(San Francisco) Meta (Facebook, Instagram) will take about 47% of the sale price of virtual items sold by content creators on its Horizon Worlds virtual reality platform, information that immediately sparked outrage online.
Posted at 8:46 p.m.
The social media giant announced on Monday its decision to allow designers to sell clothes and other virtual accessories to users of its main platform in the metaverse, this set of parallel universes often considered to be the future of the internet.
On Wednesday, he clarified the financial terms: the Oculus virtual reality headset store, which belongs to Meta, and the platform will each charge a commission.
“If a creator sells an item for $1, the Meta Quest Store commission will be $0.30, and the Horizon Platform commission will be $0.17, leaving the creator $0.53 before any taxes,” a spokesperson for the Californian group told AFP.
On Twitter, many observers criticized this revenue sharing.
“Great place to start a business,” commented Neeraj Agrawal of Coin Center, a cryptocurrency think tank, wryly. “(An irresponsible actor) builds another platform and abuses its monopoly to make profits,” tweeted Accountable Tech, an NGO that advocates better regulation of social networks.
The commission rate is particularly frowned upon in light of the battle between Meta and Apple. Facebook has stood up to other companies who accuse the iPhone maker of charging too high a commission on the App Store, the essential application store for users of the brand’s smartphones and tablets.
Apple recovers 30% of the sales of applications, or digital goods and services on these apps, except in certain cases, the exceptions and exemptions being numerous.
“In our efforts to build the metaverse, we’re careful to create opportunities for creators to make money from their work,” Facebook founder and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg said on his profile last November. .
“Apple’s 30% commission on transactions makes it harder (for creators), so we’ve changed our subscription products to make it more difficult for creators.”
Since last summer, Meta has given itself the mission of contributing significantly to the emergence of the metaverse, and seeks to attract content creators likely to in turn attract new users.