The company formerly known as Facebook delivered quarterly results that beat estimates on Wednesday. Meta also guided ahead of the Street.

That was the good news. The (potential) bad news was a higher range for the company’s full-year expense guidance, and hints at higher costs in 2024.

Mark Zuckerberg made cost-cutting a priority after a combination of slowing top-line growth and red ink in the division responsible for executing his metaverse vision, prompted a dramatic selloff in the shares last year. The stock subsequently rebounded in equally dramatic fashion.

Zuckerberg promised a “year of efficiency” for Meta, which meant, among other things, thousands of job cuts. On Wednesday, the company said full-year expenses will likely be $88 billion to $91 billion, up from $86 billion to $90 billion. The release cited “legal-related expenses” as well as $4 billion of restructuring costs tied to consolidation and severance payments.

Meta plans ongoing investments in the metaverse. I guess we just need to get over that. It is “Meta” now, after all. The Q2 operating loss in Reality Labs was $3.74 billion, slightly more than expected.

“We expect operating losses to increase meaningfully YoY due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and investments to further scale our ecosystem,” the company said, of the outlook for the division.

I don’t have much constructive to say about that. I’ll politely keep the metaverse derision to myself. For this quarter, anyway.

Overall top-line growth re-accelerated. Revenue of $31.99 billion was up 11% YoY, outstripping the increase in costs and beating estimates. Better still, the company expects $32 billion to $34.5 billion in revenue this quarter. That should please at least some investors. The Street wanted $31.2 billion, so Meta is ahead of that at the low-end of the range.

“We had a good quarter,” Zuckerberg said, touting “strong engagement” across apps and “the most exciting roadmap” Mark has seen “in a while.” He mentioned Threads, and also “new A.I. products in the pipeline.”

With the exception of Reality Labs, Meta beat pretty much across the board. Q2 Facebook monthly active users were 3.03 billion (versus 3 billion expected), daily active users were 2.06 billion (versus 2.03 billion expected), operating income was in line and EPS of $2.98 was fine (the Street wanted $2.92 there).

If there was anything to complain about, it was the expense outlook. The company flagged “a few factors” that it expects to drive cost growth next year as Meta “continue[s] to invest in compelling opportunities, including A.I. and the metaverse.”

Specifically, the company sees “higher infrastructure-related costs” going forward and “growth in payroll expenses” tied to the “evolution” of Meta’s “workforce composition toward higher-cost technical roles.” I suppose the bright side there is that the more Meta invests in A.I. development now, the quicker the company can “evolve” towards a wholly autonomous future where the apps run themselves with no paid human input.