5 ms·

> The real usecase is porn, but they're too tactful to say it. I don't know why people keep projecting their own desires onto others, lol.

brookst 3y ago
Leaving personal desires out of it, the relationship of porn and tech goes back at least to VHS vs Betamax, probably further. It’s not unreasonable to believe that does not stop with XR headsets.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Sure, but what's the relationship post Blu-Ray? Serving video in general has been important, but not pornography in particular. Ridiculous to say porn is the real usecase. If you have some articles about how porn in particular has driven cutting edge tech please do share. My understanding is that it's been more military, video games and space that have driven cutting edge tech (along with serving ads, of course).
  - the_sleaze9 3y ago
    Porn was the use-case behind the invention of internet payments. Why are so many people (outwardly) against porn when it's one of the biggest digital markets in the world?
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      > Porn was the use-case behind the invention of internet payments. Link? My understanding was that it was online banking and ecommerce. Also, I don't know how you got any negative sentiment about porn from my post lol
    - braymundo 3y ago
      Weird (mostly American) puritanism.
    - vxNsr 3y ago
      Considering how hostile the whole financial industry is to that market segment I kinda seriously doubt that. eBay and PayPal propped each other up, Amazon normalized online shopping. It’s a little odd to me that you’re so set on putting porn at the center of everything in some strange Disney/marvel retconning attempt.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Anecdotally, everyone I know with a VR headset (all of about 5 people) is quite open that porn was one reason for the purchase. The claim isn’t that porn drives technical advances the way space does, but that porn drives consumer adoption of new tech. If a new product category does X, Y, and Z, some percentage of people will buy it. If it does X, Y, Z, and porn, it’s going to sell to a bigger audience and probably make people more forgiving of shortcomings (ha) doing X, Y, and/or Z.
    - endisneigh 3y ago
      > but that porn drives consumer adoption of new tech sure. where's the evidence? anything that can serve video can serve porn. where's evidence that porn in particular is somehow unique? YouTube for example as more active users than all porn sites combined, yet porn is not even available on YouTube. being able to play videos in XR I think will be a real use-case, but this idea that porn in particular is the real usecase is probably wrong, imho. this is not to say that people won't use it for that.
      - brookst 3y ago
        The most dramatic case is older — VHS literally won because of porn. And there was video porn long before YouTube was founded. The claim is that porn drove people to get computers capable of showing video, to buy internet connections fast enough for video, etc. It is not that video sites must serve porn, but that the grassroots interest in porn created the market conditions that made YouTube possible. It’s hard to substantiate because how would you? Other than just having lived through that time and observed (VHS was before my time, but The DVD market was similar). Maybe that era has stopped and horny people are no longer seeking out the newest best way to consume porn, and technology is now pure. I’m just not seeing it, but maybe that’s my cultural bubble.
        endisneigh 3y ago
        why are we discussing 50 year old tech. if porn is so amazing a use case surely there's something in the past 10 years you can point to? also, I looked and did not see anything substantiating your statement that VHS beat betamax because of porn. the reasons I remember and corroborated online were due to longer playback time and cheaper playback devices and more content, which was the result of the cheaper production costs.
- riffraff 3y ago
  > to VHS vs Betamax, probably further definitely to Polaroid: taking sexy pictures and not having to show them to the film development shop was big, I am told.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Apple is famously anti-porn, and enforces this policy in their App Store. What are the chances that apps/content for this device won't be as locked-down or more locked-down as the App Store?
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Does it matter? You watch through the web. It's just video playback whether 2D or VR. Do you think nobody is consuming porn on iPhones?
anamexis 3y ago
Sexual desire is pretty universally human, not personal.
saiya-jin 3y ago
Its not projection, rather well known cases that specifically porn enabled technologies like VHS to gather mass adoption, even over technologically superior tech. Like it or not, doesn't matter if on extreme left or right or anywhere in between, people en masse like it. That they often don't admit it publicly is another topic. Can't beat a billion years of evolution baked into the very foundation of each of us.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Yes but this isn't VHS. When's the last time porn was the major driving factor? You're about the 70s and 80s - might as well be an entirety ago as far as tech is concerned. People thinking porn is going to be what drives adoption of this are insane. It'll most likely be productivity and vertical integration.
  - medvezhenok 3y ago
    This is how you know you're in an engineer bubble. Average people care much less about productivity than you think.

brookst 3y ago

Leaving personal desires out of it, the relationship of porn and tech goes back at least to VHS vs Betamax, probably further. It’s not unreasonable to believe that does not stop with XR headsets.

endisneigh 3y ago
Sure, but what's the relationship post Blu-Ray? Serving video in general has been important, but not pornography in particular. Ridiculous to say porn is the real usecase. If you have some articles about how porn in particular has driven cutting edge tech please do share. My understanding is that it's been more military, video games and space that have driven cutting edge tech (along with serving ads, of course).
- the_sleaze9 3y ago
  Porn was the use-case behind the invention of internet payments. Why are so many people (outwardly) against porn when it's one of the biggest digital markets in the world?
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    > Porn was the use-case behind the invention of internet payments. Link? My understanding was that it was online banking and ecommerce. Also, I don't know how you got any negative sentiment about porn from my post lol
  - braymundo 3y ago
    Weird (mostly American) puritanism.
  - vxNsr 3y ago
    Considering how hostile the whole financial industry is to that market segment I kinda seriously doubt that. eBay and PayPal propped each other up, Amazon normalized online shopping. It’s a little odd to me that you’re so set on putting porn at the center of everything in some strange Disney/marvel retconning attempt.
- brookst 3y ago
  Anecdotally, everyone I know with a VR headset (all of about 5 people) is quite open that porn was one reason for the purchase. The claim isn’t that porn drives technical advances the way space does, but that porn drives consumer adoption of new tech. If a new product category does X, Y, and Z, some percentage of people will buy it. If it does X, Y, Z, and porn, it’s going to sell to a bigger audience and probably make people more forgiving of shortcomings (ha) doing X, Y, and/or Z.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    > but that porn drives consumer adoption of new tech sure. where's the evidence? anything that can serve video can serve porn. where's evidence that porn in particular is somehow unique? YouTube for example as more active users than all porn sites combined, yet porn is not even available on YouTube. being able to play videos in XR I think will be a real use-case, but this idea that porn in particular is the real usecase is probably wrong, imho. this is not to say that people won't use it for that.
    - brookst 3y ago
      The most dramatic case is older — VHS literally won because of porn. And there was video porn long before YouTube was founded. The claim is that porn drove people to get computers capable of showing video, to buy internet connections fast enough for video, etc. It is not that video sites must serve porn, but that the grassroots interest in porn created the market conditions that made YouTube possible. It’s hard to substantiate because how would you? Other than just having lived through that time and observed (VHS was before my time, but The DVD market was similar). Maybe that era has stopped and horny people are no longer seeking out the newest best way to consume porn, and technology is now pure. I’m just not seeing it, but maybe that’s my cultural bubble.
      - endisneigh 3y ago
        why are we discussing 50 year old tech. if porn is so amazing a use case surely there's something in the past 10 years you can point to? also, I looked and did not see anything substantiating your statement that VHS beat betamax because of porn. the reasons I remember and corroborated online were due to longer playback time and cheaper playback devices and more content, which was the result of the cheaper production costs.
riffraff 3y ago
> to VHS vs Betamax, probably further definitely to Polaroid: taking sexy pictures and not having to show them to the film development shop was big, I am told.
ryandrake 3y ago
Apple is famously anti-porn, and enforces this policy in their App Store. What are the chances that apps/content for this device won't be as locked-down or more locked-down as the App Store?
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Does it matter? You watch through the web. It's just video playback whether 2D or VR. Do you think nobody is consuming porn on iPhones?

anamexis 3y ago

Sexual desire is pretty universally human, not personal.

saiya-jin 3y ago

Its not projection, rather well known cases that specifically porn enabled technologies like VHS to gather mass adoption, even over technologically superior tech. Like it or not, doesn't matter if on extreme left or right or anywhere in between, people en masse like it. That they often don't admit it publicly is another topic. Can't beat a billion years of evolution baked into the very foundation of each of us.

endisneigh 3y ago
Yes but this isn't VHS. When's the last time porn was the major driving factor? You're about the 70s and 80s - might as well be an entirety ago as far as tech is concerned. People thinking porn is going to be what drives adoption of this are insane. It'll most likely be productivity and vertical integration.
- medvezhenok 3y ago
  This is how you know you're in an engineer bubble. Average people care much less about productivity than you think.