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Facebook Plans To Hire 10,000 In Europe To Build 'Metaverse' (apnews.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: Facebook said it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform that promises to connect people virtually but could raise concerns about privacy and the social platform gaining more control over people's online lives. The company said in a blog post Sunday that those high-skilled workers will help build "the metaverse," a futuristic notion for connecting online that uses augmented and virtual reality. Facebook executives have been touting the metaverse as the next big thing after the mobile internet, though their track record is spotty on predicting future trends. "As we begin the journey of bringing the metaverse to life, the need for highly specialized engineers is one of Facebook's most pressing priorities," according to the blog post from Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs, and Javier Olivan, vice president of central products. Facebook's recruiters are targeting Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and Ireland for the hiring drive. The company as of June reported having more than 63,000 employees worldwide, up 21% from the same time last year.

The metaverse essentially is a massive virtual world that can be accessed in real time by millions of people using avatars, who can use it to hold virtual meetings or buy virtual land and clothing or other digital assets, often paying with cryptocurrencies. The social network isn't the only one working on the metaverse, and Facebook acknowledged that no single company will own and operate it. Other players include Fortnite maker Epic Games, which has raised $1 billion from investors to help with its long-term plans for building the metaverse. "There's not going to be specific metaverses to specific companies. There's only going to be one metaverse," said Tuong Nguyen, an analyst who tracks immersive technologies for research firm Gartner. But there are concerns Facebook and a handful of other Silicon Valley giants would end up monopolizing the metaverse and use it to collect and profit from personal data, mirroring the situation now with the internet.
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Facebook Plans To Hire 10,000 In Europe To Build 'Metaverse' More

Facebook Plans To Hire 10,000 In Europe To Build 'Metaverse'

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @07:08PM (#61904905)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Second Life is still around, but I agree with your assessment.

      I do think there is room for a better virtual conferencing/workspace environment, but I don't think Facebook's Metaverse will be anywhere near it. This guy has a good explanation of how good it could be right now, [slashdot.org] and I think he's just scratching the surface.

      The reason I don't think Facebook will be the one to lead it is because the Facebook management style utterly destroys any creativity or self-motivation. It's a horrible place to work.

    • The reason it failed was that it had high hardware requirements and rewarded users with a world that wasn't any better than the one they're in now.

      Indeed. Fortunately that was almost 20 years ago and we have the potential with a high hardware requirement to do something far better.

      But the term "better" doesn't require hyper realistic graphics. The term "better" implies the experience, and you're post is making one huge assumption and passing judgement on something you've not seen (I'm betting not even heard of before now).

      I know the term judging a book by its cover, but I've not yet come across someone judging a book by a press release saying it is ye

    • All nonsense. The reason Second Life went nowhere is that it's all too easy to grief others and the place is a total clusterfuck. Spam to the left of me, furries to the right, here I am...

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Kink shaming doesn't help your argument

          Don't be that guy. Most people don't want to be deluged with that shit and that's why most people aren't on second life. That, and the interface is shit and the whole world looks like a tangle of bullshit from the get-go.

        • Second Life certainly did have a serious problem with griefing for a while. It's not a big deal any more, both because the software has been changed to make it harder to do and because the serious griefers have moved on to greener pastures.

          As for the graphics and the poor frame rates, there are two big reasons for that. One is that a graphics engine is much harder to optimize when all the content can be user-created. The other is that it's antiquated software that doesn't take good advantage of modern syste

  • Evil (Score:4, Interesting)

    by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @07:12PM (#61904917)

    VRChat (and the sites that support its content creation community like Gumroad, Patreon, Twitch) is like the Chaotic Good implementation of the Metaverse, made by nerds and VR enthusiasts. The future looks nightmarish to me when I realize that they'll likely lose out to some corporate, spyware, privacy-invading, censorship-mandatory global alternative.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by denny_deluxe ( 1693548 )
      This is how you wind up with Neuromancer-style hackers. Nobody wants to endure all the ads and tracking a Facebook VR world would force onto you.

  • Replacing the browser? (Score:3)

    by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @07:14PM (#61904923) Journal

    One of the reasons the internet took off is that it was not started by big companies controlling it from day one. It is very natural that it should evolve into a virtual world. The question I have is whether this new virtual world is to be available to all creators without them having to pay exorbitant fees to some big company or it will be designed to be out of the reach of the one-man shops to implement without big servers. My fear in reading about Facebook, Epic, and others leading the way is that this is the final stage of the big business takeover of the internet. I would guess they would lead it to more server side implementation and less client.

    So, who here is in the know?

    • Re:Replacing the browser? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18, 2021 @07:25PM (#61904945)

      You know, when I started using the Internet, the only way to get access was to work for the government, work at or attend some big university... or work for a big computer company. They were the only sites on the network, period.

      When the hoi polloi started to show up, they came in through big dialup services like AOL and Compuserve.

      Where do you get the idea that the Internet was not started by big companies?

      • Re:Replacing the browser? (Score:5, Informative)

        by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @09:03PM (#61905153) Journal

        In those days, we (yes I was in one of those big organizations) had a lot of freedom to play using organizational resources during our free time. At the organization I was in during the late 80s, we could even raid the parts crib. They knew that people came out of college with the tools to learn what they needed to know, not with what they needed to know. It was then up to the organization to give us the resources to do the real learning over the next few years. They were making a bet that we wouldn't leave as soon as we were really ready to contribute.

        Though the people who came up with http and html (what most people think of, wrongly, when we say "internet") were in big organizations, it was not the purpose of those organizations to do it. It was just a side thing to support other projects that were the purpose of the organizations. Much of the starting work was done just to try to get some funding support from the organization.

        More importantly, there were many competing ideas at the time for standards to use in data sharing over the internet and most of us who were using and choosing between them were doing so on our own time.

        My organization provided no support for us to develop or utilize these tools beyond providing the connection. Those of us who used it found these tools on our own time, installed them on our own time, built our own sites on our own time, etc. Often, we did so on computers we had put together from spare parts. I created our lab's first email, gopher, and web servers in the late 80s and early 90s on a PC that had been built off-the-books from parts. The company didn't think we needed tools like that. Most of our work computers were scrounged too despite being in one of the biggest defense contractors.

        Without users, none of it would have taken off. AOL and Compuserve wouldn't have been created if it didn't appear that anyone was interested. The many people who used these tools before money came along for them were very much a part of their creation. We were the voters and alpha testers who determined that this would win instead of other sharing solutions like gopher.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Replacing the browser? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @08:39PM (#61905099)

      One of the reasons the internet took off is that it was not started by big companies controlling it from day one. It is very natural that it should evolve into a virtual world.

      I've been hearing this for decades ever since Snow Crash and nothing ever materialized.

      My view is neat 3D graphics don't provide much value in terms of getting things done and the only virtual worlds people have ever cared about are games.

      The question I have is whether this new virtual world is to be available to all creators without them having to pay exorbitant fees to some big company or it will be designed to be out of the reach of the one-man shops to implement without big servers.

      My fear in reading about Facebook, Epic, and others leading the way is that this is the final stage of the big business takeover of the internet. I would guess they would lead it to more server side implementation and less client.

      The metaverse will be a seamless federated open world based on interoperable standards which fully respects the rights and dignity of all its citizens.

      Ooops my deepest apologizes... sometimes I forget which universe I'm in. "Metaverse" is a term used by mentally deranged out of touch (with reality) billionaires to communicate their dream and thirst to own and control everything. If you can't control the real world create your own.

  • Facebook is dying slowly at the moment but it's shit like this that takes it progressively and irreversibly down. It will eventually pass with little fanfare and comment. I mean, is MySpace still online?
  • desperation on Facebook's part

  • So what is exactly is new besides the emperor's "clothes" and the leverage FB has to steamroll through something half-baked that hasn't ever worked?

  • ONE lie to rule them all. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @07:48PM (#61904995)

    "There's not going to be specific metaverses to specific companies. There's only going to be one metaverse.."

    Oh, you mean like the one global language that every human uses? Or the one global currency? One social media company? One government? And of course only one religion exists in the world too. That's why we get along so peacefully, right?

    /sarcasm

    Assuming ONE metaverse is the most delusional piece of bullshit I've heard in a long time. Greed alone will ensure a war will ensue between metaverses. You think hacking a company is bad now? Wait until there's a glitch in your Matrix cased by APT FU, and your veteran avatar with 10 years of virtual experience gets simply deleted along with a few thousand others. Think you'll find a good job starting over at level n00b again? Think again.

    Hell no there's no legal recourse. Not for plebs like you. Back to work virtual meatsack. You've got credits to earn and click off for food.

    • Assuming ONE metaverse is the most delusional piece of bullshit I've heard in a long time.

      Yeah, it's as crazy as assuming only one Internet.

      • Assuming ONE metaverse is the most delusional piece of bullshit I've heard in a long time.

        Yeah, it's as crazy as assuming only one Internet.

        Due to Intellectual Property, VPNs, paywalls, country-controlled firewalls, and everything else that makes up various darknets that slice and hide data away from you, it's delusional to assume there is only one global network too.

  • Ransom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sit1963nz ( 934837 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @07:51PM (#61905003)
    Facebook looks to gain 10,000 workers they can hold the EU to ransom over if they continue to pursue Facebook's immoral activities.
    • The problem they will have is finding users. The middle-aged women posting shit on Facebook aren't going to buy VR headsets to read about where their friends had dinner.

    • This isn't the USA. The EU doesn't give a fuck about a few tech jobs belonging to specific member nations. There's already more than 10000 employees based in Europe. Hell they employ more than that in Dublin alone, and have offices in most central and west European countries.

  • Gonna spend my ClamIsland here

  • Fuck them. Hard. Up the ass. With Scotchbrite.

  • I love that an idea from a science fiction author from 30 years ago, literally pre-internet, is what giant out of touch companies think is going to be the future. I'm sure Second Life being a miserable failure, every kid in existence growing out of Roblox when they realize it's shite and there's much better for much less cost out there, and a giant ultra competitive video game industry that already does this but better and for less money don't mean anything. After all you read it in a Neal Stephenson book,

  • "There's not going to be specific metaverses to specific companies. There's only going to be one metaverse," said Tuong Nguyen, an analyst who tracks immersive technologies for research firm Gartner.

    Actually, its going to be just like social media. In fact, it already is. Boomers are on SL. Kids are on ROBLOX. Once those kids grow up, they won't want to share a metaverse with their parents, causing kids to join some new startup's metaverse. And the cycle will repeat. Forever.

    • Actually, its going to be just like social media. In fact, it already is. Boomers are on SL. Kids are on ROBLOX. Once those kids grow up, they won't want to share a metaverse with their parents, causing kids to join some new startup's metaverse. And the cycle will repeat. Forever.

      This has all happened before, and it will happen again.

  • Who's going to use it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday October 18, 2021 @11:05PM (#61905385)
    My kids are 33, 20, and 18. They all say the same thing, Facebook is crap, "It's for old people". The "old people" are not going to be around much longer. So who's going to use it? All my kids have VR headsets. When I asked them about Facebook's Metaverse they just laughed.

    • Sorry, but "old people" don't use Facebook. We know better than to jump into a sewer.

    • Are these the same kids playing with Instagram and sending WhatsApp messages to each other?

      Facebook as a company and Facebook the social media platform are two very different threats.

      • Are these the same kids playing with Instagram and sending WhatsApp messages to each other?

        Facebook as a company and Facebook the social media platform are two very different threats.

        Exactly right.

        Ironically enough, I'm wondering if the VR-enabled children in the parents post had their VR headsets go offline two weeks ago, and utterly failed to understand the connection while mocking the very entity that caused it.

        • Who knows, maybe they use the Steam Index, or the HTC Vive/Cosmos

          I have a Quest2, and it did not go offline, I lost access to the social aspects that are provided through Facebook though, as I would have expected, and the store was down, but all the applications I had worked fine.

        • Their VR headsets have nothing to do with FB. They're not Oculus headsets.

          • Their VR headsets have nothing to do with FB. They're not Oculus headsets.

            I notice you ignored the question about Instagram and WhatsApp.

    • Indeed, even my 30 year old children have all but abandoned FB. They were avid users for a few years in their late teens, and early 20s, but, over the past 4 or 5 years they have essentially stopped posting. They are now much more selective about who they share what information with, sending fotos or messages directly to me, or my ex, or whomever. No more publicly posting what they are eating for lunch; "checking in" at a bar, or restaurant; or bragging about being on holiday in some crap-hole like Ibi

      • ...I look forward to watching both twitter and FB die a slow agonizing death...

        While I agree with you (and feel for the senseless Twitter rage your professional son had to endure), I should clarify this statement for you.

        The entire reason a multi-billion dollar entity like Facebook has expanded like mad and put its tentacles into all aspects of society, is to ensure its survival. 10 years from now, people won't even know that Facebook started as a simple website and social media company.

        And Twitter? That's a laugh. They practically have their own Too Big To Fail design built in. If

      • My 33 year old son said he has a FB account but says he rarely uses it any longer. My 18 and 20 year old sons have never bothered creating an account. I've never had a FB account (or any social media account for that matter) so I've managed to avoid the whole mess. I've always viewed FB as an online trailer trash park, best to stay away.

  • "Please don't regulate us!"

    • Mod parent up. Yes, just what I thought when I read '10,000 jobs.' Also, how many of those jobs would actually come into fruition & be long term, stable employment? I thought Silicon Valley was all about getting rid of jobs & replacing them with tech?

      • Also, how many of those jobs would actually come into fruition & be long term, stable employment?

        About as many as an Amazon drone warehouse will provide 5 years from now.

  • Zuckerberg's 'metaverse' may look fine to people like himself who appear to be high-functioning ASDs, i.e. have difficulty relating to people & reading their facial expressions & social cues, but for most people those avatars are a ghastly, awkward, clunky way to communicate with each other. If you want to make teleconferencing better, deal with the eye-contact issue, i.e. that it's currently impossible to make eye-contact with the person your looking at. It's not only frustrating, it's also why we

  • My fear is that decent forums, groups and small businesses will get suckered into it, because it's "easier" than having a proper website. Then the sensible people will be encouraged to sign up too, just to find out the local coffee shop's opening hours, or whether the hobby group is meeting this weekend. Then facebook will do what facebook does and track you everywhere else you go, then they'll try to sneak ads in, by pretending the ads are recommended by one of the foums or groups. Then it won't matter tha

    • My fear is that decent forums, groups and small businesses will get suckered into it, because it's "easier" than having a proper website.

      Don't worry, it won't be. It's an entire dimension more difficult instead.

    • You use "easier" in scare quotes as if creating a Facebook group isn't actually easier than maintaining your own standalone website that has feature parity.

      For 99% of internet users, spinning up a static HTML site would be non-trivial. Setting up something with user accounts, a message board, and media hosting would be impossible. In comparison, making a Facebook group and inviting the rest of your hobby group takes about 5 minutes.

  • 'Metaverse' indeed! Facebook shall not besmirch Snow Crash, damnit!

  • Because the Facebook expects you to buy stuff in the metaverse and because there's no way to make anything in there that you can sell, this will eventually fail. People will get bored with it, for one. But they will eventually realize that the money they earn outside the metaverse can only go in and can't be withdrawn for cash. They will realize that this is the virtual equivalent of a Pullman company town.

  • Too much 'sovereignty'.

  • A fake world where people who live shitty lives in tiny box can pretend their lives aren’t so shitty and meaningless. If keeps more people out of the wilderness or even parks, so I can actually find some solitude in the real world nature, have at it. Enjoy your monetized digital escape. I’ll keep fucking and exploring in the real world.
  • Facebook has already shown that ruining children's lives to sell advertising is part of their business model. They are much more a media company than a tech company (face it--all companies use technology) and they should not have special privileges that other media companies do not enjoy.

  • "We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one" Confucius

  • Pandering to EU politicians to go easy on regulating FB and data control laws there in exchange for employing more people in the EU countries.

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