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Comment by RyanShook | Hacker News Reader

I sold in 2022 when they went full metaverse on us... one of my mistakes was believing Zuckerberg when he said he would bet the company on VR.

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I think another mistake is people thinking metaverse = VR. Metaverse is a catch all term for the post-smartphone internet. Things like the RayBan glasses, Orion, that EMG wristband they showed at connect, etc. are all part of that.

I'd argue that there is 0 evidence so far that there will be a "post-smartphone internet", at least in the near/mid term.

Sure, those wearables may find niche use cases, but Zuckerberg definitely believed that the "Metaverse" (god I hate that term) would be the Next Big Computing Platform, as significant as the switch from desktops and laptops to smartphones. That has certainly not happened, and lots of people, myself included, still feel that all of these other devices are at best a "oh, that's cool" for a bit before ending up in a drawer somewhere, or at worst an undesired annoyance.

Agreed, but unrelated to if Meta/Zuck are right or successful, thinking of the metaverse as just a VR play is wrong and also underestimates the scope of the project.

Anyone who sold their meta stock certainly regretting it. what a comeback.

Fun thought that same amount of buyers were buying from these people

The stock dropping below $90 coupled with all the blatantly untrue “no one uses meta anymore” posts on reddit seemed to be sheer stupidity tbh. They were reporting earnings and user growth at the time. It’s now >$570, a similar rise to Nvidia.

It should be a lesson in doing the opposite to /r/stocks sentiment. (They also had tons of posts on why shorting nvidia would be a great idea a year ago).

Basically do the opposite to the most uneducated group of investors you can find and you have a good chance at making money off their bad trades. Don’t try to inverse the large firms with huge amount of research. Just inverse reddit for easy money.

Is there an ETF for that?

They're spending more on VR in 2024 than 2023. As much as it's laughed at, I believe VR/AR will be a big platform, it's still growing healthily. And it's pretty awesome, go try the Quest 3. Most importantly for Meta, they completely own VR at this point. There's so much hardware and software that needs to be developed in order to compete that I doubt anyone can do it at this point. Apple tried, but besides the high price the software is just not mature enough, it takes many years to develop all the necessary parts.

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