"We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward Wearables. This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year."
"an "embodied internet where you're in the experience, not just looking at it.""
"Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology."
"Our hope is that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers."
Meta is cutting more than 1,000 roles within Reality Labs, the company's metaverse-focused unit, while Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp remain unaffected. The layoffs follow a stated strategic shift of investment from metaverse initiatives toward wearables, with savings earmarked to support wearables growth. Reality Labs develops virtual-reality headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses and had been the primary vehicle for ambitious metaverse plans, including hopes to reach a billion users and generate extensive digital commerce. The metaverse effort faced public skepticism and mockery over product missteps and unmet expectations. The reductions mark the Bay Area tech industry's first large job cuts of 2026 and have yet to trigger a WARN filing in California.
Read at SFGATE
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