Comment by everforward
1 day ago
I think this is sane washing their idea in the modern context of it having failed. I think at the time, they thought VR would be the next big thing and wanted to become the dominant player via first mover advantage.
The headsets don’t really make sense to me in the way you’re describing. Phones are omnipresent because it’s a thing you always just have on you. Headsets are large enough that it’s a conscious choice to bring it; they’re closer to a laptop than a phone.
Also, the web interface is like right there staring at them. Any device with a browser can access Facebook like that. Google/Apple/Microsoft can’t mess with that much without causing a huge scene and probably massive antitrust backlash.
I think headsets might work, but I think Meta trying to use their first mover advantage so hard so early backfired. Oculus, as a device, became less desirable after it required Facebook integration.
It's kind of like Microsoft with copilot - the idea about having an AI assistant that can help you use the computer is great. But it can't be from Microsoft because people don't trust them with that.
Interaction feels like the issue with headsets. You either need a fair bit of space for gesture controls, or you have to talk to yourself for voice control.
I think VR has more niche uses than the craze implied. It’s got some cool games, virtual screens for a desktop could be cool someday, but I don’t see a near future where they replace phones.
People are discounting the fact the almost no one wants a contraption on their head for an extended period of time. It is a universal preference
Until VR is done via glasses or some wire you stick in your neck matrix style, it will never take off
1 reply →
> the web interface is like right there staring at them.
True but the an app gives Facebook much more user data for targeting which dramatically increases revenue per ad. Persistent user data that's largely unconstrained by privacy safeguards is the holy grail. The mobile browsers are also controlled by Apple and Google, so despite the web being 'open', when one of them makes even minor changes to increase browser privacy defaults, it can have major impact on Facebook's revenue.
It’s premature to say that the idea failed; The flashy controversial “metaverse” angle where you can live your whole life on the Quest or whatever isn’t happening, but their investment into AR/VR has definitely started to show real payoff potential with their glasses.
They address the friction of use issue being discussed, they’re even more discrete and available than a phone. And they are getting a lot of general public recognition, albeit not for the best reasons (people discretely filming, for genuine social media reactions but also for other reasons..).
Their tech is improving at a decent pace and they’ve recently put out a product that is both ready for consumer (at least with select use cases) adoption, and actually reasonably available to the public.
I don’t mean that VR failed entirely, just that the metaverse as a concept is basically dead. VR will live on in the niches where it makes sense.
If you’re talking about the Meta Ray Ban glasses, I wouldn’t really call that a successor. There’s no AR or VR to them that I can tell; just glasses with speakers, a mic and a camera. It’s a neat product, but not a platform in the way VR was meant to be. They also have real competition. I do actually own a pair of the Bose headphone sunglasses, which are practically the same product without a camera (which I’m sure they could add if they wanted). Unless people suddenly care about the Meta AI integration, and again; Bose or someone else could add a phone companion app.
I was taking your comment to mean that the metaverse movement (as in the rebranding to Meta etc., rather than the specific concept itself) is dead, which apparently you did not mean so that’s on me.
They have two current Meta Ray Ban options, the “Gen 2” and the “Display”, the latter of which does have an AR component.
As someone who was there: nope. This isn't sanewashing.
Apple was directly (and IMO arguably illegally) shutting down Facebook teams and products by playing app store chicken on refusing to allow Facebook to publish updates on a week-to-week basis. Literally would throw down and refuse unless some features were blocked. It came to a head where Zuck literally called Tim Cook during a keynote to push it through.
They also literally had reverse-engineering teams cracking open the Facebook app on a regular basis, which we discovered because of some internal methods we figured out how to invoke with some clever indirection. There was a chicken-and-egg problem and they eventually developed facilities to automatically instrument private method invocations to comprehensively defeat clever static analysis circumvention workarounds.
Also, VR hasn't failed, but it's gone silent and coasted when investing in VR growth took the backseat to investing AI. They made a couple of bad bets in VR but a lot of good ones so it was warranted, but not exactly a failure.
> we discovered because of some internal methods we figured out how to invoke with some clever indirection.
Apple trying to block Facebook is different than Apple trying to prevent Facebook from violating App Store standards. There was a time where the Facebook app was practically malware with all the tricks it tried to pull to Hoover up data.
I don’t know in what world I would describe Metas VR as anything but a failure. There was a brief period where I knew a few people with Quests. Most used them for the novelty and dropped them, a few played games on them, and I don’t know anyone that still owns one. I’m deep in the gaming community and haven’t heard anyone mention a Quest in years. Steam VR is almost equally quiet other than occasional nostalgia.