In 2022, many tech giants dazzled us with their original concepts and standout products, but a select few truly stunned us.
Technology has shown to be anything but “recession-proof” by the year 2022. Massive layoffs brought on by sluggish revenue growth, the collapse of cryptocurrency, dictatorial leadership philosophies, and failed bets on emerging technology have all combined to make 2018 a terrible year for the tech sector. Here are the biggest technological blunders of 2022, including Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the demise of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and Meta’s overly optimistic bet on Metaverse.
Twitter under Elon Musk’s direction has become a complete disaster.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has had trouble taking over Twitter. The upheaval, which began with the abrupt termination of 3700 Twitter employees and was followed by the hazy introduction of its blue tick subscription, has damaged the reputation of the network and its new leadership. According to Musk, Twitter will become the online “town square” where current affairs will be discussed in an uncensored manner while respecting one another’s viewpoints.
However, content moderation on Twitter has turned into a challenging task, and nobody really knows when the regulations will change once more. The recent suspension of prominent journalists’ accounts, which were eventually restored, demonstrates how predictable and subject to the whims and fancies of its new owner Twitter has become during the Elon Musk era.
Musk may want to be viewed as a champion of free speech, but he is the same person who has fired employees who have criticised his policies. All of this has damaged Twitter’s reputation and casts doubt on its future. If Twitter fails, it might signal the beginning of the end for modern social media. And if Musk manages to save it, it might turn out to be a completely other creature.
For the time being, the world is not prepared for Zuckerberg’s Metaverse.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, is stuck. The billionaire faces a tough task in trying to hide his corporation from politicians and regulators in both the US and Europe. He appears to be more preoccupied with experimentation in the Metaverse, though. The Metaverse, which is a loosely defined as a virtual world where people live, work, and play, has been a huge failure thus far.
Although Meta has already lost an incredible amount of money on the alternate reality platform, it is unable to produce a product that will be appealing to its users. The issue isn’t the goal; rather, it’s that not everyone wants to use a VR headset for work or interact with pals in a virtual environment.
That is concerning since Zuckerberg invested billions in the Metaverse with the idea that users might eventually engage with each other as cartoon avatars in virtual reality (VR) social areas. That’s a big cry from the original idea.
About how the Metaverse will develop, Zuckerberg had ideas. Zuckerberg changed the name of the business from a social media company to “a metaverse company” last year because he was so confident in the Metaverse.
Wall Street, on the other hand, disapproved of the course Zuckerberg took. The company’s advertising business is rapidly declining, and TikTok’s fierce competition has reduced Facebook’s buzz as a social networking platform. Despite the unpredictability, Meta is still a massive business, but things are shifting quickly for Mark Zuckerberg’s social network empire. As of right now, Meta is more susceptible to a rapidly shifting tech ecosystem than any other major in Silicon Valley. Over 11,000 employees, or 13% of the workforce, were recently let go.
Meta is hopping from one business to the next rather than resolving the issue with its core endeavour. That has raised doubts about Zuckerberg’s plans for the business. With multiple high-profile departures from Meta in the recent months, analysts paint a less than optimistic picture for the business that helped spark the social media revolution.
Alexa on Amazon fails
One of the departments that was most hit when Amazon recently announced a plan to fire 10,000 workers was the Alexa voice assistant division. Many people might be surprised to learn that the Alexa segment hasn’t turned a profit in years. Amazon’s business strategy of selling hardware for a low initial price and promoting Alexa through smart speakers has come at a heavy financial cost to the company.
Amazon may have appeared to be the market leader in smart speakers on paper, and this eventually helped Alexa become the centre for IoT devices. But in the many years that Alexa has been around, the tactic has not been successful. The original hypothesis was that by using Alexa as a voice assistant, more people would shop on Amazon.com.
However, in practise, Alexa was largely employed for insignificant tasks like “playing music” or giving “weather forecasts.” Amazon lost money on both the Alexa device and the hardware it sells for a discount. Amazon has lost interest in Alexa due to a lack of revenue opportunities and an unclear future.
The 10th generation iPad from Apple ends up being a “confusing” product.
Nobody had predicted that Apple would make a terrible mistake with their entry-level iPad. An iPad created for students and general users has always been a tried-and-true gadget. But the finished result fell short of expectations—unusual for an Apple product. The 10th-generation iPad introduced additional accessories, a speedier A14 Bionic CPU, and a revised design that brings it closer to the iPad Air. Everything is fantastic, right? But as soon as you start examining the gadget, faults start to show up.
The original Apple Pencil is the only one compatible with the new iPad. But in order to charge it with the new iPad, you need an adaptor because it has a USB-C port rather than a Lightning port. Additionally, the Magic Keyboard is incompatible with the iPad of 10th generation. Instead, Apple has introduced the Magic Keyboard Folio, a new keyboard add-on made specifically for the iPad Starter.
The 9th generation iPad that this new iPad replaces, which oddly hasn’t been discontinued and is still on the market, is significantly more expensive (beginning at Rs 44,900) than this new iPad.
Although the new iPad has unusual design choices, one wonders how it was approved within. We finally have an Apple product that is disappointing and unimpressive after a long time.
The FTX crash and Sam Bankman-Fried
The arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, the creator of the crypto behemoth FTX, and the bankruptcy of that company have shocked the cryptocurrency community. Under the 30-year-old Bankman-Fried, FTX quickly expanded to become the third-largest exchange by volume. It was formerly regarded as the up-and-coming superstar in the crypto world. Low trading costs, prominent acquisitions, and strong marketing tactics all contributed to FTX’s exponential growth over the past few years.
However, the empire Bankman built began to crumble when his business was suspected of breaking US securities legislation by allegedly utilising client money to finance wagers at Fried’s hedge fund, Alameda Research. At a time when the sector has experienced its fair share of volatility and instability due to a steep decrease in the price of bitcoin and other digital assets, the collapse of FTX has increased scepticism for cryptocurrencies.
Investors can learn from the FTX crash that there will always be substantial risk in the financial sector. In light of the FTX crash, the discussion of how cryptocurrencies should be categorised and governed has become more heated.