The Biggest Tech Failures Of 2022

The tech industry was riding a historic high coming into 2022, with post-pandemic optimism driving stock prices to record heights and the cryptocurrency space experiencing its biggest-ever influx of new investors amid a surge of interest from around the world. It seemed like it was easier than ever for investors to make life-changing returns in a matter of months by simply picking the right new NFT project or coin IPO. Then, reality kicked back in and things started looking a little less rosy.

After record government spending to prop up the U.S. economy during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation began to bite, and the Fed hiked up interest rates in response (via CNBC). With that, access to easy credit was gone for cash-hungry companies, just as consumers were looking to rein in their spending and stock prices were beginning to correct to more logical levels. This, inevitably, led to staggering losses for some of tech's biggest unicorns that, just a year or two prior, were considered almost untouchable.

Of course, not every big tech failure this year has been caused by external economic factors. The recent collapse of some of cryptocurrency's biggest players has had a knock-on effect in the sector, as many exchanges and funds turned out to be more closely connected to one another than consumers thought. As the year draws to a close, here's a quick roundup of some of the biggest flops and failures the industry's seen throughout 2022.

Just three years after it was first launched, Google announced that it was shutting down its Stadia cloud game service in September 2022. The reason why was simple: In Google's own words, it never "gained the traction with users that we expected." As good as the streaming technology might have been, Stadia's failure to catch on with a wider audience meant that it simply wasn't sustainable to carry on running it at a loss. The decision to ax the service seemed to be very sudden and caught even game devs by surprise. One developer even said they'd finalized a deal to bring one of their games to the platform just a day before the announcement.

Stadia will survive through the rest of 2022, closing down for good on January 18th, 2023. Google confirmed that players who had bought Stadia hardware would be refunded, alongside anyone who bought games through the platform's official store. While the service itself won't live past the new year, the company claimed plenty of the technology behind Stadia will be reused in other parts of its tech empire, including in its augmented reality developments. As a result, most of the Stadia development staff will be redeployed to other divisions rather than losing their jobs. It's a shame to see an upstart gaming platform shut its doors just a few short years after it launched, but at least it sounds like the project wasn't a total write-off for Google or its employees.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has remained steadfast in his vision of developing the metaverse, even renaming his company "Meta" to reflect this shift of focus. However, investors and the public at large have remained considerably less enthusiastic about the project, which aims to develop a virtual environment where users can work, meet, and take part in a variety of activities and games. Since unveiling his vision, the stock price of Zuckerberg's company has taken a beating, and at the time of writing, is down 65% year-to-date.

Meta's flagship Horizon Worlds platform is reportedly struggling to keep users interested, with the company having to lower its user targets to reflect a lower-than-expected retention rate, according to leaked documents. As of October 2022, Horizon Worlds reportedly had 200,000 monthly users, a tiny fraction of the biggest "metaverse" platform. By comparison, the child-friendly "Roblox" boasts over 200 million monthly users (via PocketGamer). Meta has denied rumors that its founder and CEO is quitting in 2023 amid increasing investor pressure, but it appears Zuckerberg is well aware of the criticism of his vision. After laying off around 13% of its workforce at the start of December, forums and job boards were flooded with critical reviews of the CEO, with one ex-employee saying his metaverse vision will "single-handedly kill" the company.

At the start of July 2022, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) filed for bankruptcy after a series of bad investments led to huge losses for the company. The fund defaulted on a large loan from brokerage platform Voyager, which in turn, led to Voyager declaring bankruptcy just a week later (via The Verge). In a press release announcing the bankruptcy, Voyager declared that it had $1.3 billion of crypto assets held on the platform, but its exposure to 3AC totaled more than $650 million.

Under the proposed restructuring plan, customers who had deposited funds into the platform would receive "a combination of the crypto in their account(s), proceeds from the 3AC recovery, common shares in the newly reorganized Company, and Voyager tokens." An auction for the assets of the bankrupt brokerage was completed in September with FTX being the highest bidder. However, after FTX's bankruptcy filing in November, Voyager's assets are now up for sale again, with Binance among the leading bidders (via CoinDesk). As a result of this ongoing auction process, users of the Voyager platform have been left in the lurch for months, unable to access or recover their funds.

Apple is one of the few tech titans dodging the industry slowdown, posting consistently strong profits even as rivals are seeing their margins decrease. It's not all going well for the Cupertino manufacturer though, as Bloomberg recently reported that Apple's long-awaited self-driving car may not actually be self-driving at all. Instead, insiders have said that it will have autonomous capabilities on the highway only, and still require a human to be ready to intervene at all times. In other words, it seems like Apple's system won't be able to do anything that rival systems from the likes of Tesla and GM can't already do.

As well as scaling back the plans for its self-driving car, Apple has also pushed back its expected release date, with Bloomberg reporting that it won't be ready until 2026 at the earliest. The company is reportedly targeting an MSRP under $100,000, which would pit the car directly against more established rivals from Tesla, BMW, and co. At present, it's unclear exactly what unique features the Apple car will bring to the table. It will need to bring something unique, as even Apple's considerable brand power likely won't be enough to drag many consumers away from other manufacturers on its own. Considering the company has been working on the project for at least a decade now, it doesn't seem to have a lot to show for it.

Peloton's rise seemed unstoppable in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, as cooped-up consumers looked for ways to exercise at home. Sales surged, and so did the company's stock price, but the boom didn't last long. After a disappointing drop in sales in 2021, Peloton's stock plunged 76%, and across 2022, it has shown no signs of stopping its downward trend. According to MSN, the biggest issue is that investors don't trust Peloton's new CEO, Brian McCarthy. His decision to begin selling bikes on Amazon and at Dick's Sporting Goods doesn't seem to have stimulated sales like he had hoped it would, and in the last quarter, revenue dropped a further 23%.

Peloton made a loss of $409 million in that period according to MSN, and with sales showing little sign of rebounding, it's not clear how the company plans to turn a profit in the future. Even CEO McCarthy has reportedly told investors that sales across the holiday season might not be as high as some were hoping for, setting off alarm bells and sending the stock down even further. Peloton was at one point one of the leaders spearheading the home fitness tech revolution, but if it keeps going on its current trajectory, it seems the entire company may soon be consigned to the history books.