4 ms·

Don't you see it? Facebook can't currently monetize face-to-face interactions, but in virtual reality they can. The purchase makes a lot of sense for Facebook.

by Geee 13y ago

Don't you see it? Facebook can't currently monetize face-to-face interactions, but in virtual reality they can. The purchase makes a lot of sense for Facebook. Facebook's business model is to monetize human interactions. Today, most of human interaction happens over the Internet (with messages and images), and in the future, it will happen in virtual environments. VR will be the ultimate platform, and Facebook wants to own that platform. Virtual reality is not about gaming. Would you describe Matrix as a game? Facebook's wants to put everyone in the Matrix, so they can monetize us.

dragontamer 13y ago
This is what people fear from Facebook. Selling out to Microsoft or Sony would have been "monetize by making awesome games". Selling out to Facebook means virtual reality ads will penetrate everywhere you walk.
- danabramov 13y ago
  Do you seriously believe this? Then there will be competitors without ads.
  - Geee 13y ago
    You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. These services (and companies) operate around the idea of giving away free candy and locking everyone in with network effects. This is what will happen to VR as well under Facebook's control.
    - evan_ 13y ago
      Maybe it's harder to be #1 without being free but there are many video sites competing with YouTube that do pretty well. Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc- they're not FREE but they're still very popular. There's no reason to believe that Facebook's VR network will be the only one. Also, none of the products you listed had first mover advantage. They're all excellent examples of things that upset a formerly dominant major player.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        For movie distribution, network lock in doesn't matter so much. But for video sharing they do, and for VR they really will. Competing with Netflix is a lot easier than competing with Facebook or YouTube for that reason.
    - bane 13y ago
      > You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. Nonsense, there are dozens of very expensive data providers and search companies out there who do very well for themselves thank you very much.
      - loup-vaillant 13y ago
        Could you name three? (I fully expect that you can, but it'll make your argument that much more convincing). Of the top of my head, I think of DuckDuckGo, which does not spy, but it still have ads.
        bane 13y ago
        LexisNexis VersusLaw various legal, bio, tech, IP, etc. sites.
        bane 13y ago
        doesn't let me edit, but Merck also has an entire slew of searchable information as does places like Bloomberg or other financial data companies.
    - Turing_Machine 13y ago
      "Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these." They did? What about Yahoo, Alta Vista, WebCrawler, MySpace, Friendster...?
  - randunel 13y ago
    There are ad-less video sharing websites, yet youtube is #1. Same will happen with Oculus, targeted ads in vr.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    And therefore, Oculus Rift has "sold out". We are now looking for more legitimate competitors, and are pissed off at the Oculus.
- freshyill 13y ago
  Just like on Instagram! Wait.
SixSigma 13y ago
How will you do a face to face interaction when you are both wearing VR goggles ?
- corysama 13y ago
  You and I can be in different locations. But, with the goggles on, we can be face to face inside VR.
  - SixSigma 13y ago
    An incredible waste of effort and talent for gee-whiz nonsense.
  - bane 13y ago
    Looking at some avatar that distinctly isn't you I presume? Because a video (no matter how good) of you wearing a pair of displays on your face is decidedly not as good as just video chatting. What specific experience is benefited by communicating in this way over just video or voice chat?
    - SixSigma 13y ago
      It is ridiculous beyond belief, it's getting to Kurzweil levels of "woooo, the future"
      - bane 13y ago
        Here's a reply to another thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496786 TIL one of the buzzwords that makes people really lose grasp of reality is VR.
        SixSigma 13y ago
        That sums up my sentiments exactly. But just to add, I've already owned a VR headset 20 years ago. Ok the screens were 320x240 but the resolution wasn't the downside, it was the neckache from wearing the damn things. I've also got some NVidia 3d shutter glasses. You can play any OpenGL or DirectX game with them. They are great fun and really enhance a game. I've already played Everquest in 3D. (Although Dungeon Keeper 2 is my favourite, you can go into first person mode as a fly was wander round your dungeon - I've spent hours doing that). 3D porn is great also, I can recommend that. I've not tried an Oculus but it looks like a neckache device to me.
superuser2 13y ago
Other businesses that are about monetizing human interaction: telephony (pay us to talk to people), restaurants (pay us for a venue to have a conversation/date, show off your wealth), clothing (pay us to increase your apparent status/attractiveness), theater and movies (pay us to have an activity with your friends/date), beyond-low-end housing (pay us so you can entertain and impress and be in a city with lots of humans to interact with). You say this like it's a dirty, disgusting thing to do, but is Facebook really that different from all of these industries in terms of wanting to monetize human interaction?
- bane 13y ago
  No FB is exactly the same. They monetize interactions. So what kind of interactions will you be having with an OVR strapped to your face that they'll now be monetizing? I upvoted you because I thought your comment didn't deserve the downvoting it was getting
- Geee 13y ago
  There's the obvious difference that there's no platform lock-in with these, and therefore there's choice and competition. Telephony, Internet, are open technologies without locking you in as a customer for any company. Think back when we lived in caves. We shared stories, we shared cave paintings, we shared music by singing together, we had fun together, we explored and shared our curiosity, we created new things together. Most technology today is still just tools to do these same fundamental things, but in novel ways. Facebook wants to be the middleman in this. They didn't invent 'social', they brought it into digital world, they want to own it, and they want to monetize it.
  - loup-vaillant 13y ago
    > Telephony, Internet, are open technologies without locking you in as a customer for any company. No, they are natural local monopolies. It takes explicit effort in policy making to avoid actual monopolies. The result is mixed: while it is possible to change your provider, it is much less convenient than changing the theatre you will go to next time. Switching costs aren't negligible. And in the US, I hear you have only two provider at any given place: the DSL provider, and the cable provider. As you suggest, there is nothing wrong with Facebook wanting to monetize human interactions. The problem is how they do it. If they charged their user for the service, and didn't bother them with ads and constant spying, that would be fine. Heck, they could even prevent most spying and cut down the server costs by selling little servers you could plug into your home, have them talk peer-to-peer, and charge for updates or something. But no, they had to violate our most intimate conversations constantly. Okay, maybe not the most intimate (those actually go through Gmail), but you get the idea. That is what's wrong with Facebook (and Google, and Apple…). Not charging for the service, but the hidden costs, the spying, and other totalitarian artefacts.

by Geee 13y ago

dragontamer 13y ago

This is what people fear from Facebook. Selling out to Microsoft or Sony would have been "monetize by making awesome games". Selling out to Facebook means virtual reality ads will penetrate everywhere you walk.

danabramov 13y ago
Do you seriously believe this? Then there will be competitors without ads.
- Geee 13y ago
  You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. These services (and companies) operate around the idea of giving away free candy and locking everyone in with network effects. This is what will happen to VR as well under Facebook's control.
  - evan_ 13y ago
    Maybe it's harder to be #1 without being free but there are many video sites competing with YouTube that do pretty well. Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc- they're not FREE but they're still very popular. There's no reason to believe that Facebook's VR network will be the only one. Also, none of the products you listed had first mover advantage. They're all excellent examples of things that upset a formerly dominant major player.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      For movie distribution, network lock in doesn't matter so much. But for video sharing they do, and for VR they really will. Competing with Netflix is a lot easier than competing with Facebook or YouTube for that reason.
  - bane 13y ago
    > You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. Nonsense, there are dozens of very expensive data providers and search companies out there who do very well for themselves thank you very much.
    - loup-vaillant 13y ago
      Could you name three? (I fully expect that you can, but it'll make your argument that much more convincing). Of the top of my head, I think of DuckDuckGo, which does not spy, but it still have ads.
      - bane 13y ago
        LexisNexis VersusLaw various legal, bio, tech, IP, etc. sites.
        bane 13y ago
        doesn't let me edit, but Merck also has an entire slew of searchable information as does places like Bloomberg or other financial data companies.
  - Turing_Machine 13y ago
    "Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these." They did? What about Yahoo, Alta Vista, WebCrawler, MySpace, Friendster...?
- randunel 13y ago
  There are ad-less video sharing websites, yet youtube is #1. Same will happen with Oculus, targeted ads in vr.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  And therefore, Oculus Rift has "sold out". We are now looking for more legitimate competitors, and are pissed off at the Oculus.
freshyill 13y ago
Just like on Instagram! Wait.

SixSigma 13y ago

How will you do a face to face interaction when you are both wearing VR goggles ?

corysama 13y ago
You and I can be in different locations. But, with the goggles on, we can be face to face inside VR.
- SixSigma 13y ago
  An incredible waste of effort and talent for gee-whiz nonsense.
- bane 13y ago
  Looking at some avatar that distinctly isn't you I presume? Because a video (no matter how good) of you wearing a pair of displays on your face is decidedly not as good as just video chatting. What specific experience is benefited by communicating in this way over just video or voice chat?
  - SixSigma 13y ago
    It is ridiculous beyond belief, it's getting to Kurzweil levels of "woooo, the future"
    - bane 13y ago
      Here's a reply to another thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496786 TIL one of the buzzwords that makes people really lose grasp of reality is VR.
      - SixSigma 13y ago
        That sums up my sentiments exactly. But just to add, I've already owned a VR headset 20 years ago. Ok the screens were 320x240 but the resolution wasn't the downside, it was the neckache from wearing the damn things. I've also got some NVidia 3d shutter glasses. You can play any OpenGL or DirectX game with them. They are great fun and really enhance a game. I've already played Everquest in 3D. (Although Dungeon Keeper 2 is my favourite, you can go into first person mode as a fly was wander round your dungeon - I've spent hours doing that). 3D porn is great also, I can recommend that. I've not tried an Oculus but it looks like a neckache device to me.

superuser2 13y ago

Other businesses that are about monetizing human interaction: telephony (pay us to talk to people), restaurants (pay us for a venue to have a conversation/date, show off your wealth), clothing (pay us to increase your apparent status/attractiveness), theater and movies (pay us to have an activity with your friends/date), beyond-low-end housing (pay us so you can entertain and impress and be in a city with lots of humans to interact with). You say this like it's a dirty, disgusting thing to do, but is Facebook really that different from all of these industries in terms of wanting to monetize human interaction?

bane 13y ago
No FB is exactly the same. They monetize interactions. So what kind of interactions will you be having with an OVR strapped to your face that they'll now be monetizing? I upvoted you because I thought your comment didn't deserve the downvoting it was getting
Geee 13y ago
There's the obvious difference that there's no platform lock-in with these, and therefore there's choice and competition. Telephony, Internet, are open technologies without locking you in as a customer for any company. Think back when we lived in caves. We shared stories, we shared cave paintings, we shared music by singing together, we had fun together, we explored and shared our curiosity, we created new things together. Most technology today is still just tools to do these same fundamental things, but in novel ways. Facebook wants to be the middleman in this. They didn't invent 'social', they brought it into digital world, they want to own it, and they want to monetize it.
- loup-vaillant 13y ago
  > Telephony, Internet, are open technologies without locking you in as a customer for any company. No, they are natural local monopolies. It takes explicit effort in policy making to avoid actual monopolies. The result is mixed: while it is possible to change your provider, it is much less convenient than changing the theatre you will go to next time. Switching costs aren't negligible. And in the US, I hear you have only two provider at any given place: the DSL provider, and the cable provider. As you suggest, there is nothing wrong with Facebook wanting to monetize human interactions. The problem is how they do it. If they charged their user for the service, and didn't bother them with ads and constant spying, that would be fine. Heck, they could even prevent most spying and cut down the server costs by selling little servers you could plug into your home, have them talk peer-to-peer, and charge for updates or something. But no, they had to violate our most intimate conversations constantly. Okay, maybe not the most intimate (those actually go through Gmail), but you get the idea. That is what's wrong with Facebook (and Google, and Apple…). Not charging for the service, but the hidden costs, the spying, and other totalitarian artefacts.