Meta shareholders woke up this week to the news that the company formerly known as Facebook is pouring another mountain of cash into Reality Labs, the division responsible for making sure your avatar has legs.
The price tag is now somewhere north of $10 billion a year, which is roughly the GDP of a small nation that at least has the decency to produce something people actually want, like coffee or a functioning train system.
For those keeping score at home, that's more money than most countries spend on their entire military.
Meta is spending it on virtual sunglasses that make you look like a guy who corners people at parties to explain blockchain.
The pitch, as always, is that the metaverse is the future.
You'll work there, you'll hang out there, you'll presumably pay rent to a digital landlord who's also a chatbot.
The problem is that every time Meta shows off this future, it looks like a 2006 Wii game that got left in the sun.
Nobody is asking to attend a virtual meeting where their coworker's floating torso clips through a conference table.
Meanwhile, the actual products people use—Instagram, WhatsApp, the feed that turns your aunt into a political pundit every Thanksgiving—keep the lights on.
Meta is essentially a money-printing machine that keeps lighting stacks of cash on fire in the backyard and calling it R&D.
Mark Zuckerberg recently said the company is going to be more disciplined about spending.
Then he immediately announced more spending.
This is like a guy who swears he's quitting gambling while asking the dealer to hit on 19.
The man owns a Hawaiian compound and still can't stop chasing the one thing nobody wants.
Critics point out that Meta keeps rebranding the same idea.
It's not the metaverse anymore, it's "AI glasses" and "spatial computing." Same sinking ship, new coat of paint.
They've pivoted so many times the company logo should just be a spinning top.
Somewhere out there, a venture capitalist is nodding solemnly and saying "this is visionary." Sure, buddy.
So was the entire NFT market, which Meta also tried to cash in on before quietly deleting the tab.
The real kicker is that Meta has unlimited money and still can't make a virtual world people want to visit for free.
You can't engineer people into wanting to strap a hot brick to their face to attend a birthday party for a cartoon. **The Bottom Line:** Meta is basically a rich kid who bought the entire arcade and still can't figure out why nobody wants to come over and play.
The company has more money than sense, and it's spending both at roughly the same rate.
Final Thoughts
At this point, the smartest investment Meta could make is a mirror.