Mozilla recently announced the closure of Hubs, its web-based Social VR platform. Effective from 31st May, this decision came in as Mozilla failed to capture the market in the presence of strongly funded competitors. Mozilla announced the closure of Hubs in a blog post, citing its limited user base as the reason for this decision. They wrote, “While we’re proud of what we’ve built and the community we’ve fostered, Hubs hasn’t achieved the level of engagement we were hoping for.”
Mozilla launched Hubs back in 2018 and was highly appreciated for its innovative approach, making it accessible for all. Hubs allowed users of VR, computer and mobile, all alike, to connect through virtual spaces without any additional downloads or installations. Despite their innovative outlook and accessible services, the user base remained very limited, and Mozilla couldn’t attract a herd actively engaging on other platforms.
Mozilla is shifting its focus and resources away from web-based XR initiatives to concentrate on what it does best. This news has now raised questions and sparked discussions on the future of innovations in this realm, given the high popularity of standalone VR experiences.
While Mozilla is shutting down its active development of this platform, one thing worth remembering is that it is open source. This means anyone from around the globe can work on it and develop it further independently. The question is if the community can un-dead it.
The new subscriptions will be cancelled from March 1st, and a tool to download the user data will be made available in April. The team aims to finish all work on Hubs by May 31st.
