4 ms·

> just don’t buy their product. That works in theory, but in practice when all the products from all the vendors work that way, you no longer have a choice. P

> just don’t buy their product. That works in theory, but in practice when all the products from all the vendors work that way, you no longer have a choice. Plenty of examples like that - Try buying a TV that's not a "smart" TV nowdays, you basically can't. If you want a good quality picture, then it's also coming with telemetry and in many cases advertisements, too.

akerl_ 5y ago
This is a VR headset. It’s hardly a basic necessity
- bloqs 5y ago
  This was said about phones 10 years ago, and electricity 100 years before that.
  - akerl_ 5y ago
    I was being flippant in my comment above, but just to be clear: I think regulating business models for cell phones is just as bad an idea. Electrical service has limitations around things like termination of service / fair pricing / safety, but we don’t mandate how they design their software and servers.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      What about their comment on the lack of non-smart TVs?
      - akerl_ 5y ago
        There are plenty of non-smart TVs. They just cost more than smart TVs. You can find them at any number of suppliers, and they’re still bought in large numbers by businesses.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      > I think regulating business models for cell phones is just as bad an idea. I mean, we can mandate minimum services. Something that has a webbrowser, email client, texts and calls. If you want to say that apps don't fit into that, I suppose that works.
- unsui 5y ago
  yet. That's the whole point of getting in early (to the mass-consumer-market), to make it the standard. It's not a necessity yet, but neither were smartphones (now just called "phones"). FB is banking heavily that VR will become a necessity, to one extent or another. I sincerely hope FB fails, but my suspicion is that it would fail not because FB failed, but rather because VR itself failed (e.g. Google Glass for consumers). Still to be seen.
m4rtink 5y ago
Not to mention big companies buying out all the small ones and shutting them down or perverting their products. Facebook and Oculus beinjg a perfect example, with added bad taste due to Oculus being propped by a successful kickstarter campaign, only to be sold for billions soon after to Facebook. Another less known example could be Kolor, the maker of Autopano Giga (IMHO the best panorama creation tool so far) being gobbled by GoPro, likely for the talent, then shut down without replacement.
systemvoltage 5y ago
Yet we refused to accept that Twitter/FB are public squares. "Just stop using it" or "It's a private company, they can ban anyone they like". Well, how is it not a public square when often official government agencies publish information exclusively on Twitter, which is starting to require accounts with phone numbers? I see these contradictory narratives on HN.
- girvo 5y ago
  > I see these contradictory narratives on HN. Of course you do. HN (or any platform) is not a monolith with a single opinion. I see this argument all the time, and it baffles me
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Just pointing out the incongruent bias, sorry for baffling you.

akerl_ 5y ago

This is a VR headset. It’s hardly a basic necessity

bloqs 5y ago
This was said about phones 10 years ago, and electricity 100 years before that.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  I was being flippant in my comment above, but just to be clear: I think regulating business models for cell phones is just as bad an idea. Electrical service has limitations around things like termination of service / fair pricing / safety, but we don’t mandate how they design their software and servers.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    What about their comment on the lack of non-smart TVs?
    - akerl_ 5y ago
      There are plenty of non-smart TVs. They just cost more than smart TVs. You can find them at any number of suppliers, and they’re still bought in large numbers by businesses.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > I think regulating business models for cell phones is just as bad an idea. I mean, we can mandate minimum services. Something that has a webbrowser, email client, texts and calls. If you want to say that apps don't fit into that, I suppose that works.
unsui 5y ago
yet. That's the whole point of getting in early (to the mass-consumer-market), to make it the standard. It's not a necessity yet, but neither were smartphones (now just called "phones"). FB is banking heavily that VR will become a necessity, to one extent or another. I sincerely hope FB fails, but my suspicion is that it would fail not because FB failed, but rather because VR itself failed (e.g. Google Glass for consumers). Still to be seen.

m4rtink 5y ago

Not to mention big companies buying out all the small ones and shutting them down or perverting their products. Facebook and Oculus beinjg a perfect example, with added bad taste due to Oculus being propped by a successful kickstarter campaign, only to be sold for billions soon after to Facebook. Another less known example could be Kolor, the maker of Autopano Giga (IMHO the best panorama creation tool so far) being gobbled by GoPro, likely for the talent, then shut down without replacement.

systemvoltage 5y ago

Yet we refused to accept that Twitter/FB are public squares. "Just stop using it" or "It's a private company, they can ban anyone they like". Well, how is it not a public square when often official government agencies publish information exclusively on Twitter, which is starting to require accounts with phone numbers? I see these contradictory narratives on HN.

girvo 5y ago
> I see these contradictory narratives on HN. Of course you do. HN (or any platform) is not a monolith with a single opinion. I see this argument all the time, and it baffles me
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Just pointing out the incongruent bias, sorry for baffling you.