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Facebook account banned after linking Oculus account

895 points by warp 6y ago

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
It seems to me that the U.S. is ripe for an updating of its consumer protection laws. Particularly w.r.t. shrink-wrap license and other attempts to impose unwelcome terms that the buyer didn't know about at the time of the sale. I imagine our existing consumer-protection laws were passed over the opposition of monied interests. If so, I wonder how close we are to having the political will do to do that again.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  At a minimum, a "ban" of the Oculus account should also include an immediate refund of any and all purchases. It's absolutely ridiculously to think they can just keep all that money while depriving a customer of software licenses they paid for!
  - swalsh 6y ago
    Not even that is good enough, a ban on an account should have a VERY high bar, and that bar needs to be highly regulated. Right now it's just games, maybe movies, but it could apply to all kinds of software and apps... and this stuff is important. You can't cut a person off from being able to purchase and use their puchased software. It's too important.
    - bleepblorp 6y ago
      Arbitrary account bans already impact more substantive business services. It's not that rare to read of situations where small businesses have had their Amazon stores, Gsuite, Google Ads, or Google Store (publisher) accounts arbitrarily banned with no recourse.
  - dtech 6y ago
    heck I don't understand why Facebook doesn't exclude accounts linked to a headset from bot bans, max 1 per headset of course. If fake new Facebook accounts are worth $400+ to bad actors we are in bad shape.
  - zmmmmm 6y ago
    Indeed, and it would force Facebook have some skin in the game because banning would cost them real money. I'm betting once each ban starts to cost them hundreds of $ they will start to at least put some human eyes in front of it before the ban hammer comes down.
- scudd 6y ago
  I agree, and I think there's kind of an elephant in the room with respect to all Terms of Service Agreements. Anybody with a mobile phone (as well as a plethora of other products) has inevitably agreed to dozens of pages of legal doctrine which they don't understand, any probably wouldn't without a competent lawyer on hand. But nevertheless, every minor service update, we all hit "I Accept", despite having no understanding of what we've agreed to. Is this not massively problematic? What happens if a company actually tries to draw significant action against consumers using the terms of service as their contract?
- abawany 6y ago
  My guess re. 'how close': approximately 48 quintillion light years away. The US has been corporatist for a long while and is blatantly so since Citizens United - the idea that a consumer protection law would pass in this environment is as 'possible' as the world taking climate change seriously at any point before we are all boiled alive.
pyrophane 6y ago
Seriously, stay away from Oculus. I know they currently have the most versatile/best value headset in the Quest 2, but needing to have a FB account linked to it should be a deal-breaker for anyone who doesn't already have an active FB account (and perhaps even those who do). It isn't just an auth system shared by multiple products. It's Facebook, and the ban-hammer can come down swiftly, especially if, like the author, you are just creating an account to link to your Quest. I'm also not confident, as of right now, that FB is gonna fix this in a meaningful way.
- agd 6y ago
  Yep, the way we fix this is to avoid Occulus products for now.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Can’t this user return the item as defective? You paid for a VR headset and it doesn’t perform its primary function.
    - numpad0 6y ago
      but you existed and broke our ToS in the first place! /s
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Yes, and if you have trouble getting a refund for your defective device, there’s a bunch of state attorneys general who are interested in anything Facebook right now.
    - returningfory2 6y ago
      Also if you buy it on a credit card, the CC company is usually your friend.
      - MrApathy 6y ago
        But the issue is that in having his account terminated, he's also losing access to all historical purchases made over the years. The CC company may be willing to accept a charge-back on recent purchases, but what about the application/game purchased four years ago that's tied to the account. It's no longer accessible, but is the CC willing to refund for a purchase made that far back? I honestly don't know, but if I had to guess it would be no.
trident1000 6y ago
VR sucks. The end. See you in 5-10 years when its practical and enjoyable.
- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  I've enjoyed Alyx a lot.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I agree. It's still a gimmick. It's like the WII basically. Hardcore types chant it's praises and families love to play it for a party game once a year. Other than that, it collects dust compared to your other better mediums that exist.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    Eh, gimmick for some, sure. For others it's a whole new world that they won't leave. For example, got an Oculus for the gimmick and didn't think I'd be so attached to it, but I cannot go back to playing any flight or racing simulator without it again, it's simply not the same. I tried the new FS2020 briefly on launch, but had to go back to X-Plane as FS2020 still doesn't support VR headsets.
    - rboyd 6y ago
      so does x-plane work today on quest 2?
      - capableweb 6y ago
        Probably not, Quest 2 is basically running mobile hardware right? X-Plane is a fully fledged flight simulator that barely runs on a powerful desktop PC on highest settings. I'm using a Oculus Rift currently.
        rboyd 6y ago
        My understanding is Quest 2 can run Rift games using the optional link cable. But I'm not sure if that means it will take advantage of higher resolution on Quest 2 or whether X-Plane devs have to do something new.
throwaways885 6y ago
Facebook bans accounts fairly regularly for hate speech, which pretty much means whatever they want. It seems ludicrous to me that an edgy teenager can have their headset bricked because they posted some spicy political memes.
- Fabricio20 6y ago
  If only the reason was hate speech! This also happened to me, had an account 5 years ago, stopped using it, deleted the account on their website. Last week decided to create it again to prepare to eventually link to Oculus.. Instantly banned. Literally on the "Confirm Your Email" page got redirected to violated the community guidelines. And I'm not even from the US..
  - fragmede 6y ago
    > And I'm not even from the US.. Accessing Facebook from outside the US is likely, through a combination of bad signals, why you tripped the ban hammer. Unfortunately.
    - barrkel 6y ago
      The majority of Facebook users access it from outside the US.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        That doesn’t preclude them from using it as one factor in their abuse detection models. Whether it’s a good idea or not, geolocation is a common factor that these models take into account.
    - Fabricio20 6y ago
      I think it's good to add to the discussion here for other HN readers that the reason I mentioned it was that some people are suggesting this is a measure put in-place by facebook to reduce election interference (as it's happening right now in the US). That may be the case, it may also not be since everyone (doesn't matter where from) seems to be getting banned alike.
qwerty456127 6y ago
Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed. As well as the "We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" bullshit. For every ban they should be required to issue a very specific clarification on why exactly were you banned and let you to speak to a real person.
- caymanjim 6y ago
  Or maybe just don't buy or use products and services like this?
  - qwerty456127 6y ago
    Many people still will buy. There is a reason we use representative democracy rather than direct democracy - qualified people should outlaw some bad things the crowd can't resist itself.
    - ezconnect 6y ago
      Oculus is a niche product, it will be forgotten in a few years just like 3D TVs. Facebook knows it and it would not spend a dime on good customer service, they will just implement something good enough.
  - badRNG 6y ago
    Folks often overestimate the power consumers have in meaningfully shaping a market. Consumer protections are rarely gained by simply refusing to do business with market leaders who behave in consumer hostile ways. Regulation really seems to be our best shot at reversing course on what is nothing short of the theft of digital goods from consumers.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    Except that one day you suddenly have employers that require you to personally own this hardware, or government portals, and then what? Oh, your driver's license is only available as an app for a device you just got permabanned from. I guess you're not a citizen anymore. My health care provider is now asking users to move away from physical credentials to use an app. I am livid.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
m1117 6y ago
This seems to be an algorithmic implementation of cancel culture. Due to human nature, it can't be not buggy.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  Seems most likely that they're trying to flag "suspicious" account creations in the run-up to the US election, and that the left hand that implemented this algorithm didn't speak to the right hand that was launching a new product that required an FB account.
draw_down 6y ago
The only way this set of rules should be legal is if Facebook is required to refund the money for the headset if they decide to ban you.
Justsignedup 6y ago
So another example of "if this gets big, suddenly facebook will care, and it'll become quiet." Staying away from anything facebook related.
howlgarnish 6y ago
Insightful comment from the thread: Yeah, I think part of the problem is that Facebook has never had an actual product which people pay for and expect to work. Their whole culture and set of priorities are counter to this.
- aluminussoma 6y ago
  Unfortunately I get the impression that this is how you get proper support from Facebook or Google. Make a Reddit or Hacker News post, get a few upvotes, and someone with influence inside the company files an "Oops Help My Friend" support ticket or contacts another person with the right authority to take a look.
  - jansan 6y ago
    Unfortunately for each of these cases going public there will be about a hundred poor souls being unnoticed.
  - xkcd-sucks 6y ago
    In the Catholic theology, there's a concept of Saints, who are basically humans that intercede with God on the behalf of ordinary mortals. People will sometimes address prayers to saints in the hope that the prayer will be more effective. Probably similar in other religions too but I'm pulling from memories of catholic school
    - krick 6y ago
      This is ridiculously accurate and totally makes sense.
      - scsilver 6y ago
        The 21st century is making me rethink how atheist I truely am. I think by following the moral code of face masks and social distancing, I will spare my family from plague and those who scoff at these codes will get smited. I put my faith and security into these big corps that don't even have an corporeal existance, and work with us through intermediaries like Amazon through ups and Microsoft through gamestop, Google doesnt even have a customer service branch and I had no way but to dig up my old school email in order to prove to them I am who I say I am. I tithe to the market, my funding of corps will pay back in future wealth. I perform rituals with my team chanting a praying that azure will stop acting wonky. God help us all .
madsbuch 6y ago
Alright, so he bought it 4 years ago. Bu in the EU you have 2 years to start an RMA if a product is not working as expected under normal use. I reckon one would be able to turn it in to their retailer to get a new Oculus.
- rlpb 6y ago
  I believe this is an urban myth. Can you cite the appropriate EU regulation or directive that makes this true? If a directive what about the implementation in the UK? https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds for example says (from a seller's point of view) that "Customers have up to 6 years to make a claim for an item they’ve bought from you (5 years in Scotland)." However I see no reason that you couldn't sue the manufacturer if they arrange to break your product even after six years. That would be a tort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort) and unrelated to your rights under your contract of sale.
  - madsbuch 6y ago
    I am referring this: https://europa.eu/youreuright/your-rights_en#node-5 https://europa.eu/youreuright/your-rights_en#node-5 I am not sure about the UK and how they implement the directives. But in Denmark it is most definitely not an urban myth.
synaesthesisx 6y ago
Facebook is easily the worst company in big tech, with zero regard whatsoever for privacy or consumers. I can no longer support Oculus since it requires FB authentication. I recommend creating a separate account if you have no other options.
djsumdog 6y ago
I bought a Go years ago and recently I got a screen locking the entire device until I logged into Oculus. I selected the option to not connect my Facebook account, but continue to use my Oculus account. There was a sunset date on this option. I've never bought anything from the Oculus store. I honestly only use VR for Skybox and movies I download to a file server. Are there any alternative OSes for the GO? Honestly I'd rather just get off the stock OS if I just had a way to play my movies.
hunterloftis 6y ago
I'm very excited about VR. I bought the GearVR, then the first Oculus Rift, and most recently the Quest 1. Now, instead of buying the Quest 2 (which is unquestionably the best-value headset available today) I'm waiting for a competitor to enter the space. Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform. If you decide to leave that platform, or if that platform decides you aren't providing enough invasive information about yourself and decides to leave you, you've got an expensive paperweight. No warning or recourse. No thank you.
- pcdoodle 6y ago
  good for you. Vote with your wallet.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform. We are rapidly heading towards this future and SV devs are decrying it on HN while helping implement it in the background to pad their wallets.
  - tolbish 6y ago
    The devs working on this are generally not the devs who are decrying the harmful effects. In reality, when you work on such projects you tend to isolate yourself from criticism.
    - idrios 6y ago
      Or, quite possibly, they have no other choice. Some devs have the freedom to walk away from a job that they find morally detestable. But many can't refuse or leave because they're under contract and can't afford the break-contract fee, or they're visa holders whose visa is tied to their employment, or they have a family to take care of and can't afford the time spent job searching. It's unfortunately not hard these days for any sufficiently funded business to find developers for morally questionable or outright unethical business models
jansan 6y ago
Don't worry, you will get bored with your Oculus Quest after a month anyways. Me and my kids were using our Oculus a lot at the beginning, having great fun. Now it just sits there, although we could use it any time and even have a few great games on it. Anyways, this has nothing to do with your issue. Facebook should be ashamed for treating paying customers like this.
grezql 6y ago
Oculus rift is Westworld for facebook
lacker 6y ago
I don't get it. He contacted Oculus support, Oculus support asked if he had followed these 4 steps for reactivating his account, and then... what? At that point gave up and posted on Reddit to complain? Yeah, this sucks. But mistaken account deactivations probably happen a lot - how to handle them is one of the FAQ questions on Oculus. It happened to me with my PlayStation 4 account too; someone in Germany mistakenly signed up using my email address somehow and in the resulting confusion I got locked out of my PlayStation games for a bit. It sucks but support will eventually fix it.
bransonf 6y ago
I tried to do the math on the Quest 2 hardware, and they definitely cut corners to bring the cost down, but not to the point where I think they have an attractive margin. (On the $300 headset, but the accessories/storage increase definitely have a decent margin). They’ll also get some margin on software sales presumably. That’s important because I believe the revenue generating model is entirely from data. Even if I’m wrong, it’s Facebook, so we know they’re after data for profit. And consider the kind of data that VR is capable of collecting. It’s biometric data at its core. If you take the data involved in VR, tie it to a person under the real-name policy, and give it to some crafty software engineers, you can get some crazy intimate results.
- dwhit 6y ago
  I would think the margin comes from their cut of software sales. Seems to work well for Apple.
- wvenable 6y ago
  The headset is the razor and the games are the blades.
wildpeaks 6y ago
As much as I love VR (I even backed the Oculus kickstarter at the time), I can't justify spending money developing for a system that can brick the devices of my users on a whim. They shot themselves in the foot by having this FB account requirement.
kozak 6y ago
I got so excited by the news about Quest 2, I was certain would by it, until I learned that "Quest headsets best accommodate IPDs between 56 and 70 mm, or about 95% of adults". My IPD is 74 - no luck this time.
protoster 6y ago
I feel incredible dissonance about John Carmack working for Oculus and by extension, Facebook. Especially when things like this come to light.
- protoster 6y ago
  I tried to look for some kind of statement from him, I found this verge article from 2014 https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/30/5563440/john-carmack-facebook-oculus-rift-purchase-comments https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/30/5563440/john-carmack-face... Much of the backlash regarding the acquisition has centered on Facebook's business model — data mining and advertising. This isn't a concern for Carmack, who says he "just can't get very worked up about it ." While he appreciates the need for privacy, "the idea that companies are supposed to interact with you and not pay attention has never seemed sane to me ... I rather like the recommendations that Amazon gives me on each visit. Educate me. What terrible outcome is expected from this?" So actually he was fine with this from the start? And while he is moving on to AI and whatnot, he is still currently employed by Oculus, which leads me to believe this is his stance today. I don't know how to feel about it. Even if you look past the privacy issues, he has engineered a product with hardware DRM! It just a shit product.
  - donmcronald 6y ago
    It’s VIP tunnel vision. Rich people with celebrity status never suffer the negative effects of those systems. In fact, it actually benefits them because the system knows they’re rich and actively favours them because they’re considered more valuable than the rest of us. Of course he doesn’t get worked up because if his assistant calls for support on anything they get routed to the VIP support system and a team of people spring into action to solve the problem for him. People like Carmack don’t have to use the shitty systems they’re building, so they don’t care. He’s just another rich asshole IMO.
    - Scaevolus 6y ago
      Recent supporting evidence: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1315504658186678273 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1315504658186678273
swalsh 6y ago
The idea that I could have an account with hundreds of games I purchased be taken away from me without reason, or without recourse is absurd. Facebook, or really anything holding licensed content needs to be regulated.
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  On a related note, Steam has been getting away with this for well over a decade.
  - asymptotically3 6y ago
    If you get banned from the Steam community for spamming/harassing/being awful your game library is still there. Even if you get banned for cheating in a game, you only lose access to that game and not the rest of your library.
    - hnick 6y ago
      I lost full access to my account when a friend gifted me a CD key he bought from someone on Ebay. I think it was originally bought with a stolen credit card, so a chargeback was issued, which then meant my whole account was locked out. Support did restore it, eventually. I got the impression it was a one time mercy. This was back in 2010 so their policies may have changed. "This account has been disabled as a gift subscription that you recently accepted in your account has been reported as fraudulent. The subscription has been removed. We will make an exception in your case and reactivate the account at this time. Please refrain from accepting Steam gifts from unknown sources in the future." Putting risk on buyers of "stolen goods" is normal, so I wasn't upset at Steam for that part. But having the entire account impacted is another story.
  - smileybarry 6y ago
    As @asymptotically3 said, community banning doesn't take away your games, and in-game banning only blocks you from that specific game's multiplayer. In the past you could risk account suspension if you chargebacked purchases or redeemed stolen keys, but even that got changed years ago to just remove the specific game/license from your account instead. Only large-scale fraud would get you banned, and even then I doubt they would disable your account entirely and not just disable future purchasing.
jayd16 6y ago
Are there any alternative OS options brewing? Its mostly just an Android device. It can't be that hard to root.
- RobertLong 6y ago
  I hope someone roots it. I'm offering a $5k bounty https://twitter.com/arobertlong/status/1316177057085177857 https://twitter.com/arobertlong/status/1316177057085177857
epaga 6y ago
I too have the Quest 1, absolutely love it, and would have immediately purchased the Quest 2 if FB had not gone back on their explicit promise to never require an FB account. Someone PLEASE make a privacy-first (i.e. "NORMAL") headset with similar specs to the Quest 2 - you can charge more for all I care.
- Fabricio20 6y ago
  Better yet.. SideQuest?! (Just got funding) please remove the login requirement as a mod.. or make another OS for it (like Lineage). This would work really well for SideQuest, since that would give them greater control over new features they can ship.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    IIRC, FB is adding new restrictions in 2021 to decrease competition from sidequest/sideloading in general
b-etran 6y ago
It seems like unfortunate timing - Facebook's cracking down on fake accounts before the election right as the Quest 2 launches. I'd guess that a lot of the people signing up for Facebook just for the Quest don't follow the same patterns as a typical user, so the algorithm flags them and removes them. I'm sure they'll get reinstated once Facebook manually reviews, but it's definitely a major annoyance. Sidenote, I got my quest 2 yesterday and from a hardware standpoint, it's blown me away coming from PSVR. Too bad the Facebook nonsense keeps it from being a must have product.
- vmception 6y ago
  > It seems like unfortunate timing - Facebook's cracking down on fake accounts before the election right as the Quest 2 launches. No, this isn't new, more people are just seeing it now since they just expanded the market of users. It has been like this for years: If you go out of your way to create an account disconnected from a social graph so that it doesn't creepily alert people that would have saved your number/email and uploaded all their contacts in the past, Facebook will ban the account within 10 minutes. Somebody's inevitable rebuttal: "Yeah but my grandma just made an account and didn't get banned" Okay, good for you. The described reality here is also valid. To make it not ban the account you can upload a contact photo and try to friend request multiple people in a social graph. The time limit is very short and you will otherwise very quickly get instabanned or stuck in a security verification loop where the verification never comes. This is just creepy Facebook behavior for their data mining operation, now masquaraded as "ensuring quality of accounts". This is the same behavior as when they use insecure SMS one time passwords instead of client side code generation, and then use that phone number to add it to the social graph. Their behavior is very consistent and there is no one individual there responsible for it and even understands the use case. In this case, this is just another byproduct of Facebook employees living in the warped reality where everyone loves the Facebook product and has it. They honestly believe it there and you should see how confused and affronted they will act when you tell them you don't have an account. This is just a byproduct of that sentiment.
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    This description makes alot of sense and further convinces me that Facebook especially needs some steep regulation to curb that behavior... or disappear.
varispeed 6y ago
I think this business model where someone buying purchasing a physical product must register their data with manufacturer or 3rd party service and be constantly online should be made illegal. There is no business need for this apart from spying on people and gathering data to improve manipulation of messages to trick people into buying more into the manufacturer ecosystem. We need to stop this.
- kritiko 6y ago
  What could you do with a Google Home or Amazon Echo without connectivity? The physical product is premised on being able to search the web and stream music.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    It should have self-hosted voice recognition software and be able plug to your own music collection on your NAS. If you wanted features like weather forecast, then these should be opt in and only send anonymous data related to weather forecast request. It should be illegal to use even those anonymised requests to do commercial research without paying the customer.
    - disqard 6y ago
      Your comment echoes one aspect of the article discussed here recently (authored by Jaron Lanier and Glen Weyl), arguing that "AI is an Ideology, Not a Technology": people should be compensated for generating data used to train models. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24753664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24753664
- superkuh 6y ago
  So you think if someone is selling a physical product and they require registration that it's reasonable to force them to stop requiring it with the threat of physical violence from the government? I just don't see how that is justified. The seller isn't defrauding anyone and isn't using violence themselves. It's so much more easy and ethical to just not buy the product. All you can do is take personal responsibility. Calling for violent coercion like you've done is wrong.
eecc 6y ago
Pardon my ignorance, what did he do wrong to provoke the ban-hammer? Is is prohibited to mix products across Facebook properties?
- asddubs 6y ago
  facebook doesn't like shell/side accounts without anything on them
ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
I bought an oculus go for my son 2 Christmases ago - he has no Facebook, I have no Facebook - what to do what to do
- roberto 6y ago
  Sign up to Facebook? Just don't use the account for anything else.
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    Most of the people on reddit reporting bans are saying that they made a FB account that they don't actively use. That seems to make the bans more likely. The best way to prevent them is to use your FB account for organic activities
    - bserge 6y ago
      I have a few fakebook accounts and they're active even though I rarely log in to them. They're completely empty and have obviously fake names. Maybe they ban them if you try to buy something (because the name doesn't match or something)? Which would be a ridiculous thing to do, but hey, I've seen worse...
      - smileybarry 6y ago
        How recent are those accounts? AFAIK aggressive empty account banning started a relatively short time ago.
        bserge 6y ago
        They're 5-6 years old, so I guess they might've slipped under the radar. But wouldn't they do a check when you first link your Oculus or some other app? Regardless, I just don't see any use for Facebook besides messaging. Sad that Oculus headsets require FB accounts. I believe that with heavy handed actions like this, Facebook will alienate Oculus buyers, which aren't your typical Facebook user. I hope that will make them change their approach. Personally, I couldn't care less about customized ads and "relevant" notifications. But getting your account banned, with all the contacts on it, and all the purchases, is just so anti-customer I don't understand who in their right mind would do it.
submeta 6y ago
Facebook is evil, plain and simple. They hurt societies, democracies, and individuals alike. Nothing good there. Fuck Facebook! They need to vanish, hopefully soon.
- krick 6y ago
  Yeah... People act upset because they spend money on a product they cannot use. It's not for me to discuss if it's even legal, but if it is, then the only thing to discuss is if it's fair, which is a philosophical question. I, on the other hand, wouldn't buy this stuff anyway, I don't want to do anything with Facebook, I don't want to have an account. The problem is, it's a fucking monopoly, so not wanting to do stuff is Facebook doesn't align well with living normal life. Gyms, clubs and hobbyist communities don't even bother making websites anymore. All news and meetup days will be on Facebook. But if I'm not a registered user, I cannot see them. Now, is this fair? This is just as philosophical question, as with not being able to use stuff you paid for. So, of course I wish for Facebook to die. But it's not very realistic to hope it actually will.
  - submeta 6y ago
    The days are gone where every Gym and Club were setting up their „website“ on FB. Setting up a website these days is a non-issue with offers from wix.com etc. And local groups are moving to WhatsApp (I know it‘s owned by FB, but it doesn‘t do harm, it‘s a good product) or to Instagram (also owned by FB). There are way too many alternatives. Many people realized that it‘s boring or harming to consume „news“ pushed to a newsfeed that is manipulated. Either they get jealous, or sick of their echo-chamber or they are overwhelmed by the amount of input that they constantly receive. FB is fighting for a very very valuable asset: Your attention.
    - krick 6y ago
      No idea where you come from with your experience, and honestly I don't care. Suffice to say that it is absolutely not the case in my reality.
softwaredoug 6y ago
Don’t keep anything on social media you can’t lose. Assume the account can get deleted at anytime. Maintain your own private site of family and friends pictures that you own and share around with people you care about. It’s not that hard and replicates most of the real value of a social network for most people.
badwolf 6y ago
They should contact their congress person and/or Senators.
offtop5 6y ago
Best quest 2 alternatives ? Not being able to create a burner account is a deal breaker
- esyir 6y ago
  At the moment: For mobile VR? Quest one, that's it. For wireless? Index/Vive with wireless attachment. That'll be 2-3 times the cost though, and you'll need a PC and router to drive that.
  - Miraste 6y ago
    There isn't a wireless attachment for the Index.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    Guess I'll do without. I even have a Facebook, but I don't get why they need this information.
techer 6y ago
I’ve absolutely stopped recommending it. I won’t link my Facebook account so will use it until it’s disabled. Looking forward to supporting their competitors. It’s a shame, I enjoy the device.
devwastaken 6y ago
For PC VR you can find used VIVE sets cheap, and remember that with steamVR you can mix and match hardware. The full Valve index kits are on delay but individual parts are faster. VIVE Cosmos Valve Index HP Reverb G2
Nacdor 6y ago
My Facebook account was banned multiple times during an 8-year period when it was 100% inactive. Each time they demanded more invasive forms of verification. First, verify a phone number. Then, upload a picture of my driver's license. Finally, I had to upload a picture of my driver's license AND a secondary photo of myself that was supposed to be taken right then for that purpose. I will never consider using any service that requires a Facebook account, nor should anyone else.
drummer 6y ago
And to think Facebook wants to get into cryptocurrency and payments/wallets. You'd have to be really stupid to trust them with that especially after this fine demonstration.
Jonanin 6y ago
To play devil's advocate: historically, VR apps like VRChat have had an absolutely massive "4chan" problem. Harassment, bullying, vulgarity, NSFW/NSFL content, viral memes, brigading, etc. The gender disparity is also alarming (like 90%+ men!). Many feel unwelcome. I think Facebook wants to make VR fun and appropriate for everyone. One way to do that is to tie in people's real identities. Facebook threads aren't great, but they are better than twitter threads, and A LOT better than interactions in VRChat.
- bserge 6y ago
  Isn't that better solved by individual accounts for each game and some moderation? I've never had problems in VRChat, though I didn't find it much fun either. FWIW, I have a few fakebook accounts, with names like Nopey Nofookinwae, and they're still active... Never bought anything from Oculus Store, though. Facebook is really shooting themselves in the foot here, imo.
- hunterloftis 6y ago
  I think this is a reasonable argument for requiring accounts / checks for specific social apps in VR. But a VR headset is not a chat device any more than a keyboard is a chat device. It's a general I/O device that can be used for all sorts of experiences, including single-user ones.
- _iyig 6y ago
  Jonanin, what is your name? Where do you live? What is your current street address? Where do your parents live, and what is their phone number? How about your kids? I’m asking rhetorically. All this info and more is available to anyone with a full name and photograph via people-finder sites like Spokeo and SocialCatfish, which is exactly what Facebook accounts with a “real name policy” expose to the world. Using this info, any anonymous troll who you tick off in a VR game can send a SWAT team to your house, or tie up your phone lines, or harass your family and employer, or attempt to do you real physical harm. The Internet creates an extreme asymmetry of power between the abuser and the abused, and there are lots of unstable abusers out there with nothing more exciting to do than make your life hell. The Mark Zuckerbergs and Larry Pages of the world live in gated communities with many layers of people between them and the world, so they don’t care about any of this.
_iyig 6y ago
We now live in world where if Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t like your Facebook posts, he (or some nameless flunky) will delete all your video games.
esrh 6y ago
Lmao thats fucking hilarious. Facebook is one of the worst companies there is and you have to be stupid to buy anything from them
Eric_WVGG 6y ago
I had a similar experience with Facebook and a business-related thing last summer. The company I'm working for has a Facebook account that is more or less "broken" — managed by email addresses that no longer work for the company, unmanaged profile page, etc. I also don’t have a personal Facebook account, so I went ahead and created one and then started to clean up the mess. Immediately my account was deactivated. I went through a process of offering a phone number and countless CAPTCHA's, which would result in my account being reactivated but then deactivated again upon the next login. Eventually I got the "We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" ban-hammer. I'm sort of beyond outrage or even annoyance at this point… it's all just kind of funny and stupid. When I try to figure out a way out of this pickle, the best idea I can come up with is making a bot that logs in to Facebook, wanders around "Liking" q-anon posts, and then I'd have an account that Facebook would accept as a real human being for when I need to get actual work done with their platform.
Pfhortune 6y ago
One change I implore Facebook/Oculus to make in light of the Facebook account requirement for these devices: Allow enabling of dev mode and APK sideloading, offline, from within the device settings without the dev account requirement. That way these devices can be more than just bricks for people who get locked out by the system. I wonder if there are any statistics around e-waste for devices that are "bricked" due to an account lockout.
Animats 6y ago
Sue in Small Claims Court. The Oculus terms of service permit that. Your problem will be resolved, one way or another.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
This is what scares me most about google products. If I lost my gmail account, I would be totally screwed. More surface area across google products just gives me more of a chance to get banned by some false positive somewhere, with no recourse because none of these big companies seem to care about the human. So I try to avoid google products. There parallels with any of these giant single user account companies.
- dorkinspace 6y ago
  The big difference here is that Google, for now, doesn't care if you create multiple accounts while Facebook requires one and only one account that is tied to your real life identity. If I could create a fake FB account and not be banned, this wouldn't be an issue at all.
- zmmmmm 6y ago
  Although I also have various concerns with Google, I feel like lumping them in here is a bit counterproductive. Facebook is on a whole other level to Google in many of these respects.
antmldr 6y ago
Wow, thought I'd be one of the few struggling with this. Bought the device with the hope that I could register an account for the first time in years, but similar to others, my account was instantly banned with no explanation other than "violating community guidelines." One of Facebook's arguments against anti-trust accusations has been to point to the lack of consumer harm. This is fairly obvious evidence of material harm to consumers who just bought $500 paperweights.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  Yeah, it's extremely hard to open an FB account anymore, which is why aged accounts sell for thousands of dollars on the <mumble mumble mumble> <cough>. Won't put that info here. I'm frankly surprised FB would go this route then, are they assuming only existing FB users will buy? They have to know they've basically killed the ability to create new accounts.
  - mmastrac 6y ago
    Thousands? Quick googling suggests it's only dozens of dollars. Unless there's a better place to offload them than those top results.
ialyos 6y ago
Was looking at buying the quest 2 today and decided to wait until the weekend to see how the launch would go and then I saw this. I won't buy a quest 2 unless the account requirement is removed
libraryatnight 6y ago
The day I read the news about Oculus requiring a FB account in the future, that sucker fell right off my shopping list. It's sad because it seems like a really solid piece of hardware.
beshrkayali 6y ago
Unpopular opinion: although I hate how oculus sold out to Facebook (possibly backstab of the decade, after the initial crowdfunding), and although I’m a strong advocate of leaving Facebook regardless of their VR BS, there’s really nothing wrong with them requiring a Facebook account to use it. I have no idea how much the manufacturing/R&D costs of Quest are, but I doubt it makes sense for Facebook to sell it this cheap without requiring users to link/create a Facebook account. Don’t expect stuff to be free/cheap for no reason. My point is that regulating this space of tech will only lead to less innovation. There’s an extremely easy solution that every single one of us can do: don’t buy it, don’t be tempted by the cheap price Facebook is offering. I closed my Fb account ~5 years ago now (after being on it for about 10 years) and I’m very tempted to buy Quest 2, but I won’t. If enough people do this, what ever scummy plan Facebook is weaving will fail, but even if it doesn’t, you’d be out of it.
- frenchyatwork 6y ago
  > regulating this space of tech will only lead to less innovation You might be ultimately right about this, but you certainly haven't proved it. A common theme is a large company will use its leverage to make a product that is better and cheaper than the alternatives, demolish their competition, and the sit on their laurels for the next decade, with the exception of a few updates that provide vendor specific features to encourage vendor lock-in. In short, Occulus could become the new IE 5/6.
  - beshrkayali 6y ago
    I wasn’t really trying to prove that point, I also didn’t think it needs proving. But your point somewhat does it I think. There are many examples in tech specifically over the last couple of decades on how free unregulated competition was the reason why we had accelerated development, lower cost, and “democratizations” of tools and information. As long as there’s no regulation preventing others from coming up with a better solution (however “better” is defined), there’s no reason why others can’t come up with a viable alternative. Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebag. IE -> FF and Chrome. Nokias -> iPhone and co, and so on.
kissiel 6y ago
Today my OQ2 arrived. I created an account just for the purpose of pairing the device. I used my real credentials and a gmail email address. I got banned immediately by FB, and cannot init the device. FU FB.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  Return the device as defective?
  - kissiel 6y ago
    I already filed a ticket. I was told that if I followed community guidelines I wouldn’t get banned. Thanks, “Jessica”. Many of the oculus support pages use Facebook, and I’m banned from reaching them, which is pure irony in this case.
  - gjs278 6y ago
    the device is not defective. don’t misuse words.
graeme 6y ago
Anyone know what Facebook’s benefit is from the mandatory linking? At this point pretty much anyone who wants a facebook account, has one. And the quest is niche. They don’t need it to drive facebook usage. Is it data? If so what’s the expected value of data they’d get from quest linkage?
- JokerDan 6y ago
  This is by no means an exhaustive list nor 100% accurate but yes data, likely to go in to the social profile they build of you to sell/use in advertisements. Data such as; information provided at sign up, web/links to other users based on sign up info, inferred location information, purchases, interests, visited products, used products, active hours, usage hours, general use metrics... etc
mastre_ 6y ago
A bit out of the loop on this, anyone know Carmack's stance on this? Seems like a huge step in the direction of what we afraid of when Fb acquired Oculus.
_iyig 6y ago
Many Quest buyers reporting similar problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5z4i/i_dont_understand_i_made_a_fb_account_to_login/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5z4i/i_dont_under... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb86d1/facebook_deleted_my_barebones_facebook_account_i/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb86d1/facebook_del... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb701s/guys_i_really_need_help/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb701s/guys_i_reall... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5wrs/my_facebook_account_was_disabled_for_no_reason/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5wrs/my_facebook_... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jannlj/facebook_requirement_is_a_joke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jannlj/facebook_req... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jaq477/facebook_screwed_me/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jaq477/facebook_scr... https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/jawv6g/how_should_users_locked_out_by_facebook_organise/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/jawv6g/how_sho...
- chrischen 6y ago
  Fyi your links don't work.
  - _iyig 6y ago
    Thanks, copy-pasted them from elsewhere and didn't notice that they'd been clipped. Fixed now.
userbinator 6y ago
I guess that old saying has now turned into "even if you are paying for it, you are still the product being sold."
dante_dev 6y ago
I had the same problem. Created new fb account, linked to Oculus, bought couple of things, got banned. Asked for review, solved within 2 working days. Not even my real name. Good thing, it's a "soft" ban. They do not allow to log in, but if you are logged in, it's fine. So i could use my bought items even though I could not log in in browser. But if I would have logged out from Oculus, I wouldn't be able to use them.
Technetium 6y ago
If I need to create a FB account to use an Oculus, I'm not using it. They are not the only option and I'm not bending.

895 points by warp 6y ago

It seems to me that the U.S. is ripe for an updating of its consumer protection laws. Particularly w.r.t. shrink-wrap license and other attempts to impose unwelcome terms that the buyer didn't know about at the time of the sale. I imagine our existing consumer-protection laws were passed over the opposition of monied interests. If so, I wonder how close we are to having the political will do to do that again.

djsumdog 6y ago
At a minimum, a "ban" of the Oculus account should also include an immediate refund of any and all purchases. It's absolutely ridiculously to think they can just keep all that money while depriving a customer of software licenses they paid for!
- swalsh 6y ago
  Not even that is good enough, a ban on an account should have a VERY high bar, and that bar needs to be highly regulated. Right now it's just games, maybe movies, but it could apply to all kinds of software and apps... and this stuff is important. You can't cut a person off from being able to purchase and use their puchased software. It's too important.
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    Arbitrary account bans already impact more substantive business services. It's not that rare to read of situations where small businesses have had their Amazon stores, Gsuite, Google Ads, or Google Store (publisher) accounts arbitrarily banned with no recourse.
- dtech 6y ago
  heck I don't understand why Facebook doesn't exclude accounts linked to a headset from bot bans, max 1 per headset of course. If fake new Facebook accounts are worth $400+ to bad actors we are in bad shape.
- zmmmmm 6y ago
  Indeed, and it would force Facebook have some skin in the game because banning would cost them real money. I'm betting once each ban starts to cost them hundreds of $ they will start to at least put some human eyes in front of it before the ban hammer comes down.
scudd 6y ago
I agree, and I think there's kind of an elephant in the room with respect to all Terms of Service Agreements. Anybody with a mobile phone (as well as a plethora of other products) has inevitably agreed to dozens of pages of legal doctrine which they don't understand, any probably wouldn't without a competent lawyer on hand. But nevertheless, every minor service update, we all hit "I Accept", despite having no understanding of what we've agreed to. Is this not massively problematic? What happens if a company actually tries to draw significant action against consumers using the terms of service as their contract?
abawany 6y ago
My guess re. 'how close': approximately 48 quintillion light years away. The US has been corporatist for a long while and is blatantly so since Citizens United - the idea that a consumer protection law would pass in this environment is as 'possible' as the world taking climate change seriously at any point before we are all boiled alive.

pyrophane 6y ago

Seriously, stay away from Oculus. I know they currently have the most versatile/best value headset in the Quest 2, but needing to have a FB account linked to it should be a deal-breaker for anyone who doesn't already have an active FB account (and perhaps even those who do). It isn't just an auth system shared by multiple products. It's Facebook, and the ban-hammer can come down swiftly, especially if, like the author, you are just creating an account to link to your Quest. I'm also not confident, as of right now, that FB is gonna fix this in a meaningful way.

agd 6y ago
Yep, the way we fix this is to avoid Occulus products for now.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Can’t this user return the item as defective? You paid for a VR headset and it doesn’t perform its primary function.
  - numpad0 6y ago
    but you existed and broke our ToS in the first place! /s
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Yes, and if you have trouble getting a refund for your defective device, there’s a bunch of state attorneys general who are interested in anything Facebook right now.
  - returningfory2 6y ago
    Also if you buy it on a credit card, the CC company is usually your friend.
    - MrApathy 6y ago
      But the issue is that in having his account terminated, he's also losing access to all historical purchases made over the years. The CC company may be willing to accept a charge-back on recent purchases, but what about the application/game purchased four years ago that's tied to the account. It's no longer accessible, but is the CC willing to refund for a purchase made that far back? I honestly don't know, but if I had to guess it would be no.

trident1000 6y ago

VR sucks. The end. See you in 5-10 years when its practical and enjoyable.

KingOfCoders 6y ago
I've enjoyed Alyx a lot.
MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
I agree. It's still a gimmick. It's like the WII basically. Hardcore types chant it's praises and families love to play it for a party game once a year. Other than that, it collects dust compared to your other better mediums that exist.
- capableweb 6y ago
  Eh, gimmick for some, sure. For others it's a whole new world that they won't leave. For example, got an Oculus for the gimmick and didn't think I'd be so attached to it, but I cannot go back to playing any flight or racing simulator without it again, it's simply not the same. I tried the new FS2020 briefly on launch, but had to go back to X-Plane as FS2020 still doesn't support VR headsets.
  - rboyd 6y ago
    so does x-plane work today on quest 2?
    - capableweb 6y ago
      Probably not, Quest 2 is basically running mobile hardware right? X-Plane is a fully fledged flight simulator that barely runs on a powerful desktop PC on highest settings. I'm using a Oculus Rift currently.
      - rboyd 6y ago
        My understanding is Quest 2 can run Rift games using the optional link cable. But I'm not sure if that means it will take advantage of higher resolution on Quest 2 or whether X-Plane devs have to do something new.

throwaways885 6y ago

Facebook bans accounts fairly regularly for hate speech, which pretty much means whatever they want. It seems ludicrous to me that an edgy teenager can have their headset bricked because they posted some spicy political memes.

Fabricio20 6y ago
If only the reason was hate speech! This also happened to me, had an account 5 years ago, stopped using it, deleted the account on their website. Last week decided to create it again to prepare to eventually link to Oculus.. Instantly banned. Literally on the "Confirm Your Email" page got redirected to violated the community guidelines. And I'm not even from the US..
- fragmede 6y ago
  > And I'm not even from the US.. Accessing Facebook from outside the US is likely, through a combination of bad signals, why you tripped the ban hammer. Unfortunately.
  - barrkel 6y ago
    The majority of Facebook users access it from outside the US.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      That doesn’t preclude them from using it as one factor in their abuse detection models. Whether it’s a good idea or not, geolocation is a common factor that these models take into account.
  - Fabricio20 6y ago
    I think it's good to add to the discussion here for other HN readers that the reason I mentioned it was that some people are suggesting this is a measure put in-place by facebook to reduce election interference (as it's happening right now in the US). That may be the case, it may also not be since everyone (doesn't matter where from) seems to be getting banned alike.

qwerty456127 6y ago

Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed. As well as the "We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" bullshit. For every ban they should be required to issue a very specific clarification on why exactly were you banned and let you to speak to a real person.

caymanjim 6y ago
Or maybe just don't buy or use products and services like this?
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  Many people still will buy. There is a reason we use representative democracy rather than direct democracy - qualified people should outlaw some bad things the crowd can't resist itself.
  - ezconnect 6y ago
    Oculus is a niche product, it will be forgotten in a few years just like 3D TVs. Facebook knows it and it would not spend a dime on good customer service, they will just implement something good enough.
- badRNG 6y ago
  Folks often overestimate the power consumers have in meaningfully shaping a market. Consumer protections are rarely gained by simply refusing to do business with market leaders who behave in consumer hostile ways. Regulation really seems to be our best shot at reversing course on what is nothing short of the theft of digital goods from consumers.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  Except that one day you suddenly have employers that require you to personally own this hardware, or government portals, and then what? Oh, your driver's license is only available as an app for a device you just got permabanned from. I guess you're not a citizen anymore. My health care provider is now asking users to move away from physical credentials to use an app. I am livid.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

m1117 6y ago

This seems to be an algorithmic implementation of cancel culture. Due to human nature, it can't be not buggy.

EdwardDiego 6y ago
Seems most likely that they're trying to flag "suspicious" account creations in the run-up to the US election, and that the left hand that implemented this algorithm didn't speak to the right hand that was launching a new product that required an FB account.

draw_down 6y ago

The only way this set of rules should be legal is if Facebook is required to refund the money for the headset if they decide to ban you.

Justsignedup 6y ago

So another example of "if this gets big, suddenly facebook will care, and it'll become quiet." Staying away from anything facebook related.

howlgarnish 6y ago

Insightful comment from the thread: Yeah, I think part of the problem is that Facebook has never had an actual product which people pay for and expect to work. Their whole culture and set of priorities are counter to this.

aluminussoma 6y ago
Unfortunately I get the impression that this is how you get proper support from Facebook or Google. Make a Reddit or Hacker News post, get a few upvotes, and someone with influence inside the company files an "Oops Help My Friend" support ticket or contacts another person with the right authority to take a look.
- jansan 6y ago
  Unfortunately for each of these cases going public there will be about a hundred poor souls being unnoticed.
- xkcd-sucks 6y ago
  In the Catholic theology, there's a concept of Saints, who are basically humans that intercede with God on the behalf of ordinary mortals. People will sometimes address prayers to saints in the hope that the prayer will be more effective. Probably similar in other religions too but I'm pulling from memories of catholic school
  - krick 6y ago
    This is ridiculously accurate and totally makes sense.
    - scsilver 6y ago
      The 21st century is making me rethink how atheist I truely am. I think by following the moral code of face masks and social distancing, I will spare my family from plague and those who scoff at these codes will get smited. I put my faith and security into these big corps that don't even have an corporeal existance, and work with us through intermediaries like Amazon through ups and Microsoft through gamestop, Google doesnt even have a customer service branch and I had no way but to dig up my old school email in order to prove to them I am who I say I am. I tithe to the market, my funding of corps will pay back in future wealth. I perform rituals with my team chanting a praying that azure will stop acting wonky. God help us all .

madsbuch 6y ago

Alright, so he bought it 4 years ago. Bu in the EU you have 2 years to start an RMA if a product is not working as expected under normal use. I reckon one would be able to turn it in to their retailer to get a new Oculus.

rlpb 6y ago
I believe this is an urban myth. Can you cite the appropriate EU regulation or directive that makes this true? If a directive what about the implementation in the UK? https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds for example says (from a seller's point of view) that "Customers have up to 6 years to make a claim for an item they’ve bought from you (5 years in Scotland)." However I see no reason that you couldn't sue the manufacturer if they arrange to break your product even after six years. That would be a tort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort) and unrelated to your rights under your contract of sale.
- madsbuch 6y ago
  I am referring this: https://europa.eu/youreuright/your-rights_en#node-5 https://europa.eu/youreuright/your-rights_en#node-5 I am not sure about the UK and how they implement the directives. But in Denmark it is most definitely not an urban myth.

synaesthesisx 6y ago

Facebook is easily the worst company in big tech, with zero regard whatsoever for privacy or consumers. I can no longer support Oculus since it requires FB authentication. I recommend creating a separate account if you have no other options.

djsumdog 6y ago

I bought a Go years ago and recently I got a screen locking the entire device until I logged into Oculus. I selected the option to not connect my Facebook account, but continue to use my Oculus account. There was a sunset date on this option. I've never bought anything from the Oculus store. I honestly only use VR for Skybox and movies I download to a file server. Are there any alternative OSes for the GO? Honestly I'd rather just get off the stock OS if I just had a way to play my movies.

hunterloftis 6y ago

I'm very excited about VR. I bought the GearVR, then the first Oculus Rift, and most recently the Quest 1. Now, instead of buying the Quest 2 (which is unquestionably the best-value headset available today) I'm waiting for a competitor to enter the space. Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform. If you decide to leave that platform, or if that platform decides you aren't providing enough invasive information about yourself and decides to leave you, you've got an expensive paperweight. No warning or recourse. No thank you.

pcdoodle 6y ago
good for you. Vote with your wallet.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform. We are rapidly heading towards this future and SV devs are decrying it on HN while helping implement it in the background to pad their wallets.
- tolbish 6y ago
  The devs working on this are generally not the devs who are decrying the harmful effects. In reality, when you work on such projects you tend to isolate yourself from criticism.
  - idrios 6y ago
    Or, quite possibly, they have no other choice. Some devs have the freedom to walk away from a job that they find morally detestable. But many can't refuse or leave because they're under contract and can't afford the break-contract fee, or they're visa holders whose visa is tied to their employment, or they have a family to take care of and can't afford the time spent job searching. It's unfortunately not hard these days for any sufficiently funded business to find developers for morally questionable or outright unethical business models

jansan 6y ago

Don't worry, you will get bored with your Oculus Quest after a month anyways. Me and my kids were using our Oculus a lot at the beginning, having great fun. Now it just sits there, although we could use it any time and even have a few great games on it. Anyways, this has nothing to do with your issue. Facebook should be ashamed for treating paying customers like this.

grezql 6y ago

Oculus rift is Westworld for facebook

lacker 6y ago

I don't get it. He contacted Oculus support, Oculus support asked if he had followed these 4 steps for reactivating his account, and then... what? At that point gave up and posted on Reddit to complain? Yeah, this sucks. But mistaken account deactivations probably happen a lot - how to handle them is one of the FAQ questions on Oculus. It happened to me with my PlayStation 4 account too; someone in Germany mistakenly signed up using my email address somehow and in the resulting confusion I got locked out of my PlayStation games for a bit. It sucks but support will eventually fix it.

bransonf 6y ago

I tried to do the math on the Quest 2 hardware, and they definitely cut corners to bring the cost down, but not to the point where I think they have an attractive margin. (On the $300 headset, but the accessories/storage increase definitely have a decent margin). They’ll also get some margin on software sales presumably. That’s important because I believe the revenue generating model is entirely from data. Even if I’m wrong, it’s Facebook, so we know they’re after data for profit. And consider the kind of data that VR is capable of collecting. It’s biometric data at its core. If you take the data involved in VR, tie it to a person under the real-name policy, and give it to some crafty software engineers, you can get some crazy intimate results.

dwhit 6y ago
I would think the margin comes from their cut of software sales. Seems to work well for Apple.
wvenable 6y ago
The headset is the razor and the games are the blades.

wildpeaks 6y ago

As much as I love VR (I even backed the Oculus kickstarter at the time), I can't justify spending money developing for a system that can brick the devices of my users on a whim. They shot themselves in the foot by having this FB account requirement.

kozak 6y ago

I got so excited by the news about Quest 2, I was certain would by it, until I learned that "Quest headsets best accommodate IPDs between 56 and 70 mm, or about 95% of adults". My IPD is 74 - no luck this time.

protoster 6y ago

I feel incredible dissonance about John Carmack working for Oculus and by extension, Facebook. Especially when things like this come to light.

protoster 6y ago
I tried to look for some kind of statement from him, I found this verge article from 2014 https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/30/5563440/john-carmack-facebook-oculus-rift-purchase-comments https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/30/5563440/john-carmack-face... Much of the backlash regarding the acquisition has centered on Facebook's business model — data mining and advertising. This isn't a concern for Carmack, who says he "just can't get very worked up about it ." While he appreciates the need for privacy, "the idea that companies are supposed to interact with you and not pay attention has never seemed sane to me ... I rather like the recommendations that Amazon gives me on each visit. Educate me. What terrible outcome is expected from this?" So actually he was fine with this from the start? And while he is moving on to AI and whatnot, he is still currently employed by Oculus, which leads me to believe this is his stance today. I don't know how to feel about it. Even if you look past the privacy issues, he has engineered a product with hardware DRM! It just a shit product.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  It’s VIP tunnel vision. Rich people with celebrity status never suffer the negative effects of those systems. In fact, it actually benefits them because the system knows they’re rich and actively favours them because they’re considered more valuable than the rest of us. Of course he doesn’t get worked up because if his assistant calls for support on anything they get routed to the VIP support system and a team of people spring into action to solve the problem for him. People like Carmack don’t have to use the shitty systems they’re building, so they don’t care. He’s just another rich asshole IMO.
  - Scaevolus 6y ago
    Recent supporting evidence: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1315504658186678273 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1315504658186678273

swalsh 6y ago

The idea that I could have an account with hundreds of games I purchased be taken away from me without reason, or without recourse is absurd. Facebook, or really anything holding licensed content needs to be regulated.

stronglikedan 6y ago
On a related note, Steam has been getting away with this for well over a decade.
- asymptotically3 6y ago
  If you get banned from the Steam community for spamming/harassing/being awful your game library is still there. Even if you get banned for cheating in a game, you only lose access to that game and not the rest of your library.
  - hnick 6y ago
    I lost full access to my account when a friend gifted me a CD key he bought from someone on Ebay. I think it was originally bought with a stolen credit card, so a chargeback was issued, which then meant my whole account was locked out. Support did restore it, eventually. I got the impression it was a one time mercy. This was back in 2010 so their policies may have changed. "This account has been disabled as a gift subscription that you recently accepted in your account has been reported as fraudulent. The subscription has been removed. We will make an exception in your case and reactivate the account at this time. Please refrain from accepting Steam gifts from unknown sources in the future." Putting risk on buyers of "stolen goods" is normal, so I wasn't upset at Steam for that part. But having the entire account impacted is another story.
- smileybarry 6y ago
  As @asymptotically3 said, community banning doesn't take away your games, and in-game banning only blocks you from that specific game's multiplayer. In the past you could risk account suspension if you chargebacked purchases or redeemed stolen keys, but even that got changed years ago to just remove the specific game/license from your account instead. Only large-scale fraud would get you banned, and even then I doubt they would disable your account entirely and not just disable future purchasing.

jayd16 6y ago

Are there any alternative OS options brewing? Its mostly just an Android device. It can't be that hard to root.

RobertLong 6y ago
I hope someone roots it. I'm offering a $5k bounty https://twitter.com/arobertlong/status/1316177057085177857 https://twitter.com/arobertlong/status/1316177057085177857

epaga 6y ago

I too have the Quest 1, absolutely love it, and would have immediately purchased the Quest 2 if FB had not gone back on their explicit promise to never require an FB account. Someone PLEASE make a privacy-first (i.e. "NORMAL") headset with similar specs to the Quest 2 - you can charge more for all I care.

Fabricio20 6y ago
Better yet.. SideQuest?! (Just got funding) please remove the login requirement as a mod.. or make another OS for it (like Lineage). This would work really well for SideQuest, since that would give them greater control over new features they can ship.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  IIRC, FB is adding new restrictions in 2021 to decrease competition from sidequest/sideloading in general

b-etran 6y ago

It seems like unfortunate timing - Facebook's cracking down on fake accounts before the election right as the Quest 2 launches. I'd guess that a lot of the people signing up for Facebook just for the Quest don't follow the same patterns as a typical user, so the algorithm flags them and removes them. I'm sure they'll get reinstated once Facebook manually reviews, but it's definitely a major annoyance. Sidenote, I got my quest 2 yesterday and from a hardware standpoint, it's blown me away coming from PSVR. Too bad the Facebook nonsense keeps it from being a must have product.

vmception 6y ago
> It seems like unfortunate timing - Facebook's cracking down on fake accounts before the election right as the Quest 2 launches. No, this isn't new, more people are just seeing it now since they just expanded the market of users. It has been like this for years: If you go out of your way to create an account disconnected from a social graph so that it doesn't creepily alert people that would have saved your number/email and uploaded all their contacts in the past, Facebook will ban the account within 10 minutes. Somebody's inevitable rebuttal: "Yeah but my grandma just made an account and didn't get banned" Okay, good for you. The described reality here is also valid. To make it not ban the account you can upload a contact photo and try to friend request multiple people in a social graph. The time limit is very short and you will otherwise very quickly get instabanned or stuck in a security verification loop where the verification never comes. This is just creepy Facebook behavior for their data mining operation, now masquaraded as "ensuring quality of accounts". This is the same behavior as when they use insecure SMS one time passwords instead of client side code generation, and then use that phone number to add it to the social graph. Their behavior is very consistent and there is no one individual there responsible for it and even understands the use case. In this case, this is just another byproduct of Facebook employees living in the warped reality where everyone loves the Facebook product and has it. They honestly believe it there and you should see how confused and affronted they will act when you tell them you don't have an account. This is just a byproduct of that sentiment.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  This description makes alot of sense and further convinces me that Facebook especially needs some steep regulation to curb that behavior... or disappear.

varispeed 6y ago

I think this business model where someone buying purchasing a physical product must register their data with manufacturer or 3rd party service and be constantly online should be made illegal. There is no business need for this apart from spying on people and gathering data to improve manipulation of messages to trick people into buying more into the manufacturer ecosystem. We need to stop this.

kritiko 6y ago
What could you do with a Google Home or Amazon Echo without connectivity? The physical product is premised on being able to search the web and stream music.
- varispeed 6y ago
  It should have self-hosted voice recognition software and be able plug to your own music collection on your NAS. If you wanted features like weather forecast, then these should be opt in and only send anonymous data related to weather forecast request. It should be illegal to use even those anonymised requests to do commercial research without paying the customer.
  - disqard 6y ago
    Your comment echoes one aspect of the article discussed here recently (authored by Jaron Lanier and Glen Weyl), arguing that "AI is an Ideology, Not a Technology": people should be compensated for generating data used to train models. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24753664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24753664
superkuh 6y ago
So you think if someone is selling a physical product and they require registration that it's reasonable to force them to stop requiring it with the threat of physical violence from the government? I just don't see how that is justified. The seller isn't defrauding anyone and isn't using violence themselves. It's so much more easy and ethical to just not buy the product. All you can do is take personal responsibility. Calling for violent coercion like you've done is wrong.

eecc 6y ago

Pardon my ignorance, what did he do wrong to provoke the ban-hammer? Is is prohibited to mix products across Facebook properties?

asddubs 6y ago
facebook doesn't like shell/side accounts without anything on them

ed_elliott_asc 6y ago

I bought an oculus go for my son 2 Christmases ago - he has no Facebook, I have no Facebook - what to do what to do

roberto 6y ago
Sign up to Facebook? Just don't use the account for anything else.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  Most of the people on reddit reporting bans are saying that they made a FB account that they don't actively use. That seems to make the bans more likely. The best way to prevent them is to use your FB account for organic activities
  - bserge 6y ago
    I have a few fakebook accounts and they're active even though I rarely log in to them. They're completely empty and have obviously fake names. Maybe they ban them if you try to buy something (because the name doesn't match or something)? Which would be a ridiculous thing to do, but hey, I've seen worse...
    - smileybarry 6y ago
      How recent are those accounts? AFAIK aggressive empty account banning started a relatively short time ago.
      - bserge 6y ago
        They're 5-6 years old, so I guess they might've slipped under the radar. But wouldn't they do a check when you first link your Oculus or some other app? Regardless, I just don't see any use for Facebook besides messaging. Sad that Oculus headsets require FB accounts. I believe that with heavy handed actions like this, Facebook will alienate Oculus buyers, which aren't your typical Facebook user. I hope that will make them change their approach. Personally, I couldn't care less about customized ads and "relevant" notifications. But getting your account banned, with all the contacts on it, and all the purchases, is just so anti-customer I don't understand who in their right mind would do it.

submeta 6y ago

Facebook is evil, plain and simple. They hurt societies, democracies, and individuals alike. Nothing good there. Fuck Facebook! They need to vanish, hopefully soon.

krick 6y ago
Yeah... People act upset because they spend money on a product they cannot use. It's not for me to discuss if it's even legal, but if it is, then the only thing to discuss is if it's fair, which is a philosophical question. I, on the other hand, wouldn't buy this stuff anyway, I don't want to do anything with Facebook, I don't want to have an account. The problem is, it's a fucking monopoly, so not wanting to do stuff is Facebook doesn't align well with living normal life. Gyms, clubs and hobbyist communities don't even bother making websites anymore. All news and meetup days will be on Facebook. But if I'm not a registered user, I cannot see them. Now, is this fair? This is just as philosophical question, as with not being able to use stuff you paid for. So, of course I wish for Facebook to die. But it's not very realistic to hope it actually will.
- submeta 6y ago
  The days are gone where every Gym and Club were setting up their „website“ on FB. Setting up a website these days is a non-issue with offers from wix.com etc. And local groups are moving to WhatsApp (I know it‘s owned by FB, but it doesn‘t do harm, it‘s a good product) or to Instagram (also owned by FB). There are way too many alternatives. Many people realized that it‘s boring or harming to consume „news“ pushed to a newsfeed that is manipulated. Either they get jealous, or sick of their echo-chamber or they are overwhelmed by the amount of input that they constantly receive. FB is fighting for a very very valuable asset: Your attention.
  - krick 6y ago
    No idea where you come from with your experience, and honestly I don't care. Suffice to say that it is absolutely not the case in my reality.

softwaredoug 6y ago

Don’t keep anything on social media you can’t lose. Assume the account can get deleted at anytime. Maintain your own private site of family and friends pictures that you own and share around with people you care about. It’s not that hard and replicates most of the real value of a social network for most people.

badwolf 6y ago

They should contact their congress person and/or Senators.

offtop5 6y ago

Best quest 2 alternatives ? Not being able to create a burner account is a deal breaker

esyir 6y ago
At the moment: For mobile VR? Quest one, that's it. For wireless? Index/Vive with wireless attachment. That'll be 2-3 times the cost though, and you'll need a PC and router to drive that.
- Miraste 6y ago
  There isn't a wireless attachment for the Index.
- offtop5 6y ago
  Guess I'll do without. I even have a Facebook, but I don't get why they need this information.

techer 6y ago

I’ve absolutely stopped recommending it. I won’t link my Facebook account so will use it until it’s disabled. Looking forward to supporting their competitors. It’s a shame, I enjoy the device.

devwastaken 6y ago

For PC VR you can find used VIVE sets cheap, and remember that with steamVR you can mix and match hardware. The full Valve index kits are on delay but individual parts are faster. VIVE Cosmos Valve Index HP Reverb G2

Nacdor 6y ago

My Facebook account was banned multiple times during an 8-year period when it was 100% inactive. Each time they demanded more invasive forms of verification. First, verify a phone number. Then, upload a picture of my driver's license. Finally, I had to upload a picture of my driver's license AND a secondary photo of myself that was supposed to be taken right then for that purpose. I will never consider using any service that requires a Facebook account, nor should anyone else.

drummer 6y ago

And to think Facebook wants to get into cryptocurrency and payments/wallets. You'd have to be really stupid to trust them with that especially after this fine demonstration.

Jonanin 6y ago

To play devil's advocate: historically, VR apps like VRChat have had an absolutely massive "4chan" problem. Harassment, bullying, vulgarity, NSFW/NSFL content, viral memes, brigading, etc. The gender disparity is also alarming (like 90%+ men!). Many feel unwelcome. I think Facebook wants to make VR fun and appropriate for everyone. One way to do that is to tie in people's real identities. Facebook threads aren't great, but they are better than twitter threads, and A LOT better than interactions in VRChat.

bserge 6y ago
Isn't that better solved by individual accounts for each game and some moderation? I've never had problems in VRChat, though I didn't find it much fun either. FWIW, I have a few fakebook accounts, with names like Nopey Nofookinwae, and they're still active... Never bought anything from Oculus Store, though. Facebook is really shooting themselves in the foot here, imo.
hunterloftis 6y ago
I think this is a reasonable argument for requiring accounts / checks for specific social apps in VR. But a VR headset is not a chat device any more than a keyboard is a chat device. It's a general I/O device that can be used for all sorts of experiences, including single-user ones.
_iyig 6y ago
Jonanin, what is your name? Where do you live? What is your current street address? Where do your parents live, and what is their phone number? How about your kids? I’m asking rhetorically. All this info and more is available to anyone with a full name and photograph via people-finder sites like Spokeo and SocialCatfish, which is exactly what Facebook accounts with a “real name policy” expose to the world. Using this info, any anonymous troll who you tick off in a VR game can send a SWAT team to your house, or tie up your phone lines, or harass your family and employer, or attempt to do you real physical harm. The Internet creates an extreme asymmetry of power between the abuser and the abused, and there are lots of unstable abusers out there with nothing more exciting to do than make your life hell. The Mark Zuckerbergs and Larry Pages of the world live in gated communities with many layers of people between them and the world, so they don’t care about any of this.

_iyig 6y ago

We now live in world where if Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t like your Facebook posts, he (or some nameless flunky) will delete all your video games.

esrh 6y ago

Lmao thats fucking hilarious. Facebook is one of the worst companies there is and you have to be stupid to buy anything from them

Eric_WVGG 6y ago

I had a similar experience with Facebook and a business-related thing last summer. The company I'm working for has a Facebook account that is more or less "broken" — managed by email addresses that no longer work for the company, unmanaged profile page, etc. I also don’t have a personal Facebook account, so I went ahead and created one and then started to clean up the mess. Immediately my account was deactivated. I went through a process of offering a phone number and countless CAPTCHA's, which would result in my account being reactivated but then deactivated again upon the next login. Eventually I got the "We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" ban-hammer. I'm sort of beyond outrage or even annoyance at this point… it's all just kind of funny and stupid. When I try to figure out a way out of this pickle, the best idea I can come up with is making a bot that logs in to Facebook, wanders around "Liking" q-anon posts, and then I'd have an account that Facebook would accept as a real human being for when I need to get actual work done with their platform.

Pfhortune 6y ago

One change I implore Facebook/Oculus to make in light of the Facebook account requirement for these devices: Allow enabling of dev mode and APK sideloading, offline, from within the device settings without the dev account requirement. That way these devices can be more than just bricks for people who get locked out by the system. I wonder if there are any statistics around e-waste for devices that are "bricked" due to an account lockout.

Animats 6y ago

Sue in Small Claims Court. The Oculus terms of service permit that. Your problem will be resolved, one way or another.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

This is what scares me most about google products. If I lost my gmail account, I would be totally screwed. More surface area across google products just gives me more of a chance to get banned by some false positive somewhere, with no recourse because none of these big companies seem to care about the human. So I try to avoid google products. There parallels with any of these giant single user account companies.

dorkinspace 6y ago
The big difference here is that Google, for now, doesn't care if you create multiple accounts while Facebook requires one and only one account that is tied to your real life identity. If I could create a fake FB account and not be banned, this wouldn't be an issue at all.
zmmmmm 6y ago
Although I also have various concerns with Google, I feel like lumping them in here is a bit counterproductive. Facebook is on a whole other level to Google in many of these respects.

antmldr 6y ago

Wow, thought I'd be one of the few struggling with this. Bought the device with the hope that I could register an account for the first time in years, but similar to others, my account was instantly banned with no explanation other than "violating community guidelines." One of Facebook's arguments against anti-trust accusations has been to point to the lack of consumer harm. This is fairly obvious evidence of material harm to consumers who just bought $500 paperweights.

RonanTheGrey 6y ago
Yeah, it's extremely hard to open an FB account anymore, which is why aged accounts sell for thousands of dollars on the <mumble mumble mumble> <cough>. Won't put that info here. I'm frankly surprised FB would go this route then, are they assuming only existing FB users will buy? They have to know they've basically killed the ability to create new accounts.
- mmastrac 6y ago
  Thousands? Quick googling suggests it's only dozens of dollars. Unless there's a better place to offload them than those top results.

ialyos 6y ago

Was looking at buying the quest 2 today and decided to wait until the weekend to see how the launch would go and then I saw this. I won't buy a quest 2 unless the account requirement is removed

libraryatnight 6y ago

The day I read the news about Oculus requiring a FB account in the future, that sucker fell right off my shopping list. It's sad because it seems like a really solid piece of hardware.

beshrkayali 6y ago

Unpopular opinion: although I hate how oculus sold out to Facebook (possibly backstab of the decade, after the initial crowdfunding), and although I’m a strong advocate of leaving Facebook regardless of their VR BS, there’s really nothing wrong with them requiring a Facebook account to use it. I have no idea how much the manufacturing/R&D costs of Quest are, but I doubt it makes sense for Facebook to sell it this cheap without requiring users to link/create a Facebook account. Don’t expect stuff to be free/cheap for no reason. My point is that regulating this space of tech will only lead to less innovation. There’s an extremely easy solution that every single one of us can do: don’t buy it, don’t be tempted by the cheap price Facebook is offering. I closed my Fb account ~5 years ago now (after being on it for about 10 years) and I’m very tempted to buy Quest 2, but I won’t. If enough people do this, what ever scummy plan Facebook is weaving will fail, but even if it doesn’t, you’d be out of it.

frenchyatwork 6y ago
> regulating this space of tech will only lead to less innovation You might be ultimately right about this, but you certainly haven't proved it. A common theme is a large company will use its leverage to make a product that is better and cheaper than the alternatives, demolish their competition, and the sit on their laurels for the next decade, with the exception of a few updates that provide vendor specific features to encourage vendor lock-in. In short, Occulus could become the new IE 5/6.
- beshrkayali 6y ago
  I wasn’t really trying to prove that point, I also didn’t think it needs proving. But your point somewhat does it I think. There are many examples in tech specifically over the last couple of decades on how free unregulated competition was the reason why we had accelerated development, lower cost, and “democratizations” of tools and information. As long as there’s no regulation preventing others from coming up with a better solution (however “better” is defined), there’s no reason why others can’t come up with a viable alternative. Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebag. IE -> FF and Chrome. Nokias -> iPhone and co, and so on.

kissiel 6y ago

Today my OQ2 arrived. I created an account just for the purpose of pairing the device. I used my real credentials and a gmail email address. I got banned immediately by FB, and cannot init the device. FU FB.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
Return the device as defective?
- kissiel 6y ago
  I already filed a ticket. I was told that if I followed community guidelines I wouldn’t get banned. Thanks, “Jessica”. Many of the oculus support pages use Facebook, and I’m banned from reaching them, which is pure irony in this case.
- gjs278 6y ago
  the device is not defective. don’t misuse words.

graeme 6y ago

Anyone know what Facebook’s benefit is from the mandatory linking? At this point pretty much anyone who wants a facebook account, has one. And the quest is niche. They don’t need it to drive facebook usage. Is it data? If so what’s the expected value of data they’d get from quest linkage?

JokerDan 6y ago
This is by no means an exhaustive list nor 100% accurate but yes data, likely to go in to the social profile they build of you to sell/use in advertisements. Data such as; information provided at sign up, web/links to other users based on sign up info, inferred location information, purchases, interests, visited products, used products, active hours, usage hours, general use metrics... etc

mastre_ 6y ago

A bit out of the loop on this, anyone know Carmack's stance on this? Seems like a huge step in the direction of what we afraid of when Fb acquired Oculus.

_iyig 6y ago

Many Quest buyers reporting similar problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5z4i/i_dont_understand_i_made_a_fb_account_to_login/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5z4i/i_dont_under... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb86d1/facebook_deleted_my_barebones_facebook_account_i/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb86d1/facebook_del... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb701s/guys_i_really_need_help/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb701s/guys_i_reall... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5wrs/my_facebook_account_was_disabled_for_no_reason/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jb5wrs/my_facebook_... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jannlj/facebook_requirement_is_a_joke/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jannlj/facebook_req... https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jaq477/facebook_screwed_me/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/jaq477/facebook_scr... https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/jawv6g/how_should_users_locked_out_by_facebook_organise/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/jawv6g/how_sho...

chrischen 6y ago
Fyi your links don't work.
- _iyig 6y ago
  Thanks, copy-pasted them from elsewhere and didn't notice that they'd been clipped. Fixed now.

userbinator 6y ago

I guess that old saying has now turned into "even if you are paying for it, you are still the product being sold."

dante_dev 6y ago

I had the same problem. Created new fb account, linked to Oculus, bought couple of things, got banned. Asked for review, solved within 2 working days. Not even my real name. Good thing, it's a "soft" ban. They do not allow to log in, but if you are logged in, it's fine. So i could use my bought items even though I could not log in in browser. But if I would have logged out from Oculus, I wouldn't be able to use them.

Technetium 6y ago

If I need to create a FB account to use an Oculus, I'm not using it. They are not the only option and I'm not bending.