Chasing the Metaverse

Most of the big tech companies on the planet are making a bet on the Metaverse. It isn’t because they ‘believe’ in the technology’s future, they are all making rational business decisions based on data.

New technology goes through phases of profitability. Niche (not profitable) -> mass market (profitable) -> commodity (not profitable). The big tech companies today rode on the last technology waves of massive mobile adoption combined with fast and cheap data networks. But those waves are becoming commodities. Mobile market is stagnant and pretty much anyone can build high quality phones, driving the profit margin down to zero. Social network companies are raising and falling in short cycles.

Companies need to find the next wave and ride it to continue being dominant. They have seen companies that failed to do this in the previous desktop/laptop wave (Dell, HP, eBay, Xerox, etc.) faded. And they have a big war chest to make sure they don’t end up on the same page of technology history.

Big tech will chase the next thing, the most obvious one today is the Metaverse.