https://ift.tt/0Ms5UZb taxes sales of virtual goods on Horizon Worlds by 47.5%

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, will charge creators of virtual goods that can be sold on the Horizon Worlds platform a 47.5% tax, almost half of their earnings. 

Meta and the fees of Horizon World’s creators

On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, had announced its testing of innovative tools that will allow creators of virtual goods to be able to sell them on the Horizon Worlds platform, earning real money. 

Something that Zuckerberg himself would like to see in the long run as a chance for the creators of the metaverse to earn a living by selling their creations directly. 

Unfortunately, the announcement did not specify commissions on such earnings. In fact, it seems that Meta will charge about 47.5% on sales of goods and digital experiences made within the virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds.

Specifically, that’s a 30% fee on the hardware platform for sales made through the Meta Quest Store, where apps and games intended for its virtual reality headset are sold, and a further 17.5% cut as fees from the Horizon platform. 

The sky-high fees for creators 

“JUST IN: Meta (Facebook) plans to take a 47.5% cut on each #NFT sale on its virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds”.

The news about Meta’s mind-boggling fees, has been much criticized on the web. CEO of Meta, Zuckerberg, has been a critic of Apple Inc’s 30% app store fees, yet Meta’s latest move to charge creators almost half of their sales on its platform has angered many.

In this regard, Meta’s Horizon vice-president Vivek Sharma responded to the criticism as follows:

“These types of tools are steps toward our long-term vision for the metaverse where creators can earn a living and people can purchase digital goods, services, and experiences”.

The importance of information in the metaverse

According to an Akeneo report involving 1,800 UK consumers, it appears that the demand for information in the metaverse, especially retail, is clearly growing. 

72% of respondents reportedly use multiple sources when researching a product and deciding what to buy, while a further 81% started researching a product in-store and then bought it. 

These data on shopper behaviour lead us to understand just how fundamental product information is, including digital and virtual information. 

Looking at the survey, it seems that more than half of UK consumers interested in the metaverse would be inclined to

• abandoning a purchase due to poor product information and
• abandoning a brand due to lack of trust caused by poor product information.