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I wouldn't doubt Zuck at all, he's shown time and again incredible shrewdness at predicting the future and making bold moves to stake his claim on it (Instagram

I wouldn't doubt Zuck at all, he's shown time and again incredible shrewdness at predicting the future and making bold moves to stake his claim on it (Instagram, Whatsapp, and Oculus, are a few of the large publicly-known ones). Those acquisitions were derided by the chattering classes at the time as well, yet time has shown them to be incredibly far-sighted. Sure, any endeavour can certainly trip over itself and fail, but Facebook is not Yahoo circa 2012. They still have the cash and vision to execute well, and while you may disagree with the implementation (closed-source open world parallel to the current internet), I don't doubt there is a strong vision and motivation to build this within the Facebook leadership.

3gg 5y ago
Oculus never took off. The other two you mentioned were already vastly popular (Whatsapp was the most popular thing in the EU back then, now taken over in part by Telegram.) The purchases were made not out of a grand vision for the future, but simply to hinder and squash competition. The internal emails that have leaked from the company over time show as much.
- raducu 5y ago
  What do you mean by Oculus never took off?
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    VR is still super niche. It's not "here" yet for the vast majority of people. I have an Oculus and I don't use it every day
axegon_ 5y ago
I would - while successful(financially at least), he's not a good visionary. Let's ignore the fact that I've never been subtle about how repugnant I find him. None of the companies that Facebook acquired were early stage startups like the ones google buys in bulk - they were established products. In all fairness I uninstalled whatsapp the day the aquisition was announced. The core facebook platform is no longer targeting masses but rather niche markets. The metaverse is a niche market. Let's face it, even with the oculus - despite the hype it never really gained a whole lot of traction outside a very small community. I see this an attempt to extend the community but I have serious doubts about the outcome. Now if facebook aquires onlyfans for example...

3gg 5y ago

Oculus never took off. The other two you mentioned were already vastly popular (Whatsapp was the most popular thing in the EU back then, now taken over in part by Telegram.) The purchases were made not out of a grand vision for the future, but simply to hinder and squash competition. The internal emails that have leaked from the company over time show as much.

raducu 5y ago
What do you mean by Oculus never took off?
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  VR is still super niche. It's not "here" yet for the vast majority of people. I have an Oculus and I don't use it every day

axegon_ 5y ago

I would - while successful(financially at least), he's not a good visionary. Let's ignore the fact that I've never been subtle about how repugnant I find him. None of the companies that Facebook acquired were early stage startups like the ones google buys in bulk - they were established products. In all fairness I uninstalled whatsapp the day the aquisition was announced. The core facebook platform is no longer targeting masses but rather niche markets. The metaverse is a niche market. Let's face it, even with the oculus - despite the hype it never really gained a whole lot of traction outside a very small community. I see this an attempt to extend the community but I have serious doubts about the outcome. Now if facebook aquires onlyfans for example...