Extract from Benjamin Joyner’s article “Meta Is Pulling Back From the Metaverse: Is This the End for Virtual Law Offices?”
Several years ago, virtual digital worlds known as metaverses seemed poised to be the next generation of transformative consumer technology, prompting some law firms to open virtual offices. But the buzz over the metaverse seems to be fizzling out.
Facebook parent company Meta announced last week that it was planning to stop supporting the virtual reality (VR) headset version of the company’s Horizon Worlds digital space. Although the company partially backtracked, announcing several days later it would continue supporting the VR version of the app, the threat to Horizon Worlds—as well as recent job cuts in the division responsible for Meta’s metaverse development efforts—emblemizes a dramatic retreat from metaverse projects more broadly.
For law firms that invested in metaverse offices in the early 2020s, that retreat is already underway.
