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if Meta ends up being the owners of "Android of VR" by this investment and VR ends up being as big as mobile Zuck will show everyone why they did this. I'm opti

by msoad 3y ago

if Meta ends up being the owners of "Android of VR" by this investment and VR ends up being as big as mobile Zuck will show everyone why they did this. I'm optimistic that Meta's plan is going to work and AR/VR will be a huge market. Gaming and work meeting apps are the core of the VR experience and I'm convinced that many people would want those experiences

mantas 3y ago
Most people don't bother to turn on webcam on work meetings. Vast majority of people don't bother with video calls either and just use old good voice if not text. Why would those crowds bother with VR?
- throwaway4aday 3y ago
  I hate turning on my webcam but I love meeting with people in VR. It's pretty obvious why when you've tried both.
- notahacker 3y ago
  (I) you don't need those crowds to have a high value product. Vast majority of people don't own a games console or a gambling account or buy many books either. (II) many of the same people that don't bother turning on webcam at work meetings do care about it when talking to their family or spend hours immersed in MMORPGs or exploring other people's world's through video and being seen to follow all the right trends on social media. Sure, mainstream VR has been "just around the corner" since before the average person had access to the internet and I think there are still technical and fashion questions about how mass market-ready the tech is and whether Meta is remotely the right company to market its Android, but if we judged the long term potential of a tech by people's enthusiasm for being observed by their boss even the internet would have been written off...
tokai 3y ago
If anything the last couple of years has shown that people don't want VR gaming or work experiences.
- jcfrei 3y ago
  In my opinion we just haven't reached the tipping point yet. Very few cared about "smart" phones with touch screens until Apple came out with the iPhone. Other manufacturers like Nokia or HTC had devices with similar capabilities for years but consumers shunned them. The experience needs to be good enough for people to consider these devices - again Apple's headset could be the first to really establish the category.
  - tokai 3y ago
    The modern VR fad is over 10 years old. Early smartphones to widespread adoption was lighting fast compared.
    - IggleSniggle 3y ago
      I'm not sure I agree. There were proto-smartphones in the early 90s, but they couldnt become widespread until the tech was there to deliver the necessary baseline experience. I think we're only just getting to that level of tech now. Nobody wants to cart around a gaming computer with cabled to a headset, especially in an era of smartphones etc. You need a headset that can deliver a solid experience, untethered by cables at minimum, to arrive at the Palm Pilot PDA equivalent point in the XR => widespread adoption timeline.
      - dagw 3y ago
        There were proto-smartphones in the early 90s Which phones are you thinking of? I would consider either the Nokia Communicator in 1996 or the Ericsson R380 from 1999, as the first proto-smartphones. Or are you counting things like Apple Newton as a proto-smartphone?
        IggleSniggle 3y ago
        I guess your question is the gist of my point. The Apple Newton is a great touchpoint as it points in a particular direction, but it was 1) the wrong form factor, 2) too expensive, 3) emphasized the wrong features. Still, it pointed a clear direction. From Newton to iPhone is 15+ years, but it's not totally unreasonable to consider the Osborne 1 with an acoustic coupler to be the real starting line, given its popularity as a portable comms computer, and really iPhone 3G/3GS is probably a better "we've arrived" point than the first iPhone. Of course, VR tech could be "started" much earlier than the current fad. However, I think DK1 was Osborne 1 in terms of the technology meeting the needs of the medium, maybe Newton-level on the timeline if you're already a VR enthusiast and have enthusiast blinders on. That was 2013, only 10 years ago. Theres still underlying tech that isn't totally "there" in terms of supporting the "right" VR experience, but most people who have tried any modern headset can feel the potential. It's like using a Windows Mobile from 2003; it feels like a glimpse of an inevitable future, even though you can simultaneously recognize that it's time has not yet come.
soared 3y ago
Agreed - once the tech is there AR/VR make sense in so many applications and meta wants too be the first company to win in that space. Yeah tens of billions in losses doesn’t look good now, but in 7 years when they’re potentially the winner it will be worth the hundreds of billions in revenue.
- mproud 3y ago
  Or they’ll have wasted all the money because later they’ll realize their strategy and/or products were flawed. It’s obviously a huge gamble.
rvz 3y ago
Exactly and this is looking very likely as I said before: [0]. Again, we are slowly realizing why Meta is spending billions on XR headsets and Apple's move to spatial computing just validates the spending. I expect the Vision Pro to under perform in sales, but it is the next generation of Vision products (2nd and 3rd) that is going to be extremely competitive and cheaper against Meta Quest. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36223235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36223235

by msoad 3y ago

mantas 3y ago

Most people don't bother to turn on webcam on work meetings. Vast majority of people don't bother with video calls either and just use old good voice if not text. Why would those crowds bother with VR?

throwaway4aday 3y ago
I hate turning on my webcam but I love meeting with people in VR. It's pretty obvious why when you've tried both.
notahacker 3y ago
(I) you don't need those crowds to have a high value product. Vast majority of people don't own a games console or a gambling account or buy many books either. (II) many of the same people that don't bother turning on webcam at work meetings do care about it when talking to their family or spend hours immersed in MMORPGs or exploring other people's world's through video and being seen to follow all the right trends on social media. Sure, mainstream VR has been "just around the corner" since before the average person had access to the internet and I think there are still technical and fashion questions about how mass market-ready the tech is and whether Meta is remotely the right company to market its Android, but if we judged the long term potential of a tech by people's enthusiasm for being observed by their boss even the internet would have been written off...

tokai 3y ago

If anything the last couple of years has shown that people don't want VR gaming or work experiences.

jcfrei 3y ago
In my opinion we just haven't reached the tipping point yet. Very few cared about "smart" phones with touch screens until Apple came out with the iPhone. Other manufacturers like Nokia or HTC had devices with similar capabilities for years but consumers shunned them. The experience needs to be good enough for people to consider these devices - again Apple's headset could be the first to really establish the category.
- tokai 3y ago
  The modern VR fad is over 10 years old. Early smartphones to widespread adoption was lighting fast compared.
  - IggleSniggle 3y ago
    I'm not sure I agree. There were proto-smartphones in the early 90s, but they couldnt become widespread until the tech was there to deliver the necessary baseline experience. I think we're only just getting to that level of tech now. Nobody wants to cart around a gaming computer with cabled to a headset, especially in an era of smartphones etc. You need a headset that can deliver a solid experience, untethered by cables at minimum, to arrive at the Palm Pilot PDA equivalent point in the XR => widespread adoption timeline.
    - dagw 3y ago
      There were proto-smartphones in the early 90s Which phones are you thinking of? I would consider either the Nokia Communicator in 1996 or the Ericsson R380 from 1999, as the first proto-smartphones. Or are you counting things like Apple Newton as a proto-smartphone?
      - IggleSniggle 3y ago
        I guess your question is the gist of my point. The Apple Newton is a great touchpoint as it points in a particular direction, but it was 1) the wrong form factor, 2) too expensive, 3) emphasized the wrong features. Still, it pointed a clear direction. From Newton to iPhone is 15+ years, but it's not totally unreasonable to consider the Osborne 1 with an acoustic coupler to be the real starting line, given its popularity as a portable comms computer, and really iPhone 3G/3GS is probably a better "we've arrived" point than the first iPhone. Of course, VR tech could be "started" much earlier than the current fad. However, I think DK1 was Osborne 1 in terms of the technology meeting the needs of the medium, maybe Newton-level on the timeline if you're already a VR enthusiast and have enthusiast blinders on. That was 2013, only 10 years ago. Theres still underlying tech that isn't totally "there" in terms of supporting the "right" VR experience, but most people who have tried any modern headset can feel the potential. It's like using a Windows Mobile from 2003; it feels like a glimpse of an inevitable future, even though you can simultaneously recognize that it's time has not yet come.

soared 3y ago

Agreed - once the tech is there AR/VR make sense in so many applications and meta wants too be the first company to win in that space. Yeah tens of billions in losses doesn’t look good now, but in 7 years when they’re potentially the winner it will be worth the hundreds of billions in revenue.

mproud 3y ago
Or they’ll have wasted all the money because later they’ll realize their strategy and/or products were flawed. It’s obviously a huge gamble.

rvz 3y ago

Exactly and this is looking very likely as I said before: [0]. Again, we are slowly realizing why Meta is spending billions on XR headsets and Apple's move to spatial computing just validates the spending. I expect the Vision Pro to under perform in sales, but it is the next generation of Vision products (2nd and 3rd) that is going to be extremely competitive and cheaper against Meta Quest. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36223235 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36223235