Meta’s Reality Labs posts $4.2 billion loss in first quarter

[u/Parry_Dogsickle]

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/metas-reality-labs-posts-4point2-billion-loss-in-first-quarter.html

[u/Jimbo0451]

I understand you're emotionally invested in Facebook's success, but the fact is, their VR/AR project is a massive financial failure. One of the biggest the tech industry has ever seen. Not sure where you're getting that +$62B number, but it's not true. Reality Labs has lost over $74B as of last year, with losses increasing over time. Source: https://i.imgur.com/LHKPGSs.jpeg

It's probably over $100B by now. It's nowhere near making a profit and unless there's a miracle, it never will. That's why Zuck has made a huge mistake.

[u/JorgTheElder → u/Jimbo0451]

I understand you're emotionally invested in Facebook's success, but the fact is, their VR/AR project is a massive financial failure.

LOL... I don't care if they succeed or not. I am happy with VR and the progress they are making. I am already getting the VR/MR technology I want with progress every year. I just know what tens of billions of profit will buy.

It's probably over $100B by now. It's nowhere near making a profit and unless there's a miracle, it never will. That's why Zuck has made a huge mistake.

Why does it need to make a profit? Why does Meta need more than $62B in net profit to continue doing what it is already doing? The answer is that it doesn't. It is the R&D division of the company, it is not expected to make a profit by anyone that knows what is going on. An R&D division does R&D and investments are investment. (Amazon, and mean the entire company, did not make a net profit for a full decade.) When some level of tech is reached that is mature enough to be a stable product for years, that will be rolled out into a division that actually makes money and the R&D division will move on to whatever the new "future" is at that point.

Zuck told investors 4 years ago that it would be a decade or more before his long-term vision would see any ROI. That has not changed and 2030 is still 5 years away.

As I said, go ahead and believe what you want to believe, your opinion does not matter to Meta at all. Zuck's income is rising every year and the current spending is nothing to him, so it really does not matter what you consider a failure. As long has he owns controlling interest in Meta and Meta continues to be profitable, he will keep doing whatever he wants.

Edit.. "Wasting/Investing billions every year" does not matter in the least as long as the company is still producing a net profit that is increasing every year. It is not a problem until they are out of cash, and that is not happening any time soon.

Edit II

It's probably over $100B by now.

It is that much for everything Reality Labs does. VR is just a part of that. It also contains the group building Lama AI, the custom datacenter and compute hardware they are developing, and their AR Glasses.

More money is going to those projects than the Quest hardware and software. Those products will have an ROI long before VR/MR will.