The Verge writes that this week, Facebook recorded its first-ever quarterly decrease of daily users internationally. The firm has witnessed a steady increase in customers over the years with very little reason to worry about growth, which made the unexpected dip a shock to many.

Facebook shares plunged by 23 percent in intraday trade on Thursday, removing at least $200 billion in market value from Mark Zuckerberg and the Masters of the Universe. Facebook (now Meta) announced flat user growth across practically all of its platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp last quarter, but far more troubling for the firm was the loss of about 1 million daily users in North America.

The majority of Facebook’s advertising earnings comes from North American users, so a loss of 1 million users shows hints of what might be a dangerous trend for the firm. This loss of users led to an overall fall in daily Facebook users globally which a company spokeswoman stated was the first sequential dip in the history of Facebook.

For context, Facebook saw its daily users dip from 1.93 billion to 1.929 billion between quarters. The firm is still highly lucrative, generating about $40 billion in profit in 2021 alone, but its also now wasting billions on initiatives like Reality Labs, the division responsible for the Quest virtual reality headset.

Facebook has invested big on the metaverse, renaming itself as Meta and preparing to bring in a new type of internet, experienced mostly via virtual reality. As such, the corporation is investing in the creation of new VR headsets, VR software, and AR glasses. The Reality Labs decision losing roughly $10.2 billion last year with claimed sales of $2.3 billion.

On an earnings conference on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated that the company’s next VR headset will be available in late 2022 and will be at the “high end of the pricing spectrum.”