[ravst3s]

Reality Labs is going to burn at least $16 bn in '23 and '24. Meta can't really spend much more money on this business. I think investors will mandate clarity on how the spending is bucketed and see a mix shift to HW rather than Metaverse SW.

Financially, RL is the worst business on earth. No other business has lost this much money in such a short period of time.

[baby]

> Financially, RL is the worst business on earth. No other business has lost this much money in such a short period of time.

This is like saying, the US is the worst country on earth because of it's debt. The reality is, if you have money and you don't invest it, it loses value.

[ravst3s]

Of course the options for Meta are limited on what they could do with that cash. M&A is a non-starter, and there isn't much more they could do in FB/IG/WA. Meta already does share buybacks as well. However, the opportunity cost, such as offer cloud services or SaaS products, is what they've lost. I'm sure investors hope they become more rational in their RL capital allocation and investors would certainly prefer more share buybacks instead.

Investing in RL is not a bad idea if it can drive significant top-line growth. However, unless RL turns into one of the best businesses on earth (like FoA), it will never delivered a positive ROI since its inception.

US debt is similar in that it's invested capital, but it does provide a positive contribution to GDP. If the US stops growing, our debt will become a massive issue.