Meta shares dip is proof metaverse plan never really had legs

Virtual reality gamble is not paying off as Mark Zuckerberg appears to be going out on a limb with avatars

After shares in Facebook's parent, Meta, slumped by as much as 25% in the wake of abysmal quarterly results, critics intensified their calls for its chief executive to abandon his astronomically expensive pivot to the metaverse" - a 3D virtual world intended to replace much of real-world socialising.

The cost of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse ambition is clearer than ever," said Rachel Foster Jones, a thematic analyst at GlobalData. Meta has put its entire business on the line for the metaverse, which still doesn't exist, and the gamble is not paying off.