messaging.
Beyond this IG lost its streamlined production direction in service of propping up other products.
The Metaverse is just the latest iteration of an idea wildly hoping to find a product market fit. Many of us have read Snow Crash and VR is a common theme in sci-fi but I think it's just not going mainstream for a long time if ever.
So we can only read the tea leaves here about why Sandberg left. Chris Cox famously left (and later came back) and used words that seemed to indicate he wasn't energized about the company's direction (when that direction was fighting misinformation).
Sandberg obviously has generational wealth at this point so doesn't need to work. Is this departure a judgement on the direction of the Metaverse? It's really hard to say. But Sandberg is widely respected so this isn't a good outcome. It's even more interesting that she won't be replaced. I do wonder what the organizational impacts of this are.
I personally am skeptical that VR will ever be anything other than a niche and there are lots of reasons for this. Most notably after 10-15 years it's still yet to find that "killer app".
My interpretation of this situation is that Facebook is directionless but this began years ago.
This was most evident when Facebook decided to try and moderate objective truth online in response to the misinformation that really went mainstream in the 2016 election and since only ballooned further. It's a noble-sounding goal but a thankless one that you will never succeed in. People will disagree on what it's true. Additionally, Facebook's DNA is to optimize for interactions and nothing generates interactions better than misinformation, hate and preaching to the choir.
The next misstep was to merge the online messaging platforms, probably to challenge the supremacy of iMessage. Nobody was happy about this. People don't actually want interoperability between FB Messenger, WhatsApp and IG Messaging.
Beyond this IG lost its streamlined production direction in service of propping up other products.
The Metaverse is just the latest iteration of an idea wildly hoping to find a product market fit. Many of us have read Snow Crash and VR is a common theme in sci-fi but I think it's just not going mainstream for a long time if ever.
So we can only read the tea leaves here about why Sandberg left. Chris Cox famously left (and later came back) and used words that seemed to indicate he wasn't energized about the company's direction (when that direction was fighting misinformation).
Sandberg obviously has generational wealth at this point so doesn't need to work. Is this departure a judgement on the direction of the Metaverse? It's really hard to say. But Sandberg is widely respected so this isn't a good outcome. It's even more interesting that she won't be replaced. I do wonder what the organizational impacts of this are.