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My hot take from a random person spending time in the trenches: Meta leadership is focused on a _meta_ problem, namely that they do not own a major platform and

My hot take from a random person spending time in the trenches: Meta leadership is focused on a _meta_ problem, namely that they do not own a major platform and are constrained from further growth compared to Apple and Google who do own major platforms. They are perfectly happy to be the android to whatever the next iOS is. From that perspective, a halo device is a risky bet because it doesn’t let you onboard a lot of people quickly and start building platform.

noirscape 3y ago
The problem with Meta is far deeper than a few corporate heads or what they control - the customer just straight up does not trust them. Privacy is something they've never really been good with (remember, they were at the center of the Cambridge Analytica scandal) and whenever they've been asked to do any form of moderation, Metas name always gets dragged through the mud (regardless on if you think they screwed up or not, this is about how this affected their PR). It doesn't matter how much money they dump into VR - unless they either get to brand it fully away from Facebook or do some serious PR repairing, their VR efforts won't work out. Privacy is a big thing and for Facebook/Meta, that is the one name even most average users will recognize as "do not trust" when it comes to their privacy related matters. Note that this only really goes for the Facebook and Meta brand names because Meta spend a lot of time promoting the rename of Facebook to Meta, so it inherited all that distrust. It doesn't go for Instagram or WhatsApp.
- tomp 3y ago
  The problem is even deeper than lack of trust/privacy. It's that Meta's business model optimises for the wrong thing. M$ optimises for pleasing employers. Meta & Google optimise for pleasing advertisers. Amazon optimises for cheapness. Only Apple actually optimises for pleasing consumers, with amazing products. It would require a fundamental pivot in company strategy, their raison d'être.
  - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
    That’s a great way of putting it. It’s not necessarily that any given path is _bad_, but some of those paths aren’t consumer/privacy/business/whatever-friendly. I think Meta and Amazon stand alone here with a different problem than the rest, which is in terms of people that they both have sociopathic leadership. Technically, neither have an “in-hand/hands-on” platform either: no desktop OS or truly viable productivity platform. Amazon doesn’t even use the AWS WorkMail. Those two things combined make the erraticism seem perfectly “normal”. I think Google’s problems are survivable if they get rid of Pichai and learn to focus.
dangus 3y ago
This exactly. In my view, Meta was hyper-focused on having their own App Store. They missed the boat on having one for smartphones and tablets, so VR was their only reasonable choice. Everything else about the platform was secondary: just get a cheap device into people's homes as fast as possible. The Oculus Quest is cheap enough to be a dust gatherer where many families never plan to purchase the 2.0 product (see also: Nintendo Wii).
- marpstar 3y ago
  I started to reply "why the hell does a social network need an App Store?" -- then I remembered FarmVille and a few of my friends becoming zombies... What a time that was... It's an interesting way of looking at things. I think, like the article mentions, Meta has been more focused on creating Facebook VR than on pushing things the tech forward. "Oculus" became a recognizable name even to those of us who weren't following the space. The Oculus hardware seems well-built (my kid has a Rift S) but it's clunky. I can't count the number of times we've had to reset the boundaries/floor level. It's immersive enough when it's working, but (and I understand it's years-old, mid-level tech) I'd never expect to work with it. Microsoft, on the third hard, has taken a hard pivot towards industry with HoloLens -- which is at the same price point at Vision Pro, but has almost 7 years experience gained in the space at this point.
  - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
    The “Facebook Platform” days of FarmVille were the closest they came to building something resembling a platform. Unfortunately for them they optimized against their own long-term interests in exchange for quarterly ad revenue. And they spent it all on chasing Zuckerberg pipe dreams.

noirscape 3y ago

The problem with Meta is far deeper than a few corporate heads or what they control - the customer just straight up does not trust them. Privacy is something they've never really been good with (remember, they were at the center of the Cambridge Analytica scandal) and whenever they've been asked to do any form of moderation, Metas name always gets dragged through the mud (regardless on if you think they screwed up or not, this is about how this affected their PR). It doesn't matter how much money they dump into VR - unless they either get to brand it fully away from Facebook or do some serious PR repairing, their VR efforts won't work out. Privacy is a big thing and for Facebook/Meta, that is the one name even most average users will recognize as "do not trust" when it comes to their privacy related matters. Note that this only really goes for the Facebook and Meta brand names because Meta spend a lot of time promoting the rename of Facebook to Meta, so it inherited all that distrust. It doesn't go for Instagram or WhatsApp.

tomp 3y ago
The problem is even deeper than lack of trust/privacy. It's that Meta's business model optimises for the wrong thing. M$ optimises for pleasing employers. Meta & Google optimise for pleasing advertisers. Amazon optimises for cheapness. Only Apple actually optimises for pleasing consumers, with amazing products. It would require a fundamental pivot in company strategy, their raison d'être.
- TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
  That’s a great way of putting it. It’s not necessarily that any given path is _bad_, but some of those paths aren’t consumer/privacy/business/whatever-friendly. I think Meta and Amazon stand alone here with a different problem than the rest, which is in terms of people that they both have sociopathic leadership. Technically, neither have an “in-hand/hands-on” platform either: no desktop OS or truly viable productivity platform. Amazon doesn’t even use the AWS WorkMail. Those two things combined make the erraticism seem perfectly “normal”. I think Google’s problems are survivable if they get rid of Pichai and learn to focus.

dangus 3y ago

This exactly. In my view, Meta was hyper-focused on having their own App Store. They missed the boat on having one for smartphones and tablets, so VR was their only reasonable choice. Everything else about the platform was secondary: just get a cheap device into people's homes as fast as possible. The Oculus Quest is cheap enough to be a dust gatherer where many families never plan to purchase the 2.0 product (see also: Nintendo Wii).

marpstar 3y ago
I started to reply "why the hell does a social network need an App Store?" -- then I remembered FarmVille and a few of my friends becoming zombies... What a time that was... It's an interesting way of looking at things. I think, like the article mentions, Meta has been more focused on creating Facebook VR than on pushing things the tech forward. "Oculus" became a recognizable name even to those of us who weren't following the space. The Oculus hardware seems well-built (my kid has a Rift S) but it's clunky. I can't count the number of times we've had to reset the boundaries/floor level. It's immersive enough when it's working, but (and I understand it's years-old, mid-level tech) I'd never expect to work with it. Microsoft, on the third hard, has taken a hard pivot towards industry with HoloLens -- which is at the same price point at Vision Pro, but has almost 7 years experience gained in the space at this point.
- TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
  The “Facebook Platform” days of FarmVille were the closest they came to building something resembling a platform. Unfortunately for them they optimized against their own long-term interests in exchange for quarterly ad revenue. And they spent it all on chasing Zuckerberg pipe dreams.