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Meta’s metaverse hype leads to real-world backlash
- logicalmonster 4y agoCan Zuckerberg's employees come to him with really harsh opinions and feedback that might feel mean on a personal level or are they all "yes-men" types just collecting checks?
- srvmshr 4y agoZuckerberg as the "Boss / CEO" sucks & many folks question the business decisions of the board. But Zuckerberg as the engineering manager (I am told by multiple sources) is still well respected within Meta infra & engineering. When it comes to taking grasp of running a infrastructure company, the guy gets a lot of things right by remaining hands-on. A lot of the technical matters are still overseen by him personally. In many ways his working style reminds me of Bill Gates of mid-90s Microsoft
- logicalmonster 4y agoYour comment is very interesting, and despite all of the jokes about him, I'd very much agree that Zuckerberg is very competent in many ways. However, I'm still left wondering if he's known for being willing to accept harsh criticism or not. Has he created a culture where somebody feels safe giving him some uncomfortable truths?
- bckr 4y agoSeeing as his employees call him "The Eye of Sauron", probably not.
- srvmshr 4y agoAgain, I am not Meta employee. But the answer points to (maybe?) yes. When Microsoft used to have 7 tiers of project approvals & Google made increasingly a distinct border between L4 & L5+ in matters of seniority (read: obedience), Meta has for the longest time tried to keep a very flat reporting structure. The company MBAs & marketing honchos get a lot of things effed up for them, but the infra & SW engineering teams have nothing but good things to say on matters technical & engineering leadership roles (including MZ)
- kwertyoowiyop 4y agoSince that screenshot went out, the answer is obvious.
- dimator 4y agoI strongly doubt any of the technical matters are in his purview. That's what CTOs are for. Not trying to shade, I'm sure he's an intelligent person, but his current role is all products, and no bearing on the technical choices behind them.
- jqpabc123 4y ago
- djohnston 4y agoFocus on the hardware matey, build the platform not some weird game no one cares about.
- boardwaalk 4y agoI’d say they need to make a product people want. Look at Fortnite, Minecraft. The closest things to successful metaverses that exist. They’re both things that people actually want to use. Who’s going to want use a blank slate platform from Facebook of all places? (I think Carmack expressed part of this so credit goes there where appropriate.)
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoI wonder if they've calculated how much Zuckerberg's terrible personal brand is costing the company and potential adaptation of this metaverse thing. It's already difficult to like, but with someone like Zuck selling it it becomes just terrible cringe.
- wincy 4y agoI really enjoyed hearing him talk one on one for three hours with Joe Rogan the other day. Normally he comes off as robotic and awkward but it made me realize he’s extremely intelligent, has a wide breadth of knowledge on a large number of topics, and just gets nervous the same way most of us would while reading off a script during a corporate event.
- TeeMassive 4y agoHis answers came off to me as scripted responses that were practised beforehand multiple times with actors.
- Terretta 4y agoPerhaps Zuck hired Nathan Fielder: https://www.vox.com/culture/23319898/rehearsal-review-finale-empathy https://www.vox.com/culture/23319898/rehearsal-review-finale... // This is not the worst concept for helping engineers-turned-leaders.
- cachvico 4y agoYes, he has the company lines well rehearsed. But he was also admits he's a mortal human who didn't choose to be the moderator between the geo-political battle lines that have manifested themselves through today's social media. And he probably understands the nuances of that unique responsibility better than any of us here.
- hobs 4y agoI don't understand saying "He didn't choose to be" - yes, he absolutely at every point made the choice to attain and maintain power to do this, this is absolutely false.
- dkobia 4y agoSeverely underestimating deep pockets, determination and short term memory in the rest of us.
- willis936 4y agoSeverely underestimating how quickly even the largest pile of money can be burnt.
- synu 4y agoNobody really wants Facebook to be in charge of the future. Maybe there's a big brand turnaround somewhere inside of Meta, but without that it just doesn't work.
- sixothree 4y agoFacebook "stealing" the word Meta from public use pretty much sums up the company's vision for me - uninspired at best. When I think about the possibilities of AR, I never think "meeting with people". Maybe in VR. But I could care very little less about that. The possibilities for AR are absolutely immense. And I look forward to a world where the physical space is aided by technology. Much in the same way 30 years ago I looked forward to a digital world. And we see how that tuned out.
- blensor 4y agoNot trying to justify the Meta rebranding, especially since there were already other companies using that, but it does not look like Apple is doing us much of a better service by apparently going for the term "Reality" (or Reality One, Reality Pro)
- arinlen 4y ago> Facebook "stealing" the word Meta from public use pretty much sums up the company's vision for me - uninspired at best. As much as I dislike Facebook and Facebook-adjacent companies, the metaverse concept is indeed what the company tried to bring to life, and Meta is indeed a brandig keyword that fits both the concept and the marketing goals. There are many, many reasons to dislike what Zuckerberg's Facebook et al. does but I'm sure it's branding strategy does not even get into the top 10 reasons.
- what-imright 4y agoOk it was a bad screenshot, but horizon is amazing. I wonder how many of the critics actually put on a headset and tried it out
- bckr 4y agoWhat do you like about it?
- Macha 4y agoAnd why is it better than VRChat?
- what-imright 4y agoIt’s a social environment w chat and such, but you can build the world from inside, kind of like CAD for the environment you inhabit. It’s ‘down the rabbit hole’ amazing. I think the critics are totally wrong. Meta’s a golden bet.
- arinlen 4y ago> I wonder how many of the critics actually put on a headset and tried it out I guess one of the main problems is that Meta so far failed to create a compelling reason to try special-purpose hardware.
- what-imright 4y agoNo that’s a very poor cop out. They shouldn’t criticize something they haven’t experienced, it’s a lack of integrity.
- arinlen 4y ago> They shouldn’t criticize something they haven’t experienced, it’s a lack of integrity. "They" do not exist. You completely fabricated an hypothesis where you "wondered" how many people criticized Meta's horizon worlds in spite if never trying them out. Your "very poor cop out" is the strawman you put together.
- bckr 4y agoI want them to fail as much as the next guy, but they have deep pockets and are perhaps the most influential company on earth. I'm afraid they might actually learn from their mistakes and succeed.
- cush 4y agoThe article nailed it. They simply don't have the right people at the helm. They aren't innovating because they're working on problems that were solved a decade ago in the game industry and without users, the experience will be boring
- tomatotomato37 4y agoThey aren't innovating because they're working on problems that were solved a decade ago in the game industry I feel that is applicable to much more of FAANG than Facebook now that I think about it. Steam somehow still seems to be a better storefront than Google Play, the Apple app store, and Amazon combined; despite coming from a company having a tenth of the resources and a management structure that pretty much boils down to "YOLO". And lets not even talk about the fact that the performance of your average webapp still pales in comparison to the most trash optimized of 2005 flash games
- tjpnz 4y agoIt goes far beyond the people at the helm. To pull this off they need people with game dev experience. But how do you then get said individuals through a FAANG interview loop? I'm not suggesting their skillset is inferior, but it will be very different.
- cogman10 4y agoIf google has taught me anything, money and influence can still fail. See: google plus, buzz, and wave.
- pengaru 4y ago> If google has taught me anything, money and influence can still fail. See: google plus, buzz, and wave. Perseverance matters, Google is notorious for abandoning efforts if they don't quickly dominate the market. That largely pollutes the lesson you've received IMO.
- bluehorseray 4y agoI can't help but think that they would gain the kind of traction they're looking for if they dedicated most of their resources to developing a VR, first person shooter game like COD or Fortnite. You need to give your customers something they actually want to do with that headset on. Forget about gesture recognition, facial tracking, even the joysticks for now.
- EnKopVand 4y agoI'm still not sure what the metaverse is supposed to be. I have an idea, sort of Second Life with VR, but if that's true, then I'm not sure why they think anyone but a few enthusiasts would want it. Before I got into working on climate change software, I did a long stint in the Danish public sector, and nothing in any of the stuff we did suggested that young people wanted to use VR. AR maybe, but not VR. In fact, the way young people consume entertainment media today, is basically exactly how we did it on a Gameboy, except now the Gameboy can do more than just play games. There are also so many social platforms that aren't Facebook, that a lot of youngsters aren't even on a Meta product anymore. I guess time may prove me wrong, but I really don't see why the world would want a metaverse until you can actually plug into it, like the matrix. Then things may change.
- barkingcat 4y agoIt doesn't matter what people want. Big companies can afford to push something and force it on you until you think you want it.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoI'm bullish on the tech and headsets, bearish on Meta/Facebook Metaverse creation.
- zhdc1 4y agoMetaverse != Horizon Worlds != Augmented/Virtual Reality AR/VR is going to be an absolute game changer once someone produces an acceptable wearable that achieves mass adoption. Whether or not Meta is the company that succeeds at doing this is another question altogether. However, the benefits from getting it right, even if it's a long shot, justifies Meta's investment in VR.
- user_named 4y agoThe metaverse already exists. It's the many many games people play every day. They are alternate worlds and there's reason for people to spend time in them unlike with metas metaverse, which just wants people in there so they can sell ads. The obvious direction for meta is to either create games or to create an ad network for games.
- freecodyx 4y agoI might be totally wrong, but i think that People with social skills will not find it worthy and somehow bizarre. But those with some sort of autism can enjoy the experience. Or even people addicted to drugs or psychedelics. It can be a game changer for some professionals and really a good tool. But impact in kids can be dangerous as they will be confused to what is reality
- Geee 4y agoThis company is running on fumes. It's hard to see any way to save the company. Maybe, if they burned everything to the ground and became opposite of what they are now, they might have a chance. They had a good run as a business, but fundamentally they never had a good product.
- mikeg8 4y agoFacebook was an incredible product 10 years ago. Just because they are not the same now doesn’t mean they never were.
- karmakaze 4y agoThe metaverse is a place where you're supposed to spend a lot of time, interacting with media, friends and family, shopping, web browsing. All the while FB is collecting your real-time emotional responses during all the activities. What other kind of system could deliver as hard-hitting ads? > Zuckerberg said the upcoming, yet unnamed headset will offer “the ability to now have eye contact in virtual reality, have your face be tracked so that your avatar is not just this still thing, if you smile, or you frown, or you pout, whatever your expression is, to have that actually in real time translate to your avatar.” His remarks sound a lot like what's already been shown at SIGGRAPH and in other, earlier Meta research demos.
- johnfn 4y agoWhy are we deluged with such low quality, low interest, low curiosity articles - about some screenshot of Mark Zuckerberg's avatar of all things - when plenty of really fascinating and intellectual-curiosity-satisfying information exists out there about the metaverse? For instance, this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6AOwDttBsc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6AOwDttBsc Especially on Hacker News, of all places! This article is the equivalent of celebrity tabloids. (This comment is probably not written with the best tone, but I am upset. PR mishaps aside, the metaverse is extremely technically interesting. Why HN skips all of that and just does reruns of Zuckerberg's avatar or whatever is beyond me.)
- woeirua 4y agoWho are they targeting with the metaverse? Surely not gen Z, since they don’t use FB products anymore. Millennials? Too busy with kids/work to bother. Boomers? No way in hell that they buy dedicated hardware to wander around as an apparition in a virtual world. So who is it? Because right now, no one is buying. BTW, I would bet $$$ that the reason Horizon Views looks so amateurish is because of a desire to use few resources over bandwidth constrained connections.
- kwamenum86 4y ago(disclaimer: used to work for Facebook) I had similar doubts about the Metaverse concept until recently. However, Meta has done a great job (better than any other company in history) scaling up VR. They've sold more units than the most recent version of Xbox. The Xbox did sell out, which makes demand appear artificially low, however the fact that Quest sales are keeping up with Xbox sales is a very big deal. I didn't realize that until I listened to Mark Zuckerberg's interview on Joe Rogan. If you're an app developer, it's more than worth considering VR given the size of the audience on those platforms. One other thing to keep in mind - the current concept of the metaverse is essentially an alpha version. Now that Meta has established VR as a legit platform, they're using it to usher in a new future. Meta is throwing out lots of ideas for how VR might help reshape the future. The vast majority of those ideas will not work out but many of them will stick and form the foundational principles that underpin the evolving VR ecosystem as people increasingly spend more time. Once the technology passes a certain threshold of maturity, it will be a fundamentally better way to connect with friends/family/coworkers than any other medium. In general, high bandwidth communication mediums dominate with in-person interactions being at the top of the food chain. Meta aspires to make it feel like you're with people in real life except that your social experiences will be augmented with super powers that don't exist in real life. If they achieve that, meeting with in VR/AR will be preferable to real life and we'll all be using VR, as hard as that is to believe. That's not a future that anyone is necessarily asking for but it is a future that many will find more appealing than the existing options offered by computing platforms, like video chat. Assuming that happens, Meta will have a path to creating the new dominant computing platform. That's the ultimate manifestation of the metaverse vision - defining and owning the future of computing. Recall how clunky smartphone and personal computing experiences felt at first. Those devices weren't for everyone...until they were. Now, <15 after the first smartphone (which I define to be a phone on par with the personal computer, so in my mind the first smartphone was really iPhone running iOS 2, which introduced the App Store), people now routinely idle on their smartphones. That is to say, when they're doing nothing else with their hands (even if they're doing something else) it's not uncommon for their to pull out their smartphones. In 2000, if you predicted that grown adults would impulsively pull out what amounts to an entertainment device while they're idling at the airport, grocery store, or even while driving that would have sounded ridiculous. It's important to remind ourselves how quickly technology can become virtually ubiquitous and how challenging it is to predict the impact on our habits.
- somewhereoutth 4y ago> the upcoming, yet unnamed headset will offer “the ability to now have eye contact in virtual reality, have your face be tracked so that your avatar is not just this still thing, if you smile, or you frown, or you pout, whatever your expression is, to have that actually in real time translate to your avatar.” It will never have the fidelity of a simple video stream. To make a virtual reality, you have to shut out the real reality, which necessarily means something covering your face (well, more specifically, your eyes - but we are a long way from being able to do VR with contact lenses). In shutting out real reality, VR is an absolutist experience, you are either in it, or not, and if you are in it you cannot experience anything else (like drink a coffee, jot on a notepad, answer the phone) unless imported into that VR. For these reasons, general use VR/AR is DOA.
- TradingPlaces 4y agoThe problem is that Facebook is a massive company, and is releasing an MVP like a SaaS startup