Meta Reports First Quarter 2024 Results

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Financial results & stock reaction

  • Many see strong Q1 numbers (EPS roughly doubled YoY, big profits overall) but note the stock fell ~12–13% after hours.
  • Main explanation offered: guidance and expense outlook disappointed a market that had already priced in excellent performance. Meta is described as a “crowded trade” that was “priced to perfection.”
  • Some discussion of tax effects and whether prior quarters had one‑time tax items, but details are unclear.

Reality Labs, VR, and AI spending

  • Reality Labs lost about $4B in the quarter, again raising questions about VR’s path to profitability.
  • Skeptics: no clear killer app, usage often drops after the initial novelty, and Meta’s social VR (Horizon Worlds) is seen as weak compared with VRChat and others. Some call the whole effort a “money pit” and doubt VR will ever be mainstream.
  • Supporters: Quest 3 is described as “astonishing” and a clear generational improvement; for some it feels like an early‑PC or NES moment. Several argue the real bottleneck is hardware R&D (form factor, optics, varifocal displays, tracking), not software.
  • Multiple comments note that Reality Labs now also contains major AI efforts (FAIR, Llama training), so the headline “VR loss” figure is partially AI infra spend. Whether this is misleading “creative accounting” or just organizational structure is debated.

Future of VR/AR/MR

  • One camp expects mixed‑reality glasses to eventually replace phones and PCs, enabling a single device/OS for everything.
  • Others are highly skeptical: fundamental display/battery limitations, lack of compelling general‑population use cases, and prior VR hype cycles are cited.
  • There is extensive worry that VR and LLMs will mainly become more intrusive ad and surveillance channels rather than new, cleaner business models.

Meta’s platforms and user metrics

  • Reported user numbers are enormous (over 3B “family” DAU/MAU), but experiences vary:
    • Some see Facebook as dead or overrun by spammy suggestions.
    • Others report very active groups, marketplace, and heavy use among older users and outside the US.
  • Thread participants question the reliability of MAU/DAU metrics (multi‑accounts, bots, litigation over ad metrics).

Threads and competitive strength

  • Claim: Threads has grown to ~150M MAU and higher DAU than X, demonstrating Meta’s ability to rapidly bootstrap new networks via Instagram/Facebook.
  • Some are impressed; others doubt engagement quality and suspect generous definitions of “active user,” especially with Threads content injected into Instagram.