Meta’s significant job layoffs lead to a Metaverse ‘fever’ warning on Chinese newspaper

SNEAK PEEK

  • A warning was issued by China’s economic journal against “frenziedly” joining the metaverse bandwagon as local corporations and politicians swarm the burgeoning sector.
  • An article in the Economic Daily cautioned against blindly following suit and placing significant bets on it while disconnected from reality.
  • More than 30 local governments in China, according to the article, have published rules encouraging the growth of the metaverse.

Even though Facebook owner Meta Platforms announced job layoffs this week, China’s main economic newspaper warned against “frenziedly” hopping on the metaverse bandwagon as local governments and businesses rush to the expanding industry.

Be cautious of blindly following suit and placing large bets on it while disassociated from reality, warned an article in the Economic Daily, a publication run by the State Council and supervised by the central propaganda office of the Chinese Communist Party. “The metaverse industry sounds promising, but it may not fit every region,” the article stated.

According to the article, more than 30 local governments in China have released policies supporting the development of the metaverse, and more than 18 industrial parks specifically geared toward the metaverse have been established. The article also urged “prudence when expanding into the metaverse industry.”

Meta intends to concentrate on a small number of high-priority growth industries in 2023. By 2023, Meta predicts that they’ll either be about the same size or even somewhat smaller. 

According to Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of the Facebook corporation, while many departments will be negatively impacted by this process of downsizing and cutting short of expenditures, some departments will, nonetheless, have a solid growth trajectory.

Authorities in numerous large cities, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan, the capital of central Hubei province, have disclosed plans to assist the development of the metaverse since last year.

However, some people have become increasingly wary about specific metaverse components. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, were left out of the Wuhan government’s updated industrial metaverse plan for the years 2022 to 2025.

According to the initial draught plan, which was published in August, officials will intensify their efforts to entice business and investment to the city in sectors including NFTs. State-run organizations are attempting to progress with blockchain development without the use of such tokens, however, since cryptocurrency trade and mining are prohibited in China.