[Slashdot] - Meta Employees Are Selling the Metaverse, But Not Working In it

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An anonymous reader shares a report: During the pandemic, when many workers saw their teams only via videoconference, Mark Zuckerberg's embrace of virtual reality seemed somewhat reasonable. The company renamed itself Meta Platforms and prioritized bringing about the "metaverse," a digital immersive world where people could meet up and do things together -- including their jobs -- while wearing VR headsets at home. Meta is still selling this vision to corporate customers, as well as consumers. The company debuted its Quest 3 headset on Thursday. Apple is expected to unveil an ambitious version that will compete with Meta on Monday. But so far, Meta isn't practicing what it preaches. Employees across the organization generally aren't using the headsets -- especially not for work meetings, according to 11 current and former employees. Even those in the VR part of the organization don't use it regularly for work, said one former employee, who, like the others, declined to be named discussing internal culture. Meta only provides headsets to employees if they've signed up for an internal program to test new features before the public. Otherwise, they get a discount, the people said. Some teams -- including policy head Nick Clegg's -- tried experimental VR meetings, only to abandon the practice after finding it uncomfortable and glitchy, one of the people said. Some of the glitches may be attributed to the testing program.

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