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Actually, fading the crowd has a pretty good track record. Go look at the comment history from any major new product category.
by cloudking 4y ago
Actually, fading the crowd has a pretty good track record. Go look at the comment history from any major new product category.
- woodruffw 4y agoOkay, but this isn't the HN crowd, it's the market. HN's opinion (at least in this thread) simply aligns with it.
- cloudking 4y agoYeah good point, edited for market. We'll see in next few years I guess. My point is everyone is quick to judge a new technology idea before they even try it or give it a chance.
- woodruffw 4y agoIndeed we will! I don't have a particularly strong opinion on VR stuff (I don't think I've ever put a VR headset on). I think I'll have a stronger opinion when they become more common, if they become more common. That's the part that's a little hard to see right now, but maybe I just don't get it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cwalv 4y agoIt's notoriously hard to get excited about VR without having tried it. It doesn't seem like it should make that much of a difference, but the "immersive" nature of VR really does make a lot of things a lot more engaging, and with AR there are a lot of real world use cases outside gaming/entertainment/fitness
- runevault 4y agoThe problem here is it isn't an entirely unknown market. People have tried to make VR work since the 90s, and everyone has failed. What is the last product Facebook made in house that wasn't bolted onto their existing offerings that has made a dent in anything? They tried to make their own phone OS and failed miserably. They had to buy Instagram and WhatsApp.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoWhy is Meta Horizons full of kids then?
- woodruffw 4y agoI'll just point out: Club Penguin was also full of kids (including me), but it certainly wasn't worth a trillion dollars. ("Full of" is also unclear. Are they doing better than Roblox or Minecraft? I understand those to be extremely popular with kids.)
- cwalv 4y agoJust an observation: roblox' market cap is now > 10% of Meta's.
- cloudking 4y agoThere is more than one player in this space, maybe Meta won't succeed, but maybe another will. To your point, I think the biggest challenge is still in the hardware. It has improved since the 90s but is still too bulky and cumbersome, similar to the mobile phone hardware companies tried to make before the iPhone.
- petesergeant 4y ago> fading the crowd has a pretty good track record. Go look at the comment history from any major new product category This is called survivorship bias
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cloudking 4y agoWhat's your point?
- rippercushions 4y agoThat we remember the people who dissed the iPhone or Dropbox, but not those who correctly panned countless failures. In Sagan's words, "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
- petesergeant 4y agoExactly that, thank you. Myself, I'm far too optimistic, and I held out hope for companies (like Theranos) long after HN has gone super skeptical on them.
- cloudking 4y agoFair points, there are a lot of intelligent minds here. Personally, I'm thinking about the viability of metaverse concepts beyond the walls of Meta, while the bearish concensus I've seen in media and comments seems to focus only on them. Maybe that is an unfortunate side effect of the branding exercise. I appreciate your opinions.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoIt's also called "contrarian investing"; it does in fact have a decent track record.
- rippercushions 4y agoYup, that's why contrarians should have been all in on Stadia, Quibi and Juicero.
- Bakary 4y agoThis is a similar reasoning to claiming that college is not useful because people such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or the Zucc did not need it to do well. It's a form of cargo culting.