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I'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 anyon

I'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 ago
It doesn't matter what people want. Big companies can afford to push something and force it on you until you think you want it.
- yunohn 4y ago
  Why would people be forced to use Meta’s metaverse? Or any metaverse for that matter? This is nonsensical.
- brtkdotse 4y ago
  Do you have an example of something that was pushed upon people, forcing them to like it?
  - mhb 4y ago
    Masks
    - jamiek88 4y ago
      Well that’s just silly.
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    Yeah I just posted a similar question, can’t think of any and can think of the converse quite easily. Even Amazon couldn’t push the Amazon phone for example. The nearest I can think of is Xbox but that came out of the gate strong with halo and had a fandom.
  - Theodores 4y ago
    Hold that pitchfork: bottled water! Hydration. Bottled water was only available in specialist stores for putting in things like your car radiator. The only bottled water for drinking on the marketplace was 'Perrier'. It was fizzy and came in distinctive bottles. People bought it as often as they bought spirits and it would stay in the drinks cabinet for months. Then they started advertising it. After a few false starts the market for 'hydration' was established and paying money for something that came free from the tap was de rigeur. France and other European countries were ahead of the UK with bottled water, possibly because the tap water was not deemed potable. These brands soon took over the UK market and TV showed the adverts to rake in the consumers. The original word of 'thirsty' was swapped for the American 'hydration' and instead of asking if someone was thirsty you would ask them if they were properly hydrated. Clearly there was no government decree or cartel pointing guns at people and insisting that they forget the thirsty idea and public water faucets. Through marketing and the 'hydration word' they got the job done.
    - jstanley 4y ago
      > because the tap water was not deemed potable So what were they doing in France before bottled water? Just going thirsty?
      - Theodores 4y ago
        Drinking wine. In Ye Olden Days in the UK some fermented beer was 'drinking water'. In Ye Olden Days yeast strains were not the ones we have today. The yeast got killed by alcohol at a lower concentration. Drinking wine or beer all the time was fine when it was as weak as shandy. Waaait a minute! People used to drink lightly alcoholised drinks made from natural ingredients, recycling their receptacles? And now we pay for bottled water laced with plastics that render mankind infertile? I am going back to the old ways!
- jamiek88 4y ago
  I don’t think this is true, or at least i can’t think of any examples of a big company forcing a products success, I can only remember lots of counter examples.
- EnKopVand 4y ago
  > It doesn't matter what people want. Big companies can afford to push something and force it on you until you think you want it. Then why aren't Meta making sure all those youngsters join their platforms? I'm not going to pretend that advertisement doesn't work, but there is also a big difference between getting people to drink a Coke or a Pepsi and getting them to join a social media platform and actually spend time on it.
- zamalek 4y ago
  I agree with your conclusion, but not your reasoning. People are going to love it because very few people care about, or are even aware of, Zuck's voyeurism fetish. The loud reaction to this creepy behavior is actually unfathomly small compared to Facebook's active user base. The initial users then drag their entire sphere into it, often convincing people to ignore their own better judgment.
- woeirua 4y ago
  Yeah… FBs experience with Portal would prove otherwise.
nathanaldensr 4y ago
Think of it as an effort to replace your real, natural identity in physical reality with a virtual one. I believe the goal is to make your virtual identity your primary identity. That gives your would-be masters the technological control that is much harder in the real world. It allows for much easier atomization and propagandization. Or it would, if the technology was actually real. Although, one might argue that Twitter, in a way, could be considered a metaverse already.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  agree that this lens is a useful one; secondly there is a massive capacity to build "digital twins" of the civilized world, with enough faux painting of pure nature to make it look good while riding past in your premium tourist seat. E-Tickets, anyone?
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
  Yeah - this thought scares me since meta has zero customer service. I recently lost access to my email and phone 2fa to my instagram. Although my facebook is linked to it and i have changed the email on my facebook, instagram keeps asking me to verify using the 2FA i no longer have. There' no email address you can send requests through, only a wall of FAQ's and automated lines. There are people i have met abroad i no longer can contact as i used instagram chat as my sole means of communication. I can't even request that my instagram be shut down. Now i have this public profile with thousands of followers and no way of controlling.
dale_glass 4y ago
Why AR? I'll admit upfront that I'm biased and develop a VR "metaverse" platform, but where exactly is the appeal of AR for the average person? AR augments reality, so what do you imagine your grandma doing with that? In general there's just not that much information that is useful that we've not already put somewhere accessible. Streets have names, products have ingredient lists, devices have connectors with particular shapes and colors. I see AR having a lot of potential, sure, but I'm not quite seeing where is its mainstream appeal exactly.
- urthor 4y ago
  AR seems extraordinarily attractive to me. Look at the indstrial applications of Google Glass. Seems like once there is hardware + SDK, there will be an absolute explosion in AR.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    I get industrial uses. A doctor or aircraft mechanic might benefit from a vision overlay. But for virtually any normal use, you can just pull out your cell phone and have most of the same functionality. My Nokia N9, a decade ago, had a camera overlay app where you could point it at the street and it'd give you an "AR" overlay pointing out there was a coffee shop in that direction. That was neat, but 99% of the time I don't really need such an overlay because shops label themselves just fine, and I don't care very much what lies beyond when going somewhere.
    - urthor 4y ago
      Fair enough about the shopping. I just can't criticize a technology if it's helping actual human beings do important jobs. After Blockchain it'll be an absolute relief.
junofan 4y ago
A lot of people want to hang out like the influencers they follow.
rwmj 4y ago
Isn't it just Zuck read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and because he's a billionaire he didn't just think "that's cool", but believed he could pivot his company to building it?
jstanley 4y ago
Imagine a future where everybody in the world can have a house as big as they like, with literally no limits. You never need to do any maintenance. You can have whatever furniture you want, it's delivered instantly, and you never have to pay. Space is infinite. Resources are infinite. You just need an absolute bare minimum of subsistence to keep your physical body alive, keep your electricity on, and connect you up to the Internet. We just need people to stop caring about the physical realm and only care about the virtual realm. That is how we achieve practical post-scarcity. That is what the metaverse should be. OK, right now it's not there, but it'll never get there if we never start.
- rewgs 4y ago
  That sounds absolutely horrible.
  - jstanley 4y ago
    What part sounds horrible? You can have whatever life you want. Assuming sufficiently high-quality VR, it is obviously better than actual reality.
    - LunaSea 4y ago
      You'll own a house you can't live in, with a pool you can't swim in, sipping cocktails that are not refreshing, with a girlfriend that is not a girl and not attracted by the real you either.
      - jstanley 4y ago
        But you can do all of those things. If you can't do those things, it's not a sutiable replacement for reality.
        LunaSea 4y ago
        Well a simple response is that if you can feed yourself on virtual food you're creating something out of nothing.
johannes1234321 4y ago
I think there is quite some ambiguity on purposes. They try out a few ideas and look for companies in the VR space to acquire. Once they got something which works they will retrofit the Metverse strategy to be describing that from the get go. If they are precise an d that idea fails they have a lot more explaining to do, while now Zuckerberg is a visionary you simply don't understand, yet.
hotpotamus 4y ago
I assumed it was because they ran out of places to stick ads on and they need more. It's an ad company afterall.

barkingcat 4y ago

It doesn't matter what people want. Big companies can afford to push something and force it on you until you think you want it.

yunohn 4y ago
Why would people be forced to use Meta’s metaverse? Or any metaverse for that matter? This is nonsensical.
brtkdotse 4y ago
Do you have an example of something that was pushed upon people, forcing them to like it?
- mhb 4y ago
  Masks
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    Well that’s just silly.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  Yeah I just posted a similar question, can’t think of any and can think of the converse quite easily. Even Amazon couldn’t push the Amazon phone for example. The nearest I can think of is Xbox but that came out of the gate strong with halo and had a fandom.
- Theodores 4y ago
  Hold that pitchfork: bottled water! Hydration. Bottled water was only available in specialist stores for putting in things like your car radiator. The only bottled water for drinking on the marketplace was 'Perrier'. It was fizzy and came in distinctive bottles. People bought it as often as they bought spirits and it would stay in the drinks cabinet for months. Then they started advertising it. After a few false starts the market for 'hydration' was established and paying money for something that came free from the tap was de rigeur. France and other European countries were ahead of the UK with bottled water, possibly because the tap water was not deemed potable. These brands soon took over the UK market and TV showed the adverts to rake in the consumers. The original word of 'thirsty' was swapped for the American 'hydration' and instead of asking if someone was thirsty you would ask them if they were properly hydrated. Clearly there was no government decree or cartel pointing guns at people and insisting that they forget the thirsty idea and public water faucets. Through marketing and the 'hydration word' they got the job done.
  - jstanley 4y ago
    > because the tap water was not deemed potable So what were they doing in France before bottled water? Just going thirsty?
    - Theodores 4y ago
      Drinking wine. In Ye Olden Days in the UK some fermented beer was 'drinking water'. In Ye Olden Days yeast strains were not the ones we have today. The yeast got killed by alcohol at a lower concentration. Drinking wine or beer all the time was fine when it was as weak as shandy. Waaait a minute! People used to drink lightly alcoholised drinks made from natural ingredients, recycling their receptacles? And now we pay for bottled water laced with plastics that render mankind infertile? I am going back to the old ways!
jamiek88 4y ago
I don’t think this is true, or at least i can’t think of any examples of a big company forcing a products success, I can only remember lots of counter examples.
EnKopVand 4y ago
> It doesn't matter what people want. Big companies can afford to push something and force it on you until you think you want it. Then why aren't Meta making sure all those youngsters join their platforms? I'm not going to pretend that advertisement doesn't work, but there is also a big difference between getting people to drink a Coke or a Pepsi and getting them to join a social media platform and actually spend time on it.
zamalek 4y ago
I agree with your conclusion, but not your reasoning. People are going to love it because very few people care about, or are even aware of, Zuck's voyeurism fetish. The loud reaction to this creepy behavior is actually unfathomly small compared to Facebook's active user base. The initial users then drag their entire sphere into it, often convincing people to ignore their own better judgment.
woeirua 4y ago
Yeah… FBs experience with Portal would prove otherwise.

nathanaldensr 4y ago

Think of it as an effort to replace your real, natural identity in physical reality with a virtual one. I believe the goal is to make your virtual identity your primary identity. That gives your would-be masters the technological control that is much harder in the real world. It allows for much easier atomization and propagandization. Or it would, if the technology was actually real. Although, one might argue that Twitter, in a way, could be considered a metaverse already.

mistrial9 4y ago
agree that this lens is a useful one; secondly there is a massive capacity to build "digital twins" of the civilized world, with enough faux painting of pure nature to make it look good while riding past in your premium tourist seat. E-Tickets, anyone?
TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
Yeah - this thought scares me since meta has zero customer service. I recently lost access to my email and phone 2fa to my instagram. Although my facebook is linked to it and i have changed the email on my facebook, instagram keeps asking me to verify using the 2FA i no longer have. There' no email address you can send requests through, only a wall of FAQ's and automated lines. There are people i have met abroad i no longer can contact as i used instagram chat as my sole means of communication. I can't even request that my instagram be shut down. Now i have this public profile with thousands of followers and no way of controlling.

dale_glass 4y ago

Why AR? I'll admit upfront that I'm biased and develop a VR "metaverse" platform, but where exactly is the appeal of AR for the average person? AR augments reality, so what do you imagine your grandma doing with that? In general there's just not that much information that is useful that we've not already put somewhere accessible. Streets have names, products have ingredient lists, devices have connectors with particular shapes and colors. I see AR having a lot of potential, sure, but I'm not quite seeing where is its mainstream appeal exactly.

urthor 4y ago
AR seems extraordinarily attractive to me. Look at the indstrial applications of Google Glass. Seems like once there is hardware + SDK, there will be an absolute explosion in AR.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  I get industrial uses. A doctor or aircraft mechanic might benefit from a vision overlay. But for virtually any normal use, you can just pull out your cell phone and have most of the same functionality. My Nokia N9, a decade ago, had a camera overlay app where you could point it at the street and it'd give you an "AR" overlay pointing out there was a coffee shop in that direction. That was neat, but 99% of the time I don't really need such an overlay because shops label themselves just fine, and I don't care very much what lies beyond when going somewhere.
  - urthor 4y ago
    Fair enough about the shopping. I just can't criticize a technology if it's helping actual human beings do important jobs. After Blockchain it'll be an absolute relief.

junofan 4y ago

A lot of people want to hang out like the influencers they follow.

rwmj 4y ago

Isn't it just Zuck read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and because he's a billionaire he didn't just think "that's cool", but believed he could pivot his company to building it?

jstanley 4y ago

Imagine a future where everybody in the world can have a house as big as they like, with literally no limits. You never need to do any maintenance. You can have whatever furniture you want, it's delivered instantly, and you never have to pay. Space is infinite. Resources are infinite. You just need an absolute bare minimum of subsistence to keep your physical body alive, keep your electricity on, and connect you up to the Internet. We just need people to stop caring about the physical realm and only care about the virtual realm. That is how we achieve practical post-scarcity. That is what the metaverse should be. OK, right now it's not there, but it'll never get there if we never start.

rewgs 4y ago
That sounds absolutely horrible.
- jstanley 4y ago
  What part sounds horrible? You can have whatever life you want. Assuming sufficiently high-quality VR, it is obviously better than actual reality.
  - LunaSea 4y ago
    You'll own a house you can't live in, with a pool you can't swim in, sipping cocktails that are not refreshing, with a girlfriend that is not a girl and not attracted by the real you either.
    - jstanley 4y ago
      But you can do all of those things. If you can't do those things, it's not a sutiable replacement for reality.
      - LunaSea 4y ago
        Well a simple response is that if you can feed yourself on virtual food you're creating something out of nothing.

johannes1234321 4y ago

I think there is quite some ambiguity on purposes. They try out a few ideas and look for companies in the VR space to acquire. Once they got something which works they will retrofit the Metverse strategy to be describing that from the get go. If they are precise an d that idea fails they have a lot more explaining to do, while now Zuckerberg is a visionary you simply don't understand, yet.

hotpotamus 4y ago

I assumed it was because they ran out of places to stick ads on and they need more. It's an ad company afterall.