In defence of Mark and his metaverse

A useful mental exercise: whenever there is strong consensus for or against something, it might be overdone.

AI will change the world (probably, but perhaps not as much as people think). TV is dead (maybe not as popular as it once was, but still hugely important). Maybe this applies to the near-universal mockery of Meta’s metaverse pivot — the initiative Zuckerberg considered so central to his company’s future that he renamed Facebook after it.

The criticism is easy to make:

• The early demos looked ridiculous (floating heads and shoulders)
• People clearly don’t want to spend their time with colossal devices strapped to their faces
• Even if they did, that is probably something we want to resist (there is good evidence that face to face time is better for mental health than virtual time together)
• In spite of extremely low user adoption, Zuckerberg continued to wildly over-invest in what looked like a pet project, spending $80Bn over the last few years on the Metaverse

But there are a few reasons why that consensus view might be overstated.

1. Being wrong and being early are often the same thing

Fifty years ago, if you’d told someone that people would spend an average of three hours a day staring at a small screen in their hand, they’d have said it was absurd. And yet that’s exactly what you see walking the streets of any major city. If the metaverse concept is simply that digital experiences will become more immersive and multidimensional — is that really so hard to believe? The internet will get more dynamic. People will keep spending hours on devices. Technology will keep developing. Zuckerberg may simply have been too early, not wrong.

2. Overinvestment in new technology can lay the groundwork for the future

As argued elsewhere, wild over-allocations of capital into emerging technologies are often wrong for the individual companies and investors involved, but they build the infrastructure that enables the future. American railways are a clear example — they didn’t deliver good returns to early investors, but they became central to American economic development. Meta’s investment in virtual worlds and hardware like the Oculus headsets may follow a similar pattern: a short-term failure that pays off long-term. And maybe the Meta Ray-Bans, which sold over 7 million units last year, wouldn’t have happened if not for the floating heads of Horizon Worlds?

3. Stubbornness is a feature, not a bug, in great entrepreneurs

Great entrepreneurs are often slightly psychopathic in one specific way: they don’t care what other people think. They’re willing to have everyone point and laugh, to persist with an idea for years or decades, because they can clearly imagine a future that others can’t yet see. That’s a valuable trait, even if it’s unpalatable (and sometimes goes wrong).

This is an uncomfortable defence to make. Zuckerberg is a man who has arguably done plenty to undermine liberal democratic values, and who has played a significant role in worsening the mental health of young people, particularly girls.

But do we want entrepreneurs trying new things and persisting despite ridicule? Yes. It’s easy to laugh when it doesn’t work out. The general instinct — to imagine a different future and bet on it — is a good one and should be encouraged, provided it doesn’t come at the cost of democracy or public mental health.

Will Hayward announced his departure from Private Media earlier this month. He is leaving to join an unspecified startup in the media space. His successor is expected to be announced shortly.

Will Hayward