Russia’s top banker slams Zuckerberg’s metaverse as ‘unrealistic’

Herman Gref, the head of Russia’s largest bank, SberBank, has criticized Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s idea of creating a metaverse, or unified platform for virtual and physical things.

So far, there is not a single real metaverse in the world, the CEO said on Tuesday at the forum of innovative financial technologies, Finopolis 2021.

“If ecosystems are an already existing reality, practically all over the world, then the metaverse is probably a trend that is only visible. But there is not a single metaverse, due to the fact that no one has yet been able to make this transition technically,” said Gref.

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He also criticized one of Facebook’s products, the virtual-reality headset Oculus.

“I don’t believe in the Zuckerberg metaverse. I looked at all his products and put on this Oculus, and spent more than an hour in it, for the first time in my life. I don’t know – maybe you need to spend a month there and, after that, you’ll get used to it, but so far, these avatars are unrealistic and primitive,” Gref said, adding that he had more faith in augmented reality.

In October, Zuckerberg announced that the Facebook company name would change to Meta. The move reflects Facebook’s desire to show it is more than just a social network. The firm earlier announced that it was recruiting a team to develop a “metaverse” and join its Reality Labs in bringing to fruition both virtual- and augmented-reality projects.

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