back to article Meta strikes blow against 30% 'App Store tax' by charging 47.5% Metaverse toll

Meta intends to charge content creators as much as 47.5 percent of revenue from the sale of digital assets that touch its Meta Quest Store and virtual-reality service Horizon Worlds, more even than Apple's "30 percent App Store tax" that the firm's Facebook subsidiary has decried. The ad-biz-turned-VR-vendor this week …

  1. Nate Amsden

    maybe should be other way around

    facebook paying for/subsizing half of all metaworld purchases to encourage people to make things worth purchasing.

    (never have had a facebook account, well maybe they have a shadow account for me I don't care either way)

  2. Youngone Silver badge

    Terrific!

    That will kill the whole thing even deader than it already is.

    In an ideal world, Zuckerburg would spend every cent he has trying to make this stupid thing a success and die broke under a bridge, muttering about synergies or leveraging, or whatever pointless crap those management cockwombles think is cool this month.

    I can but dream.

    1. heyrick Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Terrific!

      Oh, yes. It's half past eleven here in France, time for bed, and that sounds like a perfectly pleasant dream (though my mind might stray a little - wooden stakes might be involved).

    2. Sitaram Chamarty

      Re: Terrific!

      I have to admit... I've hated lots of public figures over the years (heck that's half the reason they *exist* right?). But no one, not Bill Gates, not even Steve Ballmer when he was calling Linux a cancer, nor Bezos in his rocket, nor .... [well you get the idea] has ever generated in me the kind of instinctive, visceral, hatred I feel when I see Zuckerburg's picture anywhere.

      "A face only a mother could love" has been a standard phrase in literature and humour for decades, but I suspect in this case even that could be a stretch.

      Maybe that's just me...

      1. heyrick Silver badge

        Maybe that's just me...

        Nope.

      2. sebacoustic

        Re: Terrific!

        No it's not just you. And yes, I don't care much for people whose own neuro-typical self is the only way of being, and reject anything else.

        Still, being autistic is no excuse for being an asshole!

      3. Blackjack Silver badge

        Re: Terrific!

        Amazon vs Facebook, what is the most evil company?

        1. aki009

          Re: Terrific!

          There is only one answer: Yes.

  3. Andy 73 Silver badge

    Good news..

    Glad to see them laying out their stall. Couldn't make it more clear what this "innovation" is about.

    1. Warm Braw

      Re: Good news..

      It's hard to fault their assessment of human behaviour.

      They know people won't pay for access to their world, but they know they'll beat the door down if they're offered disinformation, plastic successdroids and shiny things, from all of which they can take a cut.

      It's just another manifestation of no one in this world ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

      1. Halfmad

        Re: Good news..

        Who decides what the disinformation is though?

        As per Facebook those with the biggest wallets whether it's Russia, US, UK etc.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's ok, they have a plan

    Which is why when this fails, they will buy up whatever competitors they themselves forced people onto through their douchy behavior.

    I mean it worked for Instagram and Whatsapp right? I mean when you know you can't succeed, what other play is there? The only risk would be going full "Producers" and actually succeeding. I feel like the lack of legs will keep that from happening for now.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meh. Zuck and his ilk are prone to mouthing off about the competition until they meekly turn around and do the same themselves. If some greedy ploy works for one company, it will be adopted by another, make no mistake. The greedy are always looking for a fresh angle to fleece the population with.

    Sadly, there are people who will pony up CAD$1000+ for a VR goggle set so they can watch 3D cat videos...

    But what is this about "below the waist?" Did they get the Amish to set the rules, such that even the turn of an ankle or toe is considered "porn"?

    1. Plest Silver badge

      Yep, and the greedier they are the more likely they will be to rip someone else's idea off about how to be yet even more greedy!

    2. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

      "But what is this about "below the waist?" Did they get the Amish to set the rules, such that even the turn of an ankle or toe is considered "porn"?"

      That's just Version 1.0. Version 2.0, bits below the waist, will come along once they perfect the, err umm, apropriate VR, umm, attachments and plug-ins. And shortly after that, the bad players will introduce electro-VD with a link to the electrocillin needed to get rid of it. Well, control it, anyway. Control is a subscription service, a cure is a one time payment.

  6. Howard Sway Silver badge

    leaving $0.53 for the Creator before any applicable taxes

    Not like the 47% that has been applied before this stage is anything like a tax at all is it?

    Gonna be quite expensive, mooching around the metaworld in your NFT-shirt, wondering why it's so quiet and boring, hoping that someone will be willing to make something good for you despite the fact they're going to get milked so much by the owners.

    1. Halfmad

      Re: leaving $0.53 for the Creator before any applicable taxes

      No doubt their 47% will somehow result in almost or absolutely zero taxes going to countries the items are purchased in either because "Meta".

  7. Cederic Silver badge

    "Before any applicable taxes" sounds like tax evasion to me.

    In the UK 7.91c of the 47c charged by Meta for a $1 purchase would need to be VAT - otherwise Meta would be charging the content creator at 0% VAT, and that's just not going to fly.

    Sounds better to me nonetheless to just refuse to play, refuse to pay. No creation, no selling and absolutely no buying.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meta

    Meh

    Ta

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      In my native language Meta could be the equivalent of Your mother!, so Meta, Zuck!

  9. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    I know this Metaverse whatsit is not intended for my generation

    And for that I will be eternally grateful.

    1. Plest Silver badge

      Re: I know this Metaverse whatsit is not intended for my generation

      Sadly there ain't just one, there's going to be lots of them and I'm just like you, glad I'm a sad old fart who has no interest in pissing away my money on a load of non-existent bollocks like this latest plan to separate the gullible fools from their cash.

  10. Mayday
    Devil

    Meta Hypocrisy

    Because we're here to make money, not friends.

  11. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Coat

    "Meta intends to charge content creators as much as 47.5 percent"

    Well good-bye content creators !

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: "Meta intends to charge content creators as much as 47.5 percent"

      I can only imagine the downvote is from somebody who figures "no biggie, I'll just double the price".

      Sad thing is, suckers will still cough up the coins.

    2. Plest Silver badge

      Re: "Meta intends to charge content creators as much as 47.5 percent"

      Well here's the thing, the first 5 through the door will cream it big....it's the rest after that who see the top 10 earners making zillions and want a share but get sod all! YouTube and TikTok, it's only the top 2000 odd creators who actually make enough serious cash, there's a billion imitators who all think they can do the same and quickly learn that quitting their day job to be an online content creator was not a very good idea.

      They all do it and then start pushing hard working business owners to give them "free stuff for likes" with about 250 followers. You need around 1m followers on any platform to have any sort of serious clout or make even a reasonable sum.

      All seems like absolute bollocks and kids grow up, not wanting to be scientists or doctors, but reality show stars or content creators, that sound you hear is humanity's evolution slamming face first into brick wall.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: "Meta intends to charge content creators as much as 47.5 percent"

        > it's only the top 2000 odd creators who actually make enough serious cash

        That many...

        From the analysis of websites ad revenue, I suggest only a handful will make serious cash.

        It would be interesting and instructive to see the app revenues from the iStore, MS Store etc. to see if these also suffer from the same clustering effect.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No so much a Walled Garden

    but rather that nice safe & secure accommodation at Charenton.

  13. Potemkine! Silver badge

    For that price

    Is Vaseline included?

    1. Sir Awesome

      Re: For that price

      You can rent a pre-bitten pillow.

  14. mark l 2 Silver badge

    Let be honest though Meta will be getting 47% of nothing as 'the metaverse' is just a huge white elephant which is going to crash and burn, and hopefully wipe billions of FB share price.

    1. Plest Silver badge
      Happy

      "white elephant which is going to crash and burn, and hopefully wipe billions of FB share price."

      I would bet on that but you'd get similar odds to betting on if the sun will come up tomorrow!

  15. Plest Silver badge

    Let's be clear here...

    This is Zuck's metaverse, not "the metaverse". There are going to be lots of metaverses, every company will start one and drop rates until they can't give login accounts away for free.

    Metaverses, yet another set of roadworks on the route of humankind's evolutionary roadtrip!

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: Let's be clear here...

      Not so much a roadwork as a pretty scenic route detour for those who probably shouldn't be involved in humanity's evolution.

      1. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

        Re: Let's be clear here...

        "for those who probably shouldn't be involved in humanity's evolution."

        Hey now, wait a minute, perhaps we ought to give this Meta thing a chance. If it chlorinates the gene pool it might not be as bad as all that, after all.

  16. Trubbs

    Amazing

    So it is actually possible to get something for literally nothing after all

  17. Blackjack Silver badge

    How to kill babies, Facebook/MetaStupid version.

  18. silent_count

    See the whole board!

    I think this is Facebook trying to screw over Apple. There are two potential outcomes.

    a) Everyone gets loses their minds about this 'exorbitant tax on hard working content creators'. Then governments regulate the maximum "tax" a company can charge. This will hurt Apple, who makes serious money out of their app store while costing Facebook nothing.

    b) Everyone decides that it's a free market. Then Facebook has just given themselves a 50% tax in a burgeoning market and Apple looks like absolute heels if they try to follow suit and raise their app store tax to 50%.

    Neither of these is a bad outcome for Facebook.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: See the whole board!

      What "burgeoning" market is that? The metaverse is all hype, no substance. Even if it arrives, just because Facebook rebranded themselves as Meta that doesn't mean they'll be a big player in it. No one under 30 uses Facebook except to keep in touch with family. The Gen Z demographic that will drive any possible success of the Metaverse are not Facebook customers. They view Facebook as either toxic or home of the boomers.

      Even if Facebook created a successful metaverse market, who says that a 50% cut will fly? If competition from Apple, Google, Microsoft or some company that exists only in the mind of a sophomore thinking of dropping out of Harvard decides to charge 30% it will be Facebook that ends up looking like chumps trying to charge 50%.

      There's no scenario related to how much is charged for apps in the "metaverse" in which Facebook wins and Apple loses. The one thing that would be a win for Facebook and a loss for Apple would be legislation that forces Apple to allow sideloading. Facebook could announce the "old" iOS Facebook app from Apple App Store will stop working at the end of the year, and tell people they have to sideload the new version from facebook.com. Then they can ramp tracking up to 11 and rape their user privacy even more than they did before Apple limited their ability to track and cratered their stock last year, and Apple won't be able to do anything to stop them.

  19. iron Silver badge

    You forgot taxes so...

    £1.00 purchase

    - £0.30 store fee

    - £0.17 platform fee

    - £0.20 VAT

    = £0.33

    So Facebook are planning on giving UK content creators just one third of the purchase price for their work.

    "You load 16 tons, what do you get?

    Another day older and deeper in debt

    St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go

    I owe my soul to the company store"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That's pretty much what the effective tax rate is going to have to be under the incoming Labour government anyhow.

  20. Halfmad

    Early tactics

    Set the price high then claim you are oh so generous when you drop it later.

  21. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    Maybe it's because I am old enough to have seen this kind of hype fail before (hello Second Life), but I don't see the advantage that Metaverse for the consumer or enterprise customer. I can see the advantage for Meta, because us using it puts even more of our data through their servers, where it is ripe for mining. That's likely why they haven't released a standalone server that can be installed on a customer's own network.

    I know there is an environmental advantage in not having people travel to work or meetings, but there are existing systems that can do this (teams, zoom being two) Facebook do tout the advantages of having a fully three d world where you can interact with others, but having used several virtual world type systems on my quest 2 I'd argue that the technology in use is nowhere near good enough to enable that kind of immersion..

    Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of VR, and frequently play VR games, loving the feeling of immersion I get when a character talks to me, or I look around a spaceship and get an aw inspiring sense of the scale of the ship. That said, I don't generally game on the Quest 2, as my PC is far more powerful. I just haven't seen anything that shows me that the "Metaverse" is anything more than a gimmick, or a way to soak up investment.

    I think the idea got a little boost when Covid appeared, and a lot of companies were forced to switch to home working because they couldn't open their office, and people were looking for something that offered more of a connection that simply meeting on teams, but this kind of 3d open world doesn't really (IMO) offer much more of a connection than working on Teams, and people are increasingly being encouraged to work back in the office.

    I think with people starting to return to offices and workplaces, this idea will fail again.

  22. Jim-234

    Second Life is still better

    For all it's faults and lack of updates, Second Life is still by far a better and more free platform for both those that want to enjoy a bit of virtual worlds and those that want to make a good living enabling people to use the virtual world more "fully".

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rent Boy

    Yet another solution looking for a problem.

    Remind me why people lost interest in Second Life?

  24. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    sadville fee

    just like to point out, sadville (second life) fee is 7.5% and capped at $9.99 (hopefully there are not too many people buying an over $120 or so virtual item to hit the $9.99 cap...) also, better graphics, 15 years of content already in there, buy, sell, rent, and lease and sublet already in there (of both items and land).

    I really don't see the point of Meta badly reinventing Sadville but with much higher fees.

    Side note, apparently liden labs is highly profitable now, almost entirely based on a 10 or 15% or so cut of gambling revenues. Yes there are highly active casinos and strip clubs in there. No I'm not contributing to it, I won't sit around clicking a virtual slot machine.

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