10 ms·
Meta is still a 600B company and large credit goes to Zukerberg. His insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning, making critical acquisitions, relentl
by neel8986 3y ago
Meta is still a 600B company and large credit goes to Zukerberg. His insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning, making critical acquisitions, relentlessly going to new geographies, investment in AI all played off. Every major company made mistake including Google ( Google Plus ), Microsoft ( Windows phone ) and apple ( entire 90s ). A company making mistake just means they are still taking risks and not sailing to oblivion.
Moreover we still don't know how entire VR game will play off given the technical arc. Just one or two cycle hardware innovation may make VR successful.
- muglug 3y agoThe problem of VR goes beyond hardware innovation: most people don’t want to completely shut themselves off from the world for hours on end.
- monero-xmr 3y agoI have friends that got married, never had kids, and spend large chunks of their free time in MMORPGs, League of Legends, and a seemingly endless array of virtual-based entertainment. They also seem to get a lot of personal meaning and satisfaction from nerd pop culture like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings which is evidence that their rich fantasy lives have such deep meaning for them. So I find it totally plausible that a huge amount of people would spend large amounts of time in a more immersive virtual world, provided it wasn’t clunky and caused headaches.
- roydivision 3y agoYou have a few friends != large number of people will do the same.
- monero-xmr 3y agoI take the entire breadth of my lived experience when trying to predict the future, and I place high value on anecdata. My strategies have served me well thus far, but if you want to outsource all of your thinking to “experts”, good luck to you.
- kibwen 3y agoYou don't need to "outsource all of your thinking to experts" to understand that data is not the plural of anecdote. I, too, know people who met their future spouse online. However, after meeting online, they invariably meet in person before getting married, and then live together after getting married. Even the most plugged-in exemplars of the metaverse can't escape from the desire to interact outside of it.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agorecurring reminder - the original quote is "the plural of anecdote is data" http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/ http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...
- fuzzybiscuit 3y agothat was an excellent read and dispelled the attempt to recast the phrases negation.
- khazhoux 3y agoAnd yet, while HN places zero trust in anecdata and personal observation, it it critical in real life decision-making. Most mega-successful entrepreneurs got there by trusting their instincts, not disregarding their own observations and instead only ever searching for studies conducted by others. So while I agree with your point overall, I think here on HN we're too quick to dismiss people's personal stories.
- marsven_422 3y ago[dead]
- irrational 3y ago> So I find it totally plausible that a huge amount of people would spend large amounts of time in a more immersive virtual world I, on the other hand, know nobody that uses virtual worlds. I find it plausible that a tiny amount of people would spend large amounts of time in a more immersive virtual world. I find it completely implausible that a huge amount of people would.
- b112 3y agoI find it completely implausible that a huge amount of people would. But people already do. Email, Facebook, twitter, messaging, slack, all of it, is by no means real, human interaction. It is a step away from that. Some even say that this type of interaction is so fake, so filled with disinformation, and algorithmic monkeying, that it is toxic poison. Yet people will be with friends at a restaurant, or hanging out, and so addicted, so unable to stop, that they are constantly be staring at their screen instead of interacting in person! People cannot help themselves, and people cannot resist addictive platforms. So sadly, Zuck probably has a good idea. He's probably a bit early, but you can be sure when VR takes a Musk implant, and a simple pair of glasses for full immersion, people will be in VR while having lunch with you.
- spacemadness 3y agoIt’s a huge jump from what you mentioned rather than a “small step away.” (I see you edited your post, but I’m sticking with the original quote) Everything you mentioned can be done in short spurts of time and interwoven with other parts of someones life. VR as it stands today is way too burdensome and all consuming to pull that off. I’m not even getting into the additional hardware costs.
- irrational 3y agoNone of those things you mentioned are an immersive virtual world, at least not by how I understand that concept.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
- pipeline_peak 3y agoAlso who wants a large pair of goggles strapped to their face? It’s such a chore to take it on and off when you can just look away from a screen. VR belongs in the 80s
- jstanley 3y ago100 years ago people would have said the same about having the internet in your house and using the computer of an evening. In the future, if everything you care about is in VR, then not being in VR would be shutting yourself off from the world, the same as not using the internet is shutting oneself off from the world today (for some of us).
- kibwen 3y agoA future where "everything that you care about is in VR" describes a hellish dystopia. Even in a future where humans spend large amounts of time in virtual spaces, our meat bodies still appreciate going for walks in the park.
- MikeTheRocker 3y agoThe average American spends something like 3 hours per day watching TV, and upwards of 6 hours of total screen time, according to a quick Google search. Is it really that much of a stretch to imagine a world where the screens we use are part of a head-mounted display? Think about any time you've been on a bus, train or plane -- most people on board are using their phones or tablets. I suspect within this decade it's common for those devices to be supplanted by AR/VR headsets.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago> The average American spends something like 3 hours per day watching TV Would Better Call Saul be a better story in VR? One of the things that makes shows and movies good is tight editing and focus; a VR system where I can look around is the antithesis of that. Same way I feel about open world games like GTA V vs. something like Bioshock which is highly linear but also highly directed. But FWIW I'm totally with you about the airplane headset, never have I wanted to be somewhere else then when I'm on a plane...
- b112 3y agoA future where "everything that you care about is in VR" describes a hellish dystopia Isn't that the way it is now? Used to be, you'd all get together at the town hall, to discuss problems with the city. Now people use twitter and Facebook, and community involvement is at an all time low. We're already in VR version 1. Nothing online is "real"! In VR2 people will still go for walks in the park, but just as now, where everone is walking and staring at their phone, people will be in VR2 while walking their dog.
- sp332 3y agoIf my friends and I are socializing in VR, it's not exactly shut off from the world. Anyway Hololens and Apple's upcoming XR glasses don't block out the world in the first place.
- amerkhalid 3y agoI sold my Quest 2 because I rarely ever used after initial honeymoon period. It was clunky and required too much preparation before put it on. But I am looking forward to Quest 3. Because I really miss the part of completely shutting off from my surroundings and being transported elsewhere. And really enjoyed random conversations in Table Tennis game and in their VR World thing. Only after selling it, I realized how much those few minutes in it were worth. EDIT: Now I think VR/meta is correct long term move.
- sersi 3y agoThat's exactly my feeling, I have a valve index and got my parents a quest. It's still new technology, it's still clunky but it will get better and I've had really amazing moments with VR. I think the Meta beta is correct long term. It might be too early right now but I think long term, it's the correct move
- grumbel 3y agoThat's solvable, just add proper stereo pass-through cameras to turn the VR headset into an AR headset. The Lenovo Mirage Solo[1] had that four years ago, due to the death of the whole Daydream platform it didn't see much use outside of YoutubeVR, but there it works great. You just hit a button and you can see the world around you while watching Youtube. Quest2 has been adding similar functionality over the last year, though the image quality of the pass-through still leaves a lot to be desired, but that can be fixed in future headsets. Depths sensors will also make they way into headsets sooner or later and allow much more flexible integration between real world and virtual objects. Hololens could do that years ago, but the VR space still needs to do some catch up. [1] https://www.uploadvr.com/mirage-solo-is-getting-pass-through-support-with-depth-perception-and-ar/ https://www.uploadvr.com/mirage-solo-is-getting-pass-through...
- fmajid 3y agoNo, the problem is you can't really move in the VR environment with current-generation products, so that ruins the illusion. But I think Apple is on the right track in betting on AR rather than VR. Meta's other problem is that while it owns an overwhelming share of VR headsets thanks to subsidies, it is a pitiful also-ran in services with Horizon compared to the real leaders, Fortnite and Minecraft.
- purplecircle 3y agothe problem isn't in VR per se. the problem is the current iterations of VR hw/sw. while quest 2 has solved some problems, there are still hurdles to usability. but these hurdles aren't inherent to VR.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y agoPlus and Windows Phone (and Zune) were decent though. I think they just blundered the launches or marketing.
- ZitchDog 3y agoI agree. There has been tremendous whiplash in the markets. We went from free money and “new paradigms” to QT belt tightening and broken dreams. If people think they could lead better than Zuck, they should start a company and beat him.
- 908B64B197 3y ago> Just one or two cycle hardware innovation may make VR successful. They already achieved something like a 10x cost reduction with the Quest in a few HW generations. I think their worse mistake was tying up Oculus devices to Facebook accounts. Oculus should have stayed a separate platform with minimal ties to Facebook with it's own social features.
- johngalt_ 3y agoHow requiring a Facebook account to use Oculus was their worst mistake? I get it that a few people might be bothered by that, but most people don't care.
- bink 3y agoTheir focus on making Facebook for mobile platforms was smart, their efforts to make a mobile phone were late and substandard. By critical acquisitions I assume you mean Instagram and WhatsApp. Both were anti-competitive attempts to stave off becoming the next MySpace (but also successful). Everything else on the list of acquisitions looks like gambles that did not pay off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Meta_Platforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio... Google, Microsoft, and Apple have never bet such a huge chunk of their spending on a single tech that has been so resoundingly mocked. The amount Meta is spending on VR makes the Windows phone look like a drop in the bucket. It's not that they are speculating on a moonshot, it's that they are wasting so much of their money on a single moonshot.
- dnissley 3y ago> their efforts to make a mobile phone were late and substandard Meta was in its infancy when the mobile hardware revolution was happening. Do you really think they stood a chance of creating their own hardware platform while simultaneously adapting their existing software platform to the new paradigm? According to a google search they had 850 employees in 2008. Apple had 32000. > It's not that they are speculating on a moonshot, it's that they are wasting so much of their money on a single moonshot And yet Google is constantly trounced on this very site for never committing and constantly shutting down promising products. Armchair critics will never be satisfied and Zuck is wise to ignore them.
- 3y ago
- jjeaff 3y agoIt's easy to look like a visionary leader when people will rewrite history for you. Facebook was famously late to mobile and almost missed the boat. Luckily, they had the resources to plow into catching up around 2012.
- nine_k 3y agoWho were the mobile pioneers who blazed the trail? Where are they now? Let's exclude Apple and Google from the competition because they own the mobile platforms.
- fyrn_ 3y agoThey own the mobile platforms because they blazed the trail as you put it. That was the prize they were competing for, Meta was late with the HTC First / Facebook phone, and so they lost. Of course they would have liked to own their own little mobile fiefdom, they are incredibly valuable platforms
- nine_k 3y agoI honestly don't think there is a room for a third commercial mobile platform, after Apple started the smartphone market, and Google caught up soon enough after. Even strong and entrenched players like Palm, Nokia (with Tizen) and even BlackBerry could not hold. In 2007, Facebook was way, way less mighty, and by 2012, it was late. Speaking of Windows Phone: it had great hardware and good, innovative software. It's Microsoft's bureaucratic ineptitude that killed it, not its (possible lack of) merit.
- quantumwoke 3y agoIndustry titans can still make mistakes and it's important to recognise them. The examples you give are decades old. I agree that VR may yet turn around but at the moment needs dictate a pivot in focus.
- xwdv 3y agoDon’t know how metaverse stuff will pan out, but Quest 3 should be a pretty big leap forward in VR tech.
- croes 3y agoThe leaked specs of the Quest 3 don't look like a big leap.
- MikusR 3y ago2-3x performance increase is not big?
- croes 3y ago2-3x performance in 3 years isn't a big leap
- xwdv 3y agoCheaper, faster, much better optics: any two of those would be good, all three is incredible.
- croes 3y agoCheaper? Compared to the pro not the Quest 2. And the resolution is still too low. Better than the Quest 2 but not a big leap
- reaperducer 3y agoHis insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning Wha? This is revisionist history. Facebook was very late to having a mobile app. It was widely ridiculed for a very long time for not having an iPhone app, and when it did finally get one, it was so bad that it was practically unusable for at least two years. I remember a number of friends and family members giving up on Facebook because its app was so slow, bad, and buggy, even on the newest phones. My wife upgraded to a new phone just because the Facebook app was so awful, and she was so disappointed to find out that the problem wasn't the phone, it was Facebook.
- davnn 3y agoThey were betting on web technologies instead of native, which was quoted as early Mark Zuckerberg's biggest mistake [1]. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/mark-zuckerberg-our-biggest-mistake-with-mobile-was-betting-too-much-on-html5 https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/mark-zuckerberg-our-bigges...
- qwytw 3y agoTechnically Apple made the same mistake but realized and mostly fixed it in half a year or so.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- amelius 3y ago> Just one or two cycle hardware innovation may make VR successful. Yes, especially if you consider that now AI can create entire 3D worlds at near-zero cost ...
- dekervin 3y agoThat's the thing I am aghast it has not yet percolated through the tech commentorship. The AI advances of yesterday completely have turned upside down the VR/AR/XR equation. (Note the use of past tense)
- neel8986 3y agoI completely agree with this and i believe lots of innovation in meta is happening here. The biggest reason for VR not taking off is the VR world at present looks funny and old like 90s video games and headset is heavy and clunky. This can change completely if they can increase the resolution of headset, make them 3x lighter and with jaw dropping graphics created by generative AI streamed from cloud.
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago> making critical acquisitions like who/what?
- EGreg 3y agoMark “bet the company on HTML5” ten years ago and backed off later. Things happen. The problem is that Meta has too MUCH power.
- randomdata 3y ago> Moreover we still don't know how entire VR game will play off I'm not sure it even matters as it appears the game was really a way to find a funding stream for future hardware development to get them where they really want to go. Kind of like how Netflix mailed DVDs around until they could achieve their goal of a streaming service.
- bmitc 3y ago> Just one or two cycle hardware innovation may make VR successful. How many decades and hardware cycles does it take for this prediction to go away? Billions has been poured into VR and it's still as much a novelty and fad as ever.
- roflyear 3y agoWorth 600b until it isn't
- drexlspivey 3y agoIt was worth 300b in January
- rhaway84773 3y agoWasn’t Facebook late to the mobile party insisting on their web app instead of creating a decent native app for the longest time?
- disgruntledphd2 3y agoThey sure were. They bet the farm on HTML5 but ended up having to change their minds when it didn't work. When I joined FB in 2013 people told me it was a really bad move as they didn't get mobile.
- purplecircle 3y agoMeta isn't investing billions into VR alone. They're also investing billions into AR, metaverse, etc. Read their filings & earnings report; it's all in there. The funny part is, if they actually invested more on investing in VR, they might actually get to AR faster.
- AlchemistCamp 3y agoIn the long run AR will be subsumed by VR (by having cameras and displaying the real world within the VR experience, with whatever augmentations dictated by the software).
- PaulHoule 3y agoIt’s a story that could have gone in different directions. Mostly Facebook was lucky to be in the right time and place and didn’t have an entrenched competitor. You could have the kind of brain Eliezer Yudkowsky is afraid of and try to start Facebook in 2023 and fail, fail, fail. Sheryl Sandburg deserve a huge amount of credit for making Facebook a sustainable business, something Zuck floundered at previously. A person who could brilliantly take advantage of a an opportunity once might have no generalizable talent to create another opportunity out of thin air.