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To me and everyone around me the Metaverse was immediately clear to be a massive flop. First of all, before the Metaverse neither me or any of my tech friends d

To me and everyone around me the Metaverse was immediately clear to be a massive flop. First of all, before the Metaverse neither me or any of my tech friends did even know that anyone was still investing into VR. When we heard about Facebook pivoting to the Metaverse we all were like "what? why would you invest into a technology which has been widely rejected already?". It's like Facebook investing in 3D TVs, which had a short blip in the market but then died off, because fundamentally nobody cared about 3D TVs. I don't know anyone who is even remotely excited about VR let alone the Metaverse. This became even more obvious when shortly after Facebook's pivot nobody, I mean like absolutely nobody was searching or reading up on VR news. It's a topic that people just don't care. They don't want VR in their life. People want more REALITY in their life, not less. Especially after COVID. On the other hand, AI has sparked everyone's imagination. Only a few weeks ago I showed my wife ChatGPT and we used it for some work she had to do in her field (medicine) and she was completely amazed by it. She's got her own account with OpenAI now and uses it for a variety of things already. My wife is the most non tech person ever. This to me is a strong indication that AI has not even scratched on the surface of its potential.

JKCalhoun 3y ago
> They don't want VR in their life. People want more REALITY in their life, not less. For myself, I 100% agree. Tired: Metaverse; Wired: Protoverse.
charlieflowers 3y ago
> People want more REALITY in their life, not less. Agree with most of what you said. But my take is, people would LOVE virtual reality if it were done well enough. We just don't seem to have the technical capability to pull it off well enough yet. Uncanny valley and all that.
- jeremyjh 3y ago
  Yes exactly. ChatGPT is exciting because it actually works, not because it’s the first AI chat program. If Microsoft had pivoted to it even 5 years ago they’d be a laughingstock like Meta.
  - MikusR 3y ago
    VR currently works as good as ChatGPT.
    - bink 3y ago
      or ChatGPT works as poorly as VR.
    - jeremyjh 3y ago
      Not for me it doesn’t. I use ChatGPT all the time in my work and it saves me a lot of time. With a couple of exceptions I haven’t found much compelling in VR and can’t stand to do it more than 60 minutes at a stretch.
- MikusR 3y ago
  What does uncanny valley has to do with VR?
  - detaro 3y ago
    What Meta has been pushing as Metaverse is pretty big on human-like avatars.
    - MikusR 3y ago
      But what does it has to do with VR in general? You don't have to use any of Meta social apps to use VR.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        It have to do with VR because VR is attempting to replicate reality. If you do that almost, but not quite, perfectly then you're in the uncanny valley. It doesn't have to be about portraying people. Current VR can't even approach realism -- which keeps it out of the uncanny valley. However, if the technology improves to the point where the graphics approach realistic, the uncanny valley will become a real problem.
season2episode3 3y ago
VR is kind of a gimmick, but AR will, 100%, be the next frontier of human-computer interaction. It sparks the imagination in an extremely tangible way.
- jsemrau 3y ago
  Having built mobile-based AR apps, I realized that I see more value in projected AR over screen-based AR (Glasses). With the obvious example being : parking instructions while driving a car
  - moonchrome 3y ago
    Wearing tech that can project shit over people's eyes while driving should be illegal until it's proven to be safe with year(s) of track record.
    - blep_ 3y ago
      Depends on whether it's the kind that's just glasses when turned off, or the kind that's just a VR headset with a camera on the front.
    - maigret 3y ago
      This will be a good reason for more people to use public transport!
- asdfman123 3y ago
  But IMO, attitudes like "it sparks the imagination" is why VR failed. FB succeeded because it was in the right place at the right time. Sure, it positioned itself cleverly, but the moment in history was ripe for a social media company. Things don't just succeed because they spark the imagination or because you work really hard at them: they succeed because all the factors beyond your control are aligned, too.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  AR clearly has more use cases than VR, but AR will also remain a niche technology. It just has more applicable niches.
ChildOfChaos 3y ago
Well Apple are going pretty heavy into VR/AR with there product likely launching this year, so it's not just Meta that got caught up in that wave, a few years ago that was where a lot of people thought the future was, so that is where both Facebook and Apple seemed to put a lot of investment. It's not done yet. AI is the current buzz because we are starting to see some great products and uses for it, we have yet to see that with VR/AR but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. It's still early, I am not a fan of the 'metaverse' idea, but VR/AR still has a lot left to give.
- potatolicious 3y ago
  I think the discussion around VR/AR sometimes misses the forest for the trees. Yeah, existing products are mostly sucky/very niche, and the existing direction for the entire sub-industry seems very unlikely to break into the mainstream. But that's not to say it's not possible for a mainstream-successful iteration of the idea to exist. My personal feeling is that there is a viable path to mainstream success, though it's far from guaranteed that a player succeeds in taking said path. The real question IMO isn't "can VR/AR be made mainstream successful" (this is largely unknowable until someone does it), the question is "can FB be the company that makes VR/AR mainstream successful". And IMO the answer has always been no. If there is viability in the entire subfield I think Meta is poorly positioned to be the tip of the spear. Its fundamental business model works against the interests of good products in this field (stuff every virtual surface full of ads! Inescapable eyeball tracking for MAXIMUM CONVERSION ATTRIBUTION!!!1one) - one can make a (good) argument about the implications of Meta's VR play with the interests of humanity, but I don't think we even need to get that deep. Their business model fundamentally is at odds with creating compelling products in this arena. So much of their product strategy seems to be stuck in the hole of "what is good for Meta" instead of "what is good for users". And then there's seemingly the perennial issue of FB not being able to ooze any kind of desirability or cultural cachet, which is deeply necessary for any of this to reach the mainstream in a big way. Everything it touches, even before the VR/AR pivot, is like an even more corporate and dead-eyed version of EPCOT.
  - throw_nbvc1234 3y ago
nradov 3y ago
There are some people who legitimately love VR games like VRChat. I am not one of them, but I have talked to a few. At the time that Facebook made it's initial investments into that space starting in 2014 there was at least some possibility that those people were the early adopters of a technology that would disrupt the social media and entertainment industries. Of course that turned out to be wrong (or at least too early) but at the time it wasn't completely implausible. Large enterprises sometimes have to invest in long shots as a risk mitigation strategy.
flxy 3y ago
To offer an additional perspective: A far less monetized and more user content focused version of "the Metaverse" already exists: VRChat. It's been around since before Covid and it is still around. Granted, yes, it is still mostly a niche hobby for some very dedicated people, not all of whom even use VR, but it exists. I think the people who would have been interested in Meta's product looked at it and thought "But we already have a less crappy version of this that's not tied to a questionable company." Especially since Meta's handling of Oculus has been far from great (i.e. requiring a Facebook/Meta account just to use any headset, as opposed to the separate account like before). But as I said, it's still fairly niche and mostly serves as an escape for people. I think slapping the whole "buy in-world items with crypto" thing on top of that just made the target group even smaller than before. It just felt like jumping onto any tech buzz words to broaden appeal, when it actually caused the opposite. For all the data they're supposed to have, that was poor decision making imo.
ghostbrainalpha 3y ago
The data I'm looking at makes the Facebook decision a little more sensical. Yes there was a Big Spike in VR interest around Oculus, and most of the people who bought one have it sitting in a corner collecting dust... But a significant subset of people continued to use it, and their usage is steadily growing. There are huge numbers of people willing to pay $500 -$2k, on each new device that comes out, just to "see if its ready". There are tons of people who work from home on a couple monitors, who WANT to have a VR work setup that gives them screens the size of walls. Obviously the comfort, battery, and visual performance is not there yet, but most people have a feeling that would could just be a generation or two away from it. I would guess that more than 50% of hacker news readers over 40 years old had an MP3 player BEFORE the iPod. They were all garbage and completely replaced when the iPod came out, but for the 2-3 years before the iPod, all the early adopters new something like that was coming and they were hungry for it. I feel that's exactly where VR is.
- jsemrau 3y ago
  > who WANT to have a VR work setup that gives them screens the size of walls. I saw that in the tech demo last year and would agree with that sentiment. Yet I wouldn't want to wear headset for a full day to achieve that.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > They were all garbage No, they weren't. There were excellent ones. What they lacked was enough storage to carry your entire music library with you -- that was the problem the iPod addressed. But in terms of playing music, the iPod was not exceptional.
- grumbel 3y ago
  All the Oculus hype was based on the promise of a $300 headset. The amount of people that are willing to pay $500-$2k is rather tiny (<< 1 million), especially with a near complete lack of AAA game content. Meanwhile the VR-as-monitor replacement fails due to the low resolution. VR headsets by design waste a ton of resolution to get a larger FOV. That's good for immersion and gaming, but renders desktop use impossible. It's possible to build headsets with a small FOV and high resolution, such as what Nreal is doing, but that's not something Meta is focusing on. Worse yet, they kind of pretended that the QuestPro was ready for that use case, but it's not even close. I do agree that there is potential in VR, but Meta has been focusing on all the wrong things. They were far more concerned with gaining total control over the space then they are were about making VR actually worth having. Nobody is looking at Horizon World and goes "I wanna have that", it not only looks terrible compared to stuff we have outside of VR, it even looks terrible compared to all the non-Meta stuff we have in VR.
int_19h 3y ago
VR itself is great for immersive gaming and other similar experiences (e.g. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318030/Fractal_Alchemist/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318030/Fractal_Alchemist...). And some of those can be social, as well. But that is all orthogonal to the "metaverse" as Meta envisions it, and I really don't see the utility of that.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

> They don't want VR in their life. People want more REALITY in their life, not less. For myself, I 100% agree. Tired: Metaverse; Wired: Protoverse.

charlieflowers 3y ago

> People want more REALITY in their life, not less. Agree with most of what you said. But my take is, people would LOVE virtual reality if it were done well enough. We just don't seem to have the technical capability to pull it off well enough yet. Uncanny valley and all that.

jeremyjh 3y ago
Yes exactly. ChatGPT is exciting because it actually works, not because it’s the first AI chat program. If Microsoft had pivoted to it even 5 years ago they’d be a laughingstock like Meta.
- MikusR 3y ago
  VR currently works as good as ChatGPT.
  - bink 3y ago
    or ChatGPT works as poorly as VR.
  - jeremyjh 3y ago
    Not for me it doesn’t. I use ChatGPT all the time in my work and it saves me a lot of time. With a couple of exceptions I haven’t found much compelling in VR and can’t stand to do it more than 60 minutes at a stretch.
MikusR 3y ago
What does uncanny valley has to do with VR?
- detaro 3y ago
  What Meta has been pushing as Metaverse is pretty big on human-like avatars.
  - MikusR 3y ago
    But what does it has to do with VR in general? You don't have to use any of Meta social apps to use VR.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      It have to do with VR because VR is attempting to replicate reality. If you do that almost, but not quite, perfectly then you're in the uncanny valley. It doesn't have to be about portraying people. Current VR can't even approach realism -- which keeps it out of the uncanny valley. However, if the technology improves to the point where the graphics approach realistic, the uncanny valley will become a real problem.

season2episode3 3y ago

VR is kind of a gimmick, but AR will, 100%, be the next frontier of human-computer interaction. It sparks the imagination in an extremely tangible way.

jsemrau 3y ago
Having built mobile-based AR apps, I realized that I see more value in projected AR over screen-based AR (Glasses). With the obvious example being : parking instructions while driving a car
- moonchrome 3y ago
  Wearing tech that can project shit over people's eyes while driving should be illegal until it's proven to be safe with year(s) of track record.
  - blep_ 3y ago
    Depends on whether it's the kind that's just glasses when turned off, or the kind that's just a VR headset with a camera on the front.
  - maigret 3y ago
    This will be a good reason for more people to use public transport!
asdfman123 3y ago
But IMO, attitudes like "it sparks the imagination" is why VR failed. FB succeeded because it was in the right place at the right time. Sure, it positioned itself cleverly, but the moment in history was ripe for a social media company. Things don't just succeed because they spark the imagination or because you work really hard at them: they succeed because all the factors beyond your control are aligned, too.
JohnFen 3y ago
AR clearly has more use cases than VR, but AR will also remain a niche technology. It just has more applicable niches.

ChildOfChaos 3y ago

Well Apple are going pretty heavy into VR/AR with there product likely launching this year, so it's not just Meta that got caught up in that wave, a few years ago that was where a lot of people thought the future was, so that is where both Facebook and Apple seemed to put a lot of investment. It's not done yet. AI is the current buzz because we are starting to see some great products and uses for it, we have yet to see that with VR/AR but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. It's still early, I am not a fan of the 'metaverse' idea, but VR/AR still has a lot left to give.

potatolicious 3y ago
I think the discussion around VR/AR sometimes misses the forest for the trees. Yeah, existing products are mostly sucky/very niche, and the existing direction for the entire sub-industry seems very unlikely to break into the mainstream. But that's not to say it's not possible for a mainstream-successful iteration of the idea to exist. My personal feeling is that there is a viable path to mainstream success, though it's far from guaranteed that a player succeeds in taking said path. The real question IMO isn't "can VR/AR be made mainstream successful" (this is largely unknowable until someone does it), the question is "can FB be the company that makes VR/AR mainstream successful". And IMO the answer has always been no. If there is viability in the entire subfield I think Meta is poorly positioned to be the tip of the spear. Its fundamental business model works against the interests of good products in this field (stuff every virtual surface full of ads! Inescapable eyeball tracking for MAXIMUM CONVERSION ATTRIBUTION!!!1one) - one can make a (good) argument about the implications of Meta's VR play with the interests of humanity, but I don't think we even need to get that deep. Their business model fundamentally is at odds with creating compelling products in this arena. So much of their product strategy seems to be stuck in the hole of "what is good for Meta" instead of "what is good for users". And then there's seemingly the perennial issue of FB not being able to ooze any kind of desirability or cultural cachet, which is deeply necessary for any of this to reach the mainstream in a big way. Everything it touches, even before the VR/AR pivot, is like an even more corporate and dead-eyed version of EPCOT.
- throw_nbvc1234 3y ago

nradov 3y ago

There are some people who legitimately love VR games like VRChat. I am not one of them, but I have talked to a few. At the time that Facebook made it's initial investments into that space starting in 2014 there was at least some possibility that those people were the early adopters of a technology that would disrupt the social media and entertainment industries. Of course that turned out to be wrong (or at least too early) but at the time it wasn't completely implausible. Large enterprises sometimes have to invest in long shots as a risk mitigation strategy.

flxy 3y ago

To offer an additional perspective: A far less monetized and more user content focused version of "the Metaverse" already exists: VRChat. It's been around since before Covid and it is still around. Granted, yes, it is still mostly a niche hobby for some very dedicated people, not all of whom even use VR, but it exists. I think the people who would have been interested in Meta's product looked at it and thought "But we already have a less crappy version of this that's not tied to a questionable company." Especially since Meta's handling of Oculus has been far from great (i.e. requiring a Facebook/Meta account just to use any headset, as opposed to the separate account like before). But as I said, it's still fairly niche and mostly serves as an escape for people. I think slapping the whole "buy in-world items with crypto" thing on top of that just made the target group even smaller than before. It just felt like jumping onto any tech buzz words to broaden appeal, when it actually caused the opposite. For all the data they're supposed to have, that was poor decision making imo.

ghostbrainalpha 3y ago

The data I'm looking at makes the Facebook decision a little more sensical. Yes there was a Big Spike in VR interest around Oculus, and most of the people who bought one have it sitting in a corner collecting dust... But a significant subset of people continued to use it, and their usage is steadily growing. There are huge numbers of people willing to pay $500 -$2k, on each new device that comes out, just to "see if its ready". There are tons of people who work from home on a couple monitors, who WANT to have a VR work setup that gives them screens the size of walls. Obviously the comfort, battery, and visual performance is not there yet, but most people have a feeling that would could just be a generation or two away from it. I would guess that more than 50% of hacker news readers over 40 years old had an MP3 player BEFORE the iPod. They were all garbage and completely replaced when the iPod came out, but for the 2-3 years before the iPod, all the early adopters new something like that was coming and they were hungry for it. I feel that's exactly where VR is.

jsemrau 3y ago
> who WANT to have a VR work setup that gives them screens the size of walls. I saw that in the tech demo last year and would agree with that sentiment. Yet I wouldn't want to wear headset for a full day to achieve that.
JohnFen 3y ago
> They were all garbage No, they weren't. There were excellent ones. What they lacked was enough storage to carry your entire music library with you -- that was the problem the iPod addressed. But in terms of playing music, the iPod was not exceptional.
grumbel 3y ago
All the Oculus hype was based on the promise of a $300 headset. The amount of people that are willing to pay $500-$2k is rather tiny (<< 1 million), especially with a near complete lack of AAA game content. Meanwhile the VR-as-monitor replacement fails due to the low resolution. VR headsets by design waste a ton of resolution to get a larger FOV. That's good for immersion and gaming, but renders desktop use impossible. It's possible to build headsets with a small FOV and high resolution, such as what Nreal is doing, but that's not something Meta is focusing on. Worse yet, they kind of pretended that the QuestPro was ready for that use case, but it's not even close. I do agree that there is potential in VR, but Meta has been focusing on all the wrong things. They were far more concerned with gaining total control over the space then they are were about making VR actually worth having. Nobody is looking at Horizon World and goes "I wanna have that", it not only looks terrible compared to stuff we have outside of VR, it even looks terrible compared to all the non-Meta stuff we have in VR.

int_19h 3y ago

VR itself is great for immersive gaming and other similar experiences (e.g. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318030/Fractal_Alchemist/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318030/Fractal_Alchemist...). And some of those can be social, as well. But that is all orthogonal to the "metaverse" as Meta envisions it, and I really don't see the utility of that.