Metaverses are becoming a big fuss as IT giants, as well as whole states are digging into this brave new world.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees a “massive opportunity” in metaverse platforms that have potential to “unlock hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions over time.” However, currently, Meta suffers multibillion losses due to its exposure in the Metaverse market.

During Meta’s Q2 earnings call on Wednesday, the company reported a $2.8 billion loss in its Reality Labs division in the second quarter.

“This is obviously a very expensive undertaking over the next several years,” Zuckerberg acknowledged during an earnings call. “But as the metaverse becomes more important in every part of how we live from our social platforms and entertainment to work and education and commerce, I'm confident that we're going to be glad that we played an important role in building this.”

However, the Twitter community remained skeptical about Zuckerberg's plans to rule the metaverse. They pointed to the fact that Meta is centralized while the idea of metaverse is decentralization.

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino  ironically tweeted that Meta is competing with more decentralized crypto companies in this field trying to embezzle all the market from peer-to-peer organizations.

Earlier, Zuckerberg said that Meta was competing with Apple in the metaverse field, according to a recording of an internal meeting with Meta employees obtained by the Verge. Zuckerberg claims that Meta is more open and fair alternative to Apple.

“We’re approaching this in an open way and trying to build a more open ecosystem. We’re trying to make more stuff interoperable with Android. We’re trying to develop the metaverse in a way where you can bring your virtual goods from one world to another... It’s a very deep, philosophical competition about what direction the internet should go in.”

Not only IT giants but also whole states are joining the race. Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed announced Dubai Metaverse Strategy. This ambitious plan supposes that the metaverse sector will create 40,000 additional virtual jobs and generate up to $4 billion for the city’s GDP by 2030.

According to a recent report by Pew Research, 54% of polled technology innovators expect by 2040 the metaverse will be a much-more-refined and truly fully-immersive, well-functioning aspect of daily life for a half billion or more people globally.