Meta virtual reality interrupted by financial reality as thousands lose their jobs

Meta Platforms began another round of layoffs on Wednesday, focused largely on employees in technical roles. The staff reductions were announced last month by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an "Update on Meta’s Year of Efficiency." "We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our …

[Korev]

Meta's Year of Efficiency was preceded by 2022, a year of revenue decline (-4 percent) and rising costs (+22 percent), partly attributable to Apple's iOS privacy changes in 2021 that reduced Meta's ad targeting revenue by about $10 billion.

The social ad biz last year lost $13.7 billion in 2022 due to its Reality Labs group, which proved efficient in its extravagant spending.

I think there's a fairly obvious way forward here...

[Phil O'Sophical]

Lay off the meatbags, and populate the Metaverse with AI employees?

[Michael Wojcik]

They could get rid of users, too. LLaMa is perfectly capable of writing at least 99% of Facebook posts.

[Pascal Monett]

"Meta expected to disemploy"

Ah, progress. We are no longer fired, we are disemployed.

The quest to find a soothing way of telling someone to fuck off that their immediate financial prospects are in the shitter continues . . .

[Snowy]

Re: "Meta expected to disemploy"

Or they have an increased opportunity for leisure?

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: "Meta expected to disemploy"

Developers, efficiency ... I think their jobs have been refactored.

(If this were Intel, we might say instead that their speculative employment was discarded.)

[alain williams]

Re: "Meta expected to disemploy"

Also "4,000 people will be let go"

Were these 4,000 scrabbling at the doors trying to get out ?

No: they were sacked. "Let go" is slimy mouthed management speak. El-Reg: do your job properly and describe things as they are!

[spold]

Re: "Meta expected to disemploy"

Why not make it slimier - They have been let go, disemployed, and will now be "pursuing other opportunities".

[cyberdemon]

Phrasal verbs...

A curious feature of the English language.

Have they Been Let Go, Let Down, Let Out, Let Off, Cast Off or Cast Asunder?

No, they have been fired, and without cause. If they thought that the company gave two shits about them then they have been severely Let Down.

"Cast Off" is probably the better of the above phrasal verbs - cast off like one discards weight (or/and comrades) from a leaky hot air balloon, in the vain hope that it might clear the volcano ahead.

[ThatOne]

Re: Phrasal verbs...

> If they thought that the company gave two shits about them

...they were terminally delusional. The company only hoped it could make some money out of them, and once it realized it wouldn't make enough, it discarded them. If after the age of 20 you still believe in any paternalistic "we are a family" talk you're hopeless.

_{(Didn't downvote you.)}

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Meta expected to disemploy"

They can now "look for new opportunities outwith the corporate structure", as we were once told. I did, best move ever.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "Meta expected to disemploy"

In my day it was redeployed © Harold Wilson.

[K]

Sorry to see jobs go..

But thank f*ck reality is biting.

I've had to listen to numerous CxO's of multi-billion company's drivel on about "The face of the Internet is changing, the metaverse is coming."

It's another case of businesses, listening to evangelists... where what they should be looking at, is the porn industry. If its not being used to peddle smut... then it's dead end for everything else.

[gv]

Re: Sorry to see jobs go..

"I only look at porn in order to formulate a strategy for future technology adoption..."

[iron]

Re: Sorry to see jobs go..

Have you looked at the porn industry? Because from my research (purely for product research reasons of course) VR is popular, most "tube" sites like PornHub and even some cam sites offer VR porn.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Sorry to see jobs go..

Surely pron has always been "virtual"

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Bravo!

The euphemisms used in this article are very appropriate for the subject matter.

[Charlie Clark]

The next Compaq/DEC?

Things really are starting to turn to shit at Zuck towers. I bet Carly Fiorina is constantly checking her phone for when she gets the chance to finish what Zuck started.

[Alan Bourke]

And so the long slow death spiral of Facebook

... continues.

[Potemkine!]

Re: And so the long slow death spiral of Facebook

See Icon --->

[ThatOne]

Re: And so the long slow death spiral of Facebook

Musk didn't buy Meta yet...

[Groo The Wanderer]

"...to shed the reputational baggage of Facebook."

That will never work as long as Zuckerborg is head of the company...