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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 unquest

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
    - tolbish 6y ago
      The cases where people actually have no options (H-1B who had no idea what kind of business social media is and thus needs the job to stay in the US) are pretty rare. Yes there are people who think they need a big house in the bay area or need a Tesla, but that doesn't mean they have no other options but to work at Twitter or Facebook.
      - idrios 6y ago
        It's not that rare. I was talking less about people who are Facebook employees and more about people who are Accenture / Cognizant / Infosys / etc employees or contractors, who get subcontracted to do work at Facebook or wherever else. They just have to convince a fresh college grad or visa applicant to sign say a 2-year contract, and that person may not realize quite what they're signing until they're put on a project Edit: I wasn't trying to disagree with you if it sounded like I was. I meant this as "in addition to what you said" not "instead of what you said"
  - soulofmischief 6y ago
    Insightful and an important thing to keep in mind.
  - saurik 6y ago
    I know many such developers who work at these companies helping build these products and who hate these policies; they don't work on whatever feels most direct like the evil feature itself, but they don't seem to have an issue working for the company helping build parts of the UI or networking or whatever.
  - xmprt 6y ago
    Moreover, even if they were the same devs, they're all working on such small parts of a bigger product that no one person or team is responsible for any of the compounding decisions that lead to this.
- hunterloftis 6y ago
  To be clear, I think the FB/Oculus devs are doing impressive work. I get value out of FB (that's why I still have an account) and Oculus is the primary driver of progress in VR today. However, I don't believe it's a user-friendly product decision to tightly couple FB's VR hardware to its social media platform. It's yet another push towards a walled garden, much like Google's AMP and Apple's app store.
  - Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
    > and Oculus is the primary driver of progress in VR today. Eh...I'd hand that title to Valve.
    - hunterloftis 6y ago
      It's surely debatable, but Valve's $999 outside-in (lighthouse) wired unit is about two generations behind the Quest 2 (closer to the Rift). I believe $300 inside-out tracking wireless headsets are much more likely to push VR out of the "trough of disillusionment" and into the mainstream.
forgotmysn 6y ago
it's not on the level of the Q2, but Varjo makes a really good high end headset, probably comparable to the Valve Index
justinlloyd 6y ago
"Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform...or if that platform decides you aren't providing enough invasive information about yourself" Welcome to your new Samsung SmartTV.
vl 6y ago
Yep, they managed to convince me not to order Quest 2. And I already own Quest 1 and Index. Hope Valve is going to ship stand-alone headset, at least their incentives are aligned.

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
  - tolbish 6y ago
    The cases where people actually have no options (H-1B who had no idea what kind of business social media is and thus needs the job to stay in the US) are pretty rare. Yes there are people who think they need a big house in the bay area or need a Tesla, but that doesn't mean they have no other options but to work at Twitter or Facebook.
    - idrios 6y ago
      It's not that rare. I was talking less about people who are Facebook employees and more about people who are Accenture / Cognizant / Infosys / etc employees or contractors, who get subcontracted to do work at Facebook or wherever else. They just have to convince a fresh college grad or visa applicant to sign say a 2-year contract, and that person may not realize quite what they're signing until they're put on a project Edit: I wasn't trying to disagree with you if it sounded like I was. I meant this as "in addition to what you said" not "instead of what you said"
- soulofmischief 6y ago
  Insightful and an important thing to keep in mind.
- saurik 6y ago
  I know many such developers who work at these companies helping build these products and who hate these policies; they don't work on whatever feels most direct like the evil feature itself, but they don't seem to have an issue working for the company helping build parts of the UI or networking or whatever.
- xmprt 6y ago
  Moreover, even if they were the same devs, they're all working on such small parts of a bigger product that no one person or team is responsible for any of the compounding decisions that lead to this.
hunterloftis 6y ago
To be clear, I think the FB/Oculus devs are doing impressive work. I get value out of FB (that's why I still have an account) and Oculus is the primary driver of progress in VR today. However, I don't believe it's a user-friendly product decision to tightly couple FB's VR hardware to its social media platform. It's yet another push towards a walled garden, much like Google's AMP and Apple's app store.
- Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
  > and Oculus is the primary driver of progress in VR today. Eh...I'd hand that title to Valve.
  - hunterloftis 6y ago
    It's surely debatable, but Valve's $999 outside-in (lighthouse) wired unit is about two generations behind the Quest 2 (closer to the Rift). I believe $300 inside-out tracking wireless headsets are much more likely to push VR out of the "trough of disillusionment" and into the mainstream.

forgotmysn 6y ago

it's not on the level of the Q2, but Varjo makes a really good high end headset, probably comparable to the Valve Index

justinlloyd 6y ago

"Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform...or if that platform decides you aren't providing enough invasive information about yourself" Welcome to your new Samsung SmartTV.

vl 6y ago

Yep, they managed to convince me not to order Quest 2. And I already own Quest 1 and Index. Hope Valve is going to ship stand-alone headset, at least their incentives are aligned.