Facebook Is Building Another Monopoly In "The Metaverse"

• Facebook now has a dominate market share in virtual reality thanks to its 2014 acquisition of Oculus and its quest headset
  • In December 2020, Bloomberg reported that “Facebook is the world’s biggest virtual-reality hardware maker thanks to its 2014 acquisition of Oculus for $2 billion.”
  • In January 2022, Bloomberg reported that Facebook’s Oculus “dominates the standalone virtual reality headset space. The company’s headsets made up 75% of global shipments of VR headsets in the first quarter of 2021.”
  • In December 2021, the Verge reported that “third-party estimates say Meta has a majority market share” in VR, thanks mostly to the early success of its Quest 2 headset.
  • In December 2020, Upload VR reported that because Facebook has no strong competitor in VR, “approval to Facebook’s Quest store represents a make or break moment for many VR developers.”
• Facebook is buying up the hottest gaming and virtual reality startups and its same playbook to squash potential competition
  • Facebook has focused its acquisitions on gaming in virtual reality and the company has quickly bought up the hottest startups. Facebook’s acquisitions have spanned the spectrum from VR headset part makers to VR software companies and gaming studios.
  • Facebook has purchased at least seven VR App Game development studios since 2019.
    • In October 2021, Facebook bought Within, the developer of Supernatural, a virtual reality (VR) based fitness app.
    • In June 2021, Facebook acquired BigBox VR, the creator of battle royale title POPULATION: ONE.
    • In June 2021, Facebook acquired Unit 2 Games, maker of the Crayta platform.
    • In April 2021, Facebook acquired Downpour Interactive and its tactical multiplayer shooter Onward.
    • In late 2019, Facebook acquired Beat Games, the developer of rhythm slicing game Beat Saber.
    • In February 2020, Facebook acquired Sanzaru Games, the makers of Asgard’s Wrath.
    • In June 2020, Facebook bought Ready At Dawn, the makers of the Echo VR games.
  • According to Upload VR in June 2021, of the six most profitable titles on its Oculus Quest, Facebook “owns at least half of them.”
  • In June 2021, The Verge wrote that Facebook’s acquisitions in the VR game development market “resembled its most famous bets on nascent technology from years ago: the purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, which helped the company cement its position as the dominant player in social networks.”
  • In December 2021, Facebook purchased ImagineOptix Corp., a developer of augmented and virtual reality optics technology designed to overcome optical and optoelectronics challenges in displays.
    • According to Input Magazine, ImagineOptix Corp had been financially involved with Valve, a company that makes a competing VR headset. Therefore, “the purchase could leave Valve (and any other companies) without access to a critical component that could make VR or mixed reality headsets sharper and more compact. In other words, Meta is squeezing out the competition by buying up core technologies and software.”
    • In December 2021, The Information reported that Facebook’s purchase of ImagineOptix Corp may also draw further antitrust investigations into the company.
  • In February 2020, Facebook acquired Lemnis Technologies, a startup creating varifocal optics for use in VR headsets. The technology makes VR more realistic and comfortable for long-term use
    • According to RoadToVR, Facebook had been working on this issue since 2018.
    • According to Tweaktown, “Facebook's solution wasn't as linear as Lemnis Technologies' product, which may be the reason” Facebook bought Lemnis.
• Facebook’s VR acquisitions are already under scrutiny, with the FTC reportedly probing its deal with Within, the developer of the Supernatural VR fitness app.
  • The FTC, the DOJ and state Attorneys General have also been investigating Facebook’s VR business for its anticompetitive practices.
    • In Jan. 2022, Bloomberg reported that FTC and state Attorneys General were looking into “how the Oculus app store may be discriminating against third parties that sell apps that compete with Meta’s own software.” They also were scrutinizing how Facebook’s price for the company’s Oculus device undercuts competitors.
    • In December 2020, Bloomberg reported that the business practices of Facebook’s Oculus was “drawing the attention of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, which is talking to developers about their interactions with the company.”
  • In December 2020, Bloomberg reported that software developers and startup founders said Facebook was using the same playbook of “copy, acquire and kill” to undermine competition in the virtual-reality market.
    • According to Bloomberg’s report: “Developers say Facebook is using its market power to thwart companies that offer competing games and services. It’s copying the most promising ideas, using below-cost pricing for its devices and making it harder for some apps to work properly on the platform, according to developers and a hardware maker.”
    • The founder of Software company Yur Inc. alleged Facebook prevented its fitness tracking app from working on its Oculus platform, then launched Oculus move which had similar functionality to its app.
    • Another developer said his virtual desktop app was crushed by Facebook, which threatened to remove his app from Oculus Quest, then launched Oculus Link, an app with similar functionality.
    • Facebook also squeezes developers by forcing them to pay a commission on sales, a cut similar to the ones Apple and Google take from their App stores. According to Bloomberg, this is “a strategy that has also led those companies to be investigated by federal antitrust enforcers.”
• Facebook also uses its acquisitions to strengthen its monopoly by locking up talented people who could have been competitors down the road.
  • Big Tech companies like Facebook are in an arms race to lock down brain power and often do this by "acquihiring" startups
  • As Bloomberg reported in March 2020, “The industry’s deal spree has raised concern that the biggest technology companies have a lock on brain power...“‘If big tech companies buy them all up, they eliminate these future competitors, and have a chance of actually owning the winners.”
    • In September 2021, FTC Commissioner Lina Khan expressed concerns about this practice. As the Washington Post reported “More than 75 percent of the deals included noncompete clauses for founders and key employees, and Khan also said the FTC should study how companies are using these terms to ‘lock up key talent.”
  • Facebook has made it a practice of acquiring companies for their people. As Mark Zuckerberg expressed in 2011, “Facebook has not once bought a company for the company itself. We buy companies to get excellent people.”

• Select examples of Facebook’s acquihires
  • In February 2019, Facebook acquihired the team behind Chainspace, a small blockchain startup. The acquisition was of Chainspace’s talent was one of the key moments in Facebook’s march toward creating its own cryptocurrency, according to Wired.
  • In February 2020, Facebook acquihired Scape Technologies, which built a localization engine for city-scale augmented reality. Scape’s co-founder and CEO Edward Miller joined Facebook as a research product manager.
  • In December 2019, Facebook bought Atlas ML in a “classic acqui-hire” with both founders — Robert Stojnic and Ross Taylor — now software engineers at Facebook AI.
  • In 2019, Facebook bought CTRL Labs, which beams electrical signals from the brain to a device via a wristband. Both co-founders Thomas Reardon and Patrick Kaifosh joined Facebook Reality Labs. According to the Verge, CTRL Labs was acquired after Facebook failed to produce any meaningful research or products in its futuristic tech lab, Building 8.
  • In 2016, Facebook bought Zurich Eye, a company that developed inside-out tracking that eliminates external positional sensors for headsets like the Quest and Quest 2. The entire 10-person team joined Facebook.
  • In 2018, Facebook “acquihired” the team behind Bloomsbury AI, which developed software that can read documents and then answer questions about their contents. Facebook “acquihired” this team to help them fight fake news on the company’s platform.
  • In 2012, Facebook acquired mobile application company Glancee, “only to shut down the location-sharing app and fold the staff into its larger talent pool,” according to the Washington Post.