You could write a book about the pros and cons of Meta spending the most ever on a new product, of any business ever. I’m sure many are on their way.

But there is one aspect that – while not invalidating Meta’s gamble – strongly suggest not just failure but catastrophic failure.

When a whole new product type hits the market, it is never an existing major corporation who launch it or dominate it.

Think of these examples:

• digital photography
• electric cars
• game consoles
• anything at the beginning of the Internet

Example – Internet Explorer by Microsoft. Netscape preceded it. Then Microsoft licensed the Mosaic browser and bundled it with Windows. Even with the massive unfair advantage, it slowly lost traction – usage peaked in 2003.

Example – digital photography. Kodak knew it was coming and couldn’t transition

Example – gaming consoles. Sony and Microsoft are huge corporations, but they were very late to the party.

Example – Tesla.

With a new product type, money is rarely the driver of success. Typically there are many competing startups, and the ones with the vision and commercial appeal get the backing.

Of all the people/businesses trying to work out what the metaverse will be like – what are the odds that Meta will be the winner? Money and size is typically a hindrance in the early stages, because they will move to slowly and too carefully