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Meta Wants Nearly 50% Profit on All NFTs Sold in its Metaverse

By:
Martin Young
Updated: Apr 14, 2022, 14:20 UTC

In its ongoing strive for greater profits, Meta is planning to take a massive cut from content creators who sell their digital assets in its Metaverse.

Meta Metaverse

In this article:

Key Insights:

  • Meta will charge a 30% “hardware fee” in addition to 17.5% for itself.
  • The NFT community has expressed its outrage at the whopping fees.
  • Facebook whistleblower reiterates concerns over the firm’s Metaverse.

Meta, the company is formerly known as Facebook, has laid out its plans on how it intends to generate revenue from its virtual world, and it is not good news for content creators.

The company plans to take a cut of up to 47.5% on the sale of NFTs and digital assets on its “Horizon Worlds” virtual reality platform. The digital world is an integral part of grander plans to develop a Metaverse.

Meta (FB) announced its monetization plans in a blog post on April 11, stating that it is rolling out a test with a “handful of creators” which it will allow to sell virtual items and effects on the platform.

What it did not disclose is the massive cut of their profits it will be taking.

Profit Before People

According to CNBC, a Meta spokesperson said that the company will take a “hardware platform fee” of 30% in addition to its own fee of 17.5% for digital items sold through its Quest Store. The NFT community was outraged as expected:

— TradingFemale.nft (@TradingFemale) April 13, 2022

By comparison, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea takes a 2.5% cut for each transaction, and LooksRare charges just 2%. The significant difference is that these platforms are Web3, and Meta is still following the Web2 model, where profit comes before people.

Meta has previously cited Apple’s (AAPL) hefty 30% cut for app developers stating that it wants to enable creators to make more, but this fee structure will simply drive them away. Meta’s VP of Horizon, told the Verge, “We think it’s a pretty competitive rate in the market,”

Whistleblower Warnings

The concern and scrutiny over Meta’s grand Metaverse plans are mounting up. Earlier this week, the whistleblower that leaked documents fingering Facebook for failing to protect its users last year lashed out at its virtual world ambitions.

Former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen told Politico that the company would need to install a lot of advanced hardware to hoover up data on its Metaverse users, adding:

“I can imagine just seeing a repeat of all the harms you currently see on Facebook.”

It is clear from their fee structure that the company values profit over anything else, making its Metaverse a perilous place to spend time for those who value their privacy and personal data.

About the Author

Martin has been covering the latest developments in the blockchain and digital asset industry since 2017 when he made his first investment. He has previous trading experience and has worked extensively in IT over the past 2 decades.

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