Almost certainly it is not doing well. Has anyone heard of anyone talking about the metaverse in real life in the last year ? Seems like one of those Covid-time fever dreams

Makes sense. Maybe this was a "see-what-happens" experiment that caught more attention than they expected?

I can't imagine it came from Instagram having a shortage of content.

e: Like, the quality and relevance of the content is the main value proposition to users in an old school social network like Instagram. You can't really mess with that in service of some other goal without undermining the product's raison d'etre.

Generative AI seems like a great opportunity for the metaverse instead of further enshittifying their existing networks. Users could utter entire universes into existence and then explore them, this could even work for the elderly reliving some past experience (this article alludes to ensnaring older users with non-existent bot "personalities").

So why would they do this? Is it just another attempt at swaying public opinion (see: Cambridge Analytica)? Perhaps promoted messaging will come from these accounts so they can monetize their AI investment? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem like a feature users requested so it's difficult to think it benefits them.