Mark Zuckerberg desperately needs Horizon Worlds, Meta’s metaverse, to succeed. First, he’ll need to figure out how to make money from the world.

Horizon World’s progress summarized: little traction, no legs and many angry developers.

• In February, Meta reported 300K monthly active users on Horizon Worlds — just over .01% of the number of Facebook users.
• The metaverse is still in its early days, but Horizon Worlds will need to grow much faster to be considered a success.

Now, barely six months after launching, Meta is already trying to monetize its metaverse.

Investors demand results: On Monday, Meta announced features being tested for creators to sell virtual assets and experiences.

• Yesterday, Meta revealed that they would take a 47.5% cut on transactions.
• That sounds like a big number (and it is), considering the competing metaverse project SandboxSAND
  — takes a 5% cut.

There have been broad criticisms of AAPL’s 30% app store fee, and Google lowered its app store fees last year.

Meta is also reportedly planning to introduce a virtual currency to power its world. Codenamed Zuck Bucks, Meta will likely control this currency, and it will not be a cryptocurrency on the blockchain.

Meta’s moves are the opposite of cryptos’ benefits: Decentralization (not controlled by one entity) and low fees. So when Meta announced its 47.5% fee, crypto Twitter went off.

At least its core business is doing well… right? The outlook for Meta’s core business (ads) — is also worrying investors. This week, RBC analyst Brad Erickson cut his estimate for Meta noting:

• Things are getting worse at the company — with small and medium-sized businesses considering new ad channels beyond FB.
• “No perceived improvement to FB’s targeting algo or performance” — since a substantial iOS change impacted Meta’s ability to send targeted ads (Technology Letter).

Meta (NASDAQ:FB) is down 36% in 2022 — and its latest moves aren’t doing it any favors.