Last Update: March 03, 2023, 16:02 IST
The Metaverse Needs More Users But Teens May Not Be The Right Audience
Meta wants to expand its userbase for the Metaverse but teens may not be the best choice.
US senators have urged Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to halt plans to open his Metaverse platform to teenagers.
Meta could this month open access to its social virtual reality (VR) platform Horizon World to users aged 13 to 17 as it struggles to grow its VR business.
According to TechCrunch, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) wrote a letter to Zuckerberg urging him to stop Meta’s plans to open Horizon World to teenagers.
“Any strategy to invite young users into digital spaces with potential harms should not be driven by the goal of maximizing profits,” the senators wrote.
“We ask you to immediately stop Meta’s plan to bring teen users into Horizon World,” he added.
Meta (formerly Facebook) forecast Reality Labs’ operating losses for 2022 at a whopping $13.7 billion, dealing a major blow to its AR-VR and metaverse dreams.
Within the Reality Labs segment, Q4 revenue was $727 million, down 17 percent due to lower sales of Quest 2.
The app is currently available to users 18 and older, and a teen launch could happen as soon as this month.
Nearly a year after Zuckerberg announced his Metaverse project, internal documents revealed that the company was struggling with “glitch technology, reluctant users, and a lack of clarity about what it would take to succeed”.
read all Latest Tech News Here
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)