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>Is anyone interested? Honestly, I feel like you could position such a project as "Deconstructing Facebook's business models one step at a time: The corporatio

by na85 6y ago

>Is anyone interested? Honestly, I feel like you could position such a project as "Deconstructing Facebook's business models one step at a time: The corporation" and hire a lot of anarcho-hacker types while positioning the company as a social-good venture. I personally would love to get paid to gradually undercut and destroy facebook. I worry that 2 things would happen: 1. The company would become what it set out to destroy (evil) 2. Anarchist hackers are passionate but you'd have a hard time getting funding from any of the big reputable players. Still, that would be an awesome company.

someperson 6y ago
Open-firmware has had a long history, with varied degrees of success. From RockBox for the iPod to the ReactOS open re-implementation of Windows. I think now is different. I think crowd-funding has changed the economics of such projects from a few passionate hackers working in their spare time to now being able to fund people working on such a project full-time. There's probably tens of thousands of users willing to pledge $100 into escrow on a Kickstarter-like service, paying out when somebody to creates an open Oculus Quest firmware capable of 6 degrees of freedom using inside-out tracking. This funding model and skillsets are suprisingly close to what's required to provide Android security updates to older phones and tablets, so there's a broader business to be built. Many of those users are probably willing to pay a few dollars a month so such software gets continued to be developed.
- na85 6y ago
  Maybe, but I think the market for a Facebook-free Oculus is smaller than one might think. Your average xbox dudebro probably uses instagram quite prolifically and isn't in the "protect my privacy" camp.
- matty22 6y ago
  I would 100% Kickstart a Quest-like (wireless, 6DOF, inside-out tracking) competitor that isn't wrapped up in surveillance capitalism.
- Ruthalas 6y ago
  I for one, would support that patreon!
jyrkesh 6y ago
Whenever you talk about startups with people outside the HN-like crowd, they always ask you about "your ideas", particularly if you assume you have all the funding lined up no problem. My go-to response is always "put Facebook out of business". I've been thinking about it for probably 10 years, I still have no idea what that means, but your post here got me a little stoked it could be possible
- cubano 6y ago
  It's unclear how creating a what-sounds-like a rather expensive open source VR system could possibly put Facebook "out of business", considering probably 99 out of 100 people have no idea FB even owns Oculus. Also, FB's core business is ads sold to businesses trying to reach users doing social networking stuff...how does this even touch that revenue? At this point, I don't think FB will ever be put out of business given how old their core user base is, knowing that older people loath tech changes.

by na85 6y ago

someperson 6y ago

Open-firmware has had a long history, with varied degrees of success. From RockBox for the iPod to the ReactOS open re-implementation of Windows. I think now is different. I think crowd-funding has changed the economics of such projects from a few passionate hackers working in their spare time to now being able to fund people working on such a project full-time. There's probably tens of thousands of users willing to pledge $100 into escrow on a Kickstarter-like service, paying out when somebody to creates an open Oculus Quest firmware capable of 6 degrees of freedom using inside-out tracking. This funding model and skillsets are suprisingly close to what's required to provide Android security updates to older phones and tablets, so there's a broader business to be built. Many of those users are probably willing to pay a few dollars a month so such software gets continued to be developed.

na85 6y ago
Maybe, but I think the market for a Facebook-free Oculus is smaller than one might think. Your average xbox dudebro probably uses instagram quite prolifically and isn't in the "protect my privacy" camp.
matty22 6y ago
I would 100% Kickstart a Quest-like (wireless, 6DOF, inside-out tracking) competitor that isn't wrapped up in surveillance capitalism.
Ruthalas 6y ago
I for one, would support that patreon!

jyrkesh 6y ago

Whenever you talk about startups with people outside the HN-like crowd, they always ask you about "your ideas", particularly if you assume you have all the funding lined up no problem. My go-to response is always "put Facebook out of business". I've been thinking about it for probably 10 years, I still have no idea what that means, but your post here got me a little stoked it could be possible

cubano 6y ago
It's unclear how creating a what-sounds-like a rather expensive open source VR system could possibly put Facebook "out of business", considering probably 99 out of 100 people have no idea FB even owns Oculus. Also, FB's core business is ads sold to businesses trying to reach users doing social networking stuff...how does this even touch that revenue? At this point, I don't think FB will ever be put out of business given how old their core user base is, knowing that older people loath tech changes.