Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on the warpath with Apple over the last couple of days, and now the CEO is taking fire at Apple concerning hardware costs.
With the release of Meta’s new VR hardware, Zuckerberg is potentially looking to defend the $1,500 price tag for the new device.
Zuckerberg Takes Jabs at Apple, This Time Over Hardware Costs
BusinessInsider reports that Zuckerberg sat for a podcast interview with Stratechery’s Ben Thompson on Tuesday. During the interview, Zuckerberg was highly critical of Apple, showing a particular interest in the way Cupertino makes money from hardware.
Within Thompson’s interview, Zuckerberg stated, “It’s typically people build hardware and they try to make a profit off of it, where if you’re Apple, you build hardware and you charge as much as you can for it.”
Meta’s new VR headset, the Quest Pro, will retail for around $1,500. According to BusinessInsider, Meta plans to eventually unveil the Quest 3 with a price between $300-$500. According to the report, one of Meta’s goals is to gain as wide of an audience as possible, while at the same time, make money from software.
Zuckerberg stated, “That business strategy I think is aligned with the mission of basically connecting people and having people there because if you want to build a social experience, you have to have the people there.”
Apple and Meta Going Head-to-Head
While Apple is indeed making its own headset, rumors heavily suggest that the first one is likely only for developers. Reports suggest that Apple’s first headset is likely to be expensive and bulky, primarily due to it being for developers to generate software for the new tech.
While it seems Zuckerberg is making Meta’s intentions known, in that Meta wants to be the company at the forefront of the Metaverse, so far, it doesn’t seem like Apple is playing along. Though Zuckerberg is being incredibly vocal for Meta, it seems like Apple is keeping its usual private demeanor.
Meta has been highly critical of Apple ever since App Tracking Transparency saw announcement. Reports indicate that ATT cost Meta millions of dollars in advertising, something Meta blames for recent hiring freezes. Additionally, just this week Zuckerberg also took to The Verge’s podcast to voice his concerns with Apple. During The Verge interview, Zuckerberg complained about Apple’s “closed” systems.
Of course, Zuckerberg still has to sell the general population on the Metaverse. Right now, there is a popular story circling the internet concerning the Metaverse project Decentraland seeing billions in valuations, though Decentraland itself only had 38 “active users”. According to Futurism, Decentraland has a market cap of $1.2 billion, though data aggregator DappRadar found only 38 “active users” over a 24 hour period.
In an interview for CoinDesk, creative director for Decentraland defended the numbers, stating it wasn’t taking into account users that were simply logged in for chatting and interaction. According to Hamilton, the numbers are closer to 8,000 average users a day.
What do you think about Zuckerberg’s recent comments? What about the Metaverse in general? Let us know in the comments.
Nick:
You ask what we think of Zuckerberg’s comments and of the metaverse in general.
This might come as a shock, but for yours truly, not much. On either count.
I’ll begin with an apology to all Mark Zuckerberg (MZ) enthusiasts everywhere, including in the metaverse, for my candid assessment. For starters, MZ said, ‘It’s typically people build hardware and they try to make a profit off of it, where if you’re Apple, you build hardware and you charge as much as you can for it.’ No kidding? News flash: it’s called free market economics https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040915/what-are-some-examples-free-market-economies.asp where prices are driven not simply by supply and demand but by bids from offers between buyers and sellers in a competitive drive towards pricing equipoise: that balance point of the value that buyers assign to a good or service and the cost to the seller in producing it.
Perhaps Zuckerberg would be happier in a controlled economy, where the state – or Himself – sets the price, but conceals it from the unwitting seller (you) and dictates it to the buyer (advertisers). No doubt, this model will factor into Himself’s pricing model for his augmented reality headsets, in which he will offload some of the hardware production costs in a cost-sharing model between sellers (you) and buyers (advertisers), resulting in a lower entry price point for the Meta’s metaverse subjects (it will be ruled by a singular king). Apple’s model, on the other hand, is to make premium products that outperform and outlast lower priced devices serving similar functions with mixed performance, longevity and generally much lower resale value. Theirs is a consensus value with the buying public. And for those products that do not sell, Apple discontinue or supplant them.
As for Meta’s version of the Metaverse, I believe The Byte sums it up in one word https://futurism.com/the-byte/metaverse-decentraland-report-active-users, Vapour-verse. Currently, there are ghost towns with a higher population – okay, really small towns. Nothing approaching even a mini-verse at this stage, with only 8,000 users/day on average, and only 1074 users with smart contracts. Meta’s metaverse remains aspirational, its future unwritten but fated for a collision with Apple’s and other competitors’ visions.
The outcome of that collision will be decided by a free market economy.
Says the guy who makes money from selling users’ data while flooding them with ads.