Whether you love it or hate itthere is a good chance that the metaverse is one of the largest developments in the coming decades. There are many companies active in this industry, but Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (formerly Facebook) is clearly one of the biggest players. So big, in fact, that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued the company.
Monopoly on the metaverse
The FTC thinks Meta is trying to get a monopoly on the metaverse. The committee writes that in a press release about the charge. Meta tried to buy up virtual reality (VR) app developer Within Unlimited. This company created the popular VR fitness app Supernatural, which would also fall into the hands of Meta after its purchase.
Governments like to appeal to the competition lawwhich was created to prevent monopolies, such as Standard Oil, which was so powerful at the beginning of the last century that it could even strongly influence elections. Increasingly, governments say that certain companies are not allowed to do things, because then they get too much power and influence. This is especially true for giant technology companies such as Meta.
Also in this case, the FTC wants to prevent Meta from ‘owning the entire market’, in this case the market for metaverse projects. The government agency emphasizes that Meta’s own metaverse branch, ironically called Facebook Reality Labs, also already has its own fitness app for the metaverse. It would be enough like Supernatural. So there is little reason for Facebook to buy this company.
metaverse not only from Meta
meta is not just the parent company of Facebook. It also owns WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, which are separate business units. The metaverse department is not going well yet. The company lost $2.8 billion in revenue in the second quarter. Yet Zuckerberg insists, he stated in the quarterly report that the company still thinks the market could be worth trillions.
In addition, the metaverse is not just something that the big technology companies are involved in. There are also cryptocurrencies whose underlying infrastructure has to become a metaverse. These are not directly controlled by big companies like Meta, Amazon and Google, but by the people who have the tokens.
