Paris is a perennial stop on the European Grand Tour, and now its virtual avatar has become something like a landmark of the metaverse, much to the chagrin of the company that has bet so big on the promise of alternative reality that it changed its name. 

An image of the Meta — né Facebook — founder and chief executive officer’s avatar mugging in front of the Eiffel Tower at Paris and La Sagrada Familia church at Barcelona was received less as a technological miracle than as a throwback to the technological rudiments of the 1990s.

The “selfie” of Mark Zuckerberg features a version of the founder in the foreground and the landmarks in the background, seemingly randomly placed in a greenscape that bears no resemblance to the cities that serve as its inspiration. “Mr. Zuckerberg” himself bears only a passing resemblance to the analogue counterpart.   

Mr. Zuckerberg noted as much in an Instagram post, writing, “I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic — it was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch.” He has since shared alternative visuals. The first shows his avatar in front of a dark background, and the second depicts what looks like ancient ruins. 

The occasion for the images was the launch in France and Spain of Meta’s virtual reality platform, “Horizon World.” It is already available in America, Canada, and the United Kingdom. According to Meta, “In Horizon Worlds, you and your friends can collaborate and bring your wildest ideas to life — without ever leaving VR.” 

In a quarterly earnings call, Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged, “This is obviously a very expensive undertaking over the next several years. But as the metaverse becomes more important in every part of how we live, from our social platforms, to entertainment, to work, and education and commerce, I’m confident that we’re going to be glad that we played an important role in building this.”

That assessment came on the very call where Mr. Zuckerberg was forced to confront the company’s first ever quarterly revenue decline. Meta’s Reality Labs alone had a loss last year of $10 billion. The Meta mogul has claimed that this investment “is laying the groundwork for what I expect to be a very exciting 2030.” He added: “It’s something that’s never been built before.”

In addition to that revenue drop, Meta’s profits declined by 36 percent last quarter. The New York Times opines that “TikTok is absolutely eating Instagram’s lunch right now, in terms of usage and cultural sway, and advertisers generally want to be where the young people are.” That’s bad news for one of Meta’s crown jewels, and for the entirety of Mr. Zuckerberg’s far-flung empire.

Despite Meta’s recent stumbles, which include leaked documents published last year in the Wall Street Journal as “The Facebook Files,” financial heavy hitters remain bullish on the Silicon Valley behemoth’s long game. In a report issued in March, Citi estimated that by 2030 the metaverse could be worth $13 trillion. Their analysts “believe the Metaverse is the next generation of the internet.”