[HN Gopher] Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will turn into a 'meta...
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Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will turn into a 'metaverse'
Author : Choc13
Score : 145 points
Date : 2021-07-23 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Who is this announcement supposed to appeal to other than
| shareholders
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Who is this announcement supposed to appeal to other than
| shareholders
|
| Who matters besides the shareholders? /s
| nly wrote:
| To be fair, given that FB are the 4th biggest company in the
| S&P 500, almost everyone on this site is probably a shareholder
| through their retirement plan.
| mint2 wrote:
| This is true. It's also unpleasant. At Every paycheck nearly
| everyone with a 401k is helping zuck.
| bttrfl wrote:
| It's an excellent opportunity to remind everyone about a truly
| great book by Lem: "The Futurological Congress" [0] and its
| interesting movie adaptation "The Congress" [1].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
| walrus01 wrote:
| metaverse? does this mean in the real world we can get some
| nuclear powered robotic guard dogs, and portable beta-test linear
| accelerator miniguns?
| flenserboy wrote:
| Glad for my trusty HOSTS file.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Our species needs to be more mature for a Metaverse not to be a
| wholesale rape of all one's data and everything one does.
| Facebook, Google, E.A., Apple or NASA... it don't matter, the
| problem is us humans and how we treat one another at scale.
| IceHegel wrote:
| The "metaverse" is scam. Talking about it is just a way signal
| that you're a lord not a serf, i.e. "I can get a girlfriend, but
| most can't and they'll use the metaverse to drown their sorrows."
|
| Facebook should make something they themselves want. I want an
| iPod not a VR concert.
| DethNinja wrote:
| Metaverse seems like the new buzzword for the VC companies.
| Nowadays everyone is building metaverse type games just because
| of Roblox but reality is it is a limited market with high
| competition and only few players are interested about such games.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Seems there could be a business for corporate style services
| within a meta verse now that more people are working remotely.
| Think meetings, conferences, etc. I know second Life did this
| before all the degenerates moved in...
| astlouis44 wrote:
| check out
|
| https://vrland.io
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Hey that even worked on my mobile phone. Cool tech demo.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Makes me wonder if Microsoft is missing the boat with not doing
| more with Minecraft. Metacraft?
| thom wrote:
| Yet again it's the old jwz point of people focusing on the
| irrelevant tech details of why something's successful. Roblox
| isn't successful because it's a 'metaverse', it's successful
| because it's got a crapload of games that shut my kids up.
| thom wrote:
| Okay maybe I'm getting my software think pieces backwards and
| it's this that is more relevant:
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-
| architect...
|
| And not:
|
| https://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html
| machinehermiter wrote:
| The killer app of VR has always been virtual sex. We have made no
| progress towards this.
|
| You can't do reality with just sight and sound. I suspect a 100
| years from now people will look at us talking about the metaverse
| and virtual reality with any kind of headset as ridiculous as the
| old videos of people flapping wings attempting to fly. It just
| doesn't work.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Does he really believe his own bullshit? I mean, I realize FB is
| literally the internet in some countries, but that's because they
| are essentially the only water in the desert so to speak. FB
| needs competition, badly.
| arodyginc wrote:
| In which countries FB is the only Internet?
| axaxs wrote:
| There are a ton. It's weird, because they use FB differently
| than a lot of people. It really is the 'internet'. Pirated
| movies and all.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-
| id...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/facebook-
| free-...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/27/facebook-.
| ..
| djoo wrote:
| In some African countries, Facebook is free via Mobile Data
| (also Wikipedia).
|
| Therefore, it becomes the "only" Internet.
|
| They even have cases of piracy movies being shared/available
| within theses sites.
| zekrioca wrote:
| This is so prevalent that there are many study groups on
| facebook just because of that: it is the only place they
| can "freely" exchange ideas, and voluntaries from other
| countries (without these limitations) help by copying and
| pasting info and documents so others can 'freely' download
| it.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Facebook does have competition. Unfortunately, these mainland
| China based competitors use the same or even worse tactics and
| policies as Facebook.
| poidos wrote:
| Well, not one I'll be in.
| novok wrote:
| More like "The surveillanceverse" IMO
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Sounds like Zuckerberg is getting high off of his own fumes. This
| is the 2021 version of "Facebook is changing the world!"
|
| Also, Second Life did it first in 2006.
| tharne wrote:
| > "Facebook is changing the world!"
|
| Zuck wasn't wrong when he said this, I just don't think the
| change he had in mind was giving a platform to anti-vax
| conspiracy theorists and helping Russian troll farms influence
| U.S. elections. That is one way to change the world though.
| zh3 wrote:
| Let's not forget Myanmar.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| A reference for those who don't know about it:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-
| facebo...
| seanalexander wrote:
| Second Life was awesome, but it owes a ton of intellectual debt
| to The Palace from the 1990s, which had a robust and functional
| version of FORTH built into it.
| [deleted]
| metalliqaz wrote:
| So "Ready Player One" with Zuck in charge? No thank you.
| anoncow wrote:
| With Oculus, IG and FB, they seem pretty close to being the
| ones to pull it off.
| ralertomo wrote:
| I think having IG and FB is a liability for them. Imo Epic
| Games is making better choices right now with their
| acquisitions and marketing strats. Seems more appealing to
| me.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Facebook will likely try to acquire Epic in the near
| future.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Why Epic as opposed to any other forward-thinking gaming
| company like Valve? Sort of random.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Epic doesn't even have a software platform for VR yet.
| It'll be awhile before they even catch up to Valve.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Those liabilities will bring in millions of people. Epic
| wished they had those platforms to onramp users.
| dingosity wrote:
| it always seemed weird to me that fb, that sort of defined
| "casual interaction", was doubling down on such an immersive
| technology. the "metaverse" described by Rosedale & Ondrejka
| was nothing if not immersive.
| account-5 wrote:
| Facebook is IOI. There are no Gregarious Games in reality.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| yes that was my point. "zuck in charge" would be like if IOI
| won the contest
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| By the time the film came out it was already a _dated_ future.
| earthplus wrote:
| I think that's their goal, they issued a copy of the book to
| each Oculus employee.
|
| Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/oculus-gives-all-its-
| employe...
| salt-thrower wrote:
| Wasn't that book supposed to be a bit of a
| dystopian/cautionary tale against VR? I thought the
| resolution of the character arc was that the guy decides to
| take the headset off and engage in the real world more.
| JohnFen wrote:
| It's amazing how many different cautionary tales were
| eventually adopted as how-to manuals.
| dancronin wrote:
| Fuck off Mark.
| rektide wrote:
| ITS NOT META IF IT'S CLOSED. It's only a constellation of
| services.
|
| Facebook is welcome to become whatever Zuckerverse it can be.
|
| But they do not seem to have the play-well-with-others ability to
| encompass multiple different universes of possibility. They will
| remain distinctly within their own singular sphere, best I can
| tell.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Looking forward to logging in once and drawing as many dicks as
| possible in zucks metaverse before I'm banned.
| canttestthis wrote:
| There's something about FB threads that really attracts Reddit-
| style comments.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Reminds me of this CNET interview[1] on Second Life in 2006,
| where pretty much exactly this happened.
|
| [1] https://www.engadget.com/2006-12-20-second-life-
| millionaire-...
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| This sort of disruption will probably be considered virtual
| terrorism one day... Imagine the CIA torturing some poor soul
| over dicks in the zuckerverse.
| CyanBird wrote:
| Given that Israel already called a "new type of terrorism"
| when an ice cream company didn't feel comfortable working on
| the country anymore, then I'd say that we are not far from
| that at all
| nebula8804 wrote:
| They are just mad that that their claim to fame in the
| consumer packaged product industry is a company that puts
| bubbles in water and not something better like delicious
| ice cream. /s
| zh3 wrote:
| One has to tread very carefully when mentioning Israel in
| any context.
|
| That said, I couldn't follow the logic of that; how exactly
| is it that Ben and Jerry's deciding not to sell ice cream
| in the occupied palestinian territories a "new type of
| terrorism" against Israel? (esp. as the B&J factory is
| apparently in Israel).
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Basically Israel is the real life embodiment of
| Seinfeld's uncle Leo who says anything and everything is
| antisemitism except it's also terrorism.
|
| These labels have existing very negative meanings that
| they would both like to court with their own behavior and
| accuse others of thoughtlessly.
|
| I feel like that singular statement is like watching an
| entire country jump the shark and that we ought to stop
| taking their phone calls. They have absolutely nothing we
| need and they don't require our help to survive anymore.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Anti BDS laws in US states are so baffling to me. The
| idea that American citizens could be criminalized for
| choosing not to do business or invest in a foreign power
| would be laughable if so many current politicians weren't
| supporting it.
| rglover wrote:
| "Alright folks, the Dickburglar is at it again. Battle
| stations."
| o_m wrote:
| No need to torture people, since they will know everything
| about you and what you have done at all times.
| grishka wrote:
| Not if it's a new account.
| criddell wrote:
| New account? That's so 2020. Your account will be the one
| issued to you at birth that happens to have your SSN as
| your username.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| Does the CIA torture people that draw dicks in the real
| world?
| slim wrote:
| Of course. Undercover agents within ISIS pretending to be
| morality police.
| chrsig wrote:
| Probably?
| kumarvvr wrote:
| Man whatever that means, I am sure nothing good will come of it.
| Society is not ready for all access, all communication, mass,
| thought influencing media controlled by an ethically ambiguous
| mega corporation.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| That's one hell of a way to brand "extending the tentacles of our
| monopoly into your daily life".
|
| > Mr Zuckerberg has made such comments before, hypothesizing that
| humans should "be teleporting, not transporting ourselves" into
| various environments through virtual and mixed reality
| environments.
|
| "You will live in a pod and you will be happy with VR"
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Oh I'd love to live in a VR pod, just not a Facebook brand one.
| badkitty99 wrote:
| Whatever they need to do to keep things cha chinging, it will
| never end
| frazbin wrote:
| Alternate title: "Mark Zuckerberk says Facebook will own the
| 'metaverse'."
| salt-thrower wrote:
| I for one can't wait for people to start having AR-enabled QAnon
| propaganda beamed directly into their homes!
|
| Every time Facebook has a press conference to the tune of "what
| if we were even more immersive" it strikes me as incredibly tone
| deaf given how many problems they engender already just with a
| regular web app.
| ssklash wrote:
| Another way of saying this is "Ad Company wants to be present
| during every part of your life (and all those pesky non-Ad
| Company users they can't currently reach), so they can surveil
| and monetize your entire existence, finally completing the
| panopticon."
| jakesnakelou wrote:
| it's equal parts vision, equal parts philanthropy.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| There's no question that there's some kind of vision involved,
| but what part of this is conceivably philanthropic? FB and
| Zuckerberg have an immediate vested interest in capturing the
| maximum of attention spans of these people.
| digitcatphd wrote:
| A rudimentary version of this already exists within Oculus.
| beezischillin wrote:
| After having tried out PSVR, which I found kind of awful, so much
| so that the smartphone VR seemed like a step forward compared to
| it, I was highly skeptical of the whole ordeal. Then my friend
| showed me Microsoft's Mixed reality headsets and I was on board
| with some slight misgivings about the feasibility of using it for
| longer than 20 minutes at a time, plus it still came with a bit
| of a hassle.
|
| This year I purchased a Quest2 after reading through the feature
| list and I was honestly really impressed. Oculus managed to
| create a truly viable mass market capable rendition of a VR
| headset. Unfortunately Facebook itself is kind of the biggest
| enemy when it comes to their own product. From what I've seen as
| a general response and my personal experience also is that people
| would like a VR headset to experience VR stuff; games, videos,
| the likes. Facebook would like you to strap a Facebook machine to
| your face and watch ads, hyper-targeted to you with as much
| highly personal information used to target as possible. And
| that's where the disconnect seems to be. Because Oculus is
| clearly capable of making VR happen as a viable platform - the
| question really is: will Facebook let them?
| tengbretson wrote:
| I don't think this college drop-out guy knows what he's talking
| about.
| munk-a wrote:
| I loathe Facebook - but trying to say Mark Zuckerberg is an
| idiot at this point is pretty hilarious. A bachelor's level of
| academic training is essentially irrelevant by the time you're
| thirty - a master's by the time you're thirty five. Academic
| credentials are a very silly thing to get out the rulers over.
| tengbretson wrote:
| If he's so clever then why hasn't he figured out how to have
| neighbors that don't hate him?
| recursive wrote:
| Because he was clever enough to realize that it didn't
| matter.
| dschu wrote:
| Deleted my Facebook account along with Instagram early this year
| because of obvious reasons.
|
| Won't be a part of this metaverse and I'm very happy about that.
| mnd999 wrote:
| This is just AOL or Compuserve again. Zuck wants you to use
| Facebook for everything without the need for any other site.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Maybe the original interview is a better link
| https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-c... ?
| uniqueid wrote:
| Too bad Dante's not around to add a tenth ring of hell to the
| Inferno.
| ezconnect wrote:
| My fake FB account just shows TikTok videos and left wing
| propaganda and its even paid post promotion. I don't know how the
| advertisers make money off of that.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Propaganda ads don't need to make a sale. Slowly changing your
| opinion on something is the payoff.
| p_l wrote:
| You know, so many comments, and nobody had mentioned Snow Crash
| yet?
|
| I am disappoint, HN ;)
| JohnFen wrote:
| Personally, I didn't want to soil Snow Crash by associating it
| in any way with Facebook.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Why? Isn't Snow Crash is a dystopian cyberpunk novel where
| corporations have superseded governments?
| JohnFen wrote:
| That's a good point. I suppose that Snow Crash is only a
| fun story as long as it's fictional. If reality comes too
| close to it, it would stop being fun and start being
| depressing.
| asah wrote:
| Sounds more like the corporate dystopia of Ready Player One...
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| We done mention that movie around here...
| hprotagonist wrote:
| Mark "Da5id" Zuckerberg. Mind the cheesy bitmapped scrolls,
| please!
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Imagine being able to say random stuff like this and getting rich
| off it as the stock market reacts. Must be nice.
| titzer wrote:
| In the "post-scarcity" world of 2021, tweets by influencers are
| Porsches and offhand comments by Zucks are a few lifetimes of
| earnings of the average underling.
| mint2 wrote:
| Index funds are so convenient but Facebook is in the top 10
| holdings of Fidelity's 500. It makes me very uneasy. Is there
| an index fund that one can opt out of certain companies.
|
| And reading through the companies on several of the main
| fidelity index funds, there's too many fissile fuel and tobacco
| companies for my taste.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Sure, there are lots of industry and region specific funds.
| You can go for a small cap fund, a foreign fund, a developing
| markets fund, a real estate fund, a heavy industries fund,
| retail, food, whatever.
| dwighttk wrote:
| I mean. It'd be a little work but you could just DIY an index
| fund. Call it yourname499
| account-5 wrote:
| I can't think of anything I'd want to use less.
| Animats wrote:
| Facebook has so far tried, and failed, to do this. Twice.
|
| First was Facebook Spaces. Opened 2017, closed 2019. This was a
| VR world. Not a very good one. It was mostly a 3D approach to a
| desktop.[1] You could hand other people flat pictures. Sharing!
| Total flop.
|
| Second was Facebook Horizon. Opened 2020, still running, but not
| getting much attention. It's a 3D cartoon level VR world. Works
| OK, not very interesting or pretty. Big emphasis on "safety",
| which means no sex. Avatars have no legs; nothing below the
| waistline. Plus there's a panic button which puts you in a
| "personal safe zone", where you're in a bubble until Security
| gets there to rescue you from whomever is annoying you. While
| it's still running, Facebook doesn't mention Horizon any more.
|
| Zuckerberg's vision is probably more like that video I've linked
| before, "Hypereality". The real world, with overlays from
| augmented reality. Overlays of more ads.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/_kGRpSd4vnc
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/Uf_9J_EdzZw
|
| [3] https://youtu.be/YJg02ivYzSs
| giobox wrote:
| VR/AR is such a new paradigm for interacting with computers I
| think that its inevitable companies will make many failures
| before finding the apps and hardware that clicks with
| customers.
|
| In 2017, we had only had mainstream non-beta VR headset
| hardware in the marketplace since 2016 (original consumer Rift,
| HTC Vive), lets not forget the 20 years of PDA
| hardware/software attempts we lived through before the
| mainstream smartphone designs we all use appeared in 2007. I
| expect a very similar arc will be followed for VR/AR,
| especially as the interaction model is so different from screen
| based.
|
| I'm happy to see some development out "in the open", and
| wouldn't be so quick to criticize small project flops; VR/AR
| needs to begin somewhere. Zuck isn't trying to pretend VR/AR is
| ready for primetime either yet, he's made it clear he wants to
| be in a very strong position when/if the market does heavily
| move to VR/AR hardware, which he obviously believes strongly it
| will over time.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| Notably, I think eye contact is a killer app for VR and none
| of the headsets can do it yet.
|
| Facebook is smart to be in there doing experiments and
| failing though. That's table stakes for having a shot at
| winning the competition.
| Animats wrote:
| _VR /AR is such a new paradigm for interacting with
| computers._
|
| Not really. I tried Jaron Lainer's original VR rig back in
| the 1980s. The Autodesk system from the 1980s. The W
| Industries system ... the HTC Vibe. The Microsoft HoloLens.
| There's been progress, but usability really hasn't improved
| all that much.
|
| You can shoot at people. That works fine. You can sort of use
| swords. Everything else, not so much. That's why Beat Saber
| is still the most successful VR game.
|
| Some Autodesk people once thought that VR would make it
| easier to use CAD, because selection in 3D with a mouse is
| such a pain. Didn't work out, and 3D selection with a mouse
| got much better.
|
| If anybody gets this right, it might be NVidia Omniverse.
| That's an attempt to do for 3D what shared text editors do
| for text documents.
| andybak wrote:
| 3d selection in VR is better. Just give it a hundredth of
| the investment we've given desktop UI
| baby wrote:
| Oh my, reading your comment I couldn't stop myself from
| laughing. I too tried the old VR headsets, played doom on
| one and got a massive headache. I thought VR was bad and
| stupid after that. Then I tried the HTC Vive and holy molly
| I almost cried after trying it. Now I own an Oculus Quest
| II and... it is the future. I'm sorry but this is it.
| h2odragon wrote:
| The Autodesk system ran on what, a pair of RS/6000? I got
| to chat with some of their guys showing that off at a trade
| show in off moments over a few days; they were great at
| running the demo but were umm... unenthused about the
| prospects of anyone keeping the system running for any time
| without high grade help.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Check out vrland! It's a social 3D/VR metaverse platform on the
| web. Decentralized and works everywhere including VR headsets
| via WebXR.
|
| Link to the platform: https://vrland.io/lobby
|
| Link to our Discord: https://discord.gg/cNfG834
| Bombthecat wrote:
| I thought horizon is still in beta?
| Animats wrote:
| It's been stuck in beta for a year now. More likely to shut
| down than advance from beta.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Invite-only closed beta. That's probably why GP hasn't heard
| about it in a while.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I'm in the beta and I have played Horizon. I'm not
| impressed at all. The worlds are tiny and uninteresting.
| The color pallet is cartoony. Audio has enough delay still
| to be unnatural (a problem with cell phones too, btw, but
| made much worse when the person is standing in front of
| you).
|
| Their world building tools are kind of interesting, and
| surely were difficult to implement, but lack any real
| purpose or traction.
|
| All in all, I'm surprised more by how basic and bad Horizon
| is than I am by how good it is. Its been in development for
| a long time, and by now, I expected a lot more.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Horizon is a terrible experience and won't be the MVP of
| the metaverse even when it's launched publicly out of
| beta.
|
| Try vrland.io instead, it's a web-based social 3D/VR
| platform that runs everywhere with a browser which
| includes WebXR.
|
| Link: https://vrland.io/lobby
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I love Hyperreality, and I can't wait for it to come true. I
| think my world would be much better. Look at how cool it is!
|
| I get that it's not for everyone, but sign me up.
| grishka wrote:
| You can't wait for there to be even more ads in this world?
| You want them to physically follow you around? You can't wait
| for corporations to see your every move? No thanks.
|
| We need to fix our current internet before allowing it to
| permeate our lives any deeper.
| Adrig wrote:
| Meh, I'll use the Mozilla VR OS with uBlock 2040 on it
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Try vrland instead!
|
| https://vrland.io/lobby
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Although the present shows us that most people will be
| happy corpo serfs. : p
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Meh, I'll use the Mozilla VR OS with uBlock 2040 on it
|
| Adblockers may not work so well in the future, when
| everything's a binary blob of Web Assembly.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Honestly I just want the cute little doggo to follow me
| around while I'm shopping. I don't care if it's trying to
| get me to buy things.
| mrighele wrote:
| I you talk about hyperreality I think you were referring to
| this (1) video, but given the downvotes you received I guess
| not many people got the reference
|
| (1) https://youtu.be/YJg02ivYzSs
| pteraspidomorph wrote:
| > Avatars have no legs; nothing below the waistline
|
| This is the biggest mistake a lot of VR developers made and are
| still making. People want to look cool in VR. They don't want
| to look like flying blobs (unless that's their actual chosen
| aesthetic). This affects their platform and purchase choices to
| a degree that many don't seem to fully comprehend.
| andybak wrote:
| My feeling is that no IK is better than bad IK. I'd rather be
| a groovy head and hands than a creepy full body.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Plus there's a panic button which puts you in a "personal
| safe zone", where you're in a bubble until Security gets there
| to rescue you from whomever is annoying you. While it's still
| running, Facebook doesn't mention Horizon any more.
|
| > [2] https://youtu.be/Uf_9J_EdzZw
|
| That video is kind of amazing. It's all people of color, until
| one white guy shows up and immediately gets blocked.
|
| Also, all their safety team can do is make a recording and
| submit a report for further review? That seems stupid and
| pointless.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Umm, I'm not American so bear with me:
|
| - the lady in blue, she looks like a white person after
| having sun in the beach
|
| - the guy with purple tshirt, he looks readhead, so white
|
| - the guy with white hat and black hoodie looks south
| American
|
| - the guy with glasses and red jacket, looks black
|
| - the ladies with white tshirt, look white
|
| - the lady with glasses and brown tshirt, looks white
|
| - the guy with grey hat and orange hoodie looks white
| tomashertus wrote:
| That's amazing, first think which came to my mind was:
|
| > I can go to any time--in the past. I don't want to go to
| the future and find out what happens to white people because
| we're gonna pay hard for this shit, you got to know that.
| We're not going to just fall from number one to two. They're
| gonna hold us down and fuck us in the ass forever. And we
| totally deserve it. But for now, wheeeeeeee!
|
| Source: https://genius.com/Louis-ck-on-being-white-annotated
| seanalexander wrote:
| Just came here to say Snow Crash deserves way better than this.
| Choc13 wrote:
| >> "A good vision for the metaverse is not one that a specific
| company builds, but it has to have the sense of interoperability
| and portability", Mr Zuckerberg said, adding that there should be
| protocols like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) internet
| standards for defining how experiences will be built.
|
| Except defined by Facebook, so not really anything like W3C.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Are there any facebook products that have "the sense of
| interoperability and portability"? Seems like most of their
| properties strive for the opposite...
| chaostheory wrote:
| Their Quest headsets still work fine with Steam... for now
| cwkoss wrote:
| I got a quest 1 for as a gift a couple years back. They
| frequently automatically installed updates that break mods.
| Now, my headset is currently bricked and I need to figure
| out how to factory reset or something to fix it.
|
| Maybe its just indifference, but given facebook's history
| it feels intentional.
| chaostheory wrote:
| The quest is a console. If you want to use mods without
| too many issues, you need to use a PC for VR.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Yep, my friend has the Index which I really like. Leaning
| that direction for my next VR system.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Yep, but they have enough researchers to figure out that this
| will not work forever and web3.0 will eat them.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Top reason Facebook won't succeed here: they're too greedy.
|
| Say what you want about MS and Google, but they left a _lot_ of
| money and opportunity on the table for others.
|
| Facebook... notsomuch.
|
| Which works fine when you _start_ with a first mover platform.
| But doesn 't work nearly as well when trying to grow a platform
| from nothing.
|
| Here's hoping the effort crashes into the ground.
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| When the other option is being forcibly broken up as a
| monopoly, your greed would advise you to lose less rather
| than more.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Hyperscale tech was smart in the way they designed their
| business to wrap around existing anti-trust law (via
| creating captive markets inside of larger markets and
| spanning multiple market categories).
|
| We'll see if they're smart enough to outflank Antitrust
| 2.0, or if they make the same mistakes as Big Railroad /
| Oil -- assuming they're more powerful than government
| and/or believing their own PR about how they're not a
| monopoly.
| dingosity wrote:
| oh man. there have been at least three efforts i'm aware of to
| standardize the metaverse in the last 30 years. none of them
| really went anywhere. fb was invited to participate in the last
| one i paid attention to (VWRAP), but they politely declined.
| cratermoon wrote:
| And now they'll take all the ideas from the previous efforts,
| pick the ones that will make them the most profit (revenue -
| development costs) and tada a new propriety, privately
| controlled ecosystem that slowly replaces whatever is out
| there. See, for example, Open Graph replacing Dublin Core.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| How is Open Graph replacing Dublin Core? I'm not familiar
| with the space.
| Vrondi wrote:
| I was thinking of buying an Occulus Rift, and Facebook buying
| Occulus is the thing that guaranteed I'd never buy one. People
| said it wouldn't be a problem, and now you must log in with a
| Facebook account in order to use your Occulus hardware. No way.
| baby wrote:
| I advise creating a dummy account and buying the oculus quest 2
| instead. Worth it :)
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| It made me sad too especially when John Carmack was also
| dragged* into it.
|
| * Not sure how he feels about it, but I get the impression he's
| there for the pay cheque to work on more interesting side
| projects like AI.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I feel "metaverse" is turning into a buzzword like "AI" or "Big
| Data".
|
| To me the "metaverse" is always there at least since the
| introduction of affordable personal computer in the late 70s. In
| the 80s you already got a "metaverse" with the computer at center
| surrounded by BBS/FTP/etc.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Let us see about the rumors that Apple will launch Apple glasses
| this fall. If I wanted AR I much rather have it from Tim Cook
| than Zuckerberg, and Apple knows how to build hardware.
| Zuckerberg does not.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I can't edit the above comment, so I am adding this as a reply.
|
| I had completely forgot that Facebook had a VR headset. When I
| said they didn't know how the built hardware I was thinking of
| their attempt to build an Android phone.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Like you, I will probably buy Apple's new AR headset. Both of
| us are privileged enough to be able to easily afford it, but
| can most people do the same?
|
| Before you dismiss Facebook's hardware effort, you should
| actually try the Oculus Quest 2. At $299 for a full, standalone
| VR system; imo it even beats some PCVR VR headsets on more than
| just price.
| mepian wrote:
| The Oculus Quest 2 is really solid hardware, especially
| considering its low price.
| goatlover wrote:
| It really is for the price and mobility.
| mrweasel wrote:
| If Facebook is to build this sort thing, sure why not, we can
| choose not to use it.
|
| Where Zuckerberg goes of the rails for me is: " I think it's
| about being engaged more naturally."
|
| If he truly believe that, he should start by fixing Facebooks
| algorithms. There is nothing natural about the way people
| interact with Facebook anymore. Initially it was keeping up with
| friends, family old work buddies and so on. As Facebook tweaked
| the snot out out of their algorithms to keep people "engaged",
| everything natural went right out the window.
|
| Facebook should built whatever they believe will keep them
| relevant, just to lie about the motives or use deceptive language
| to make it sound like something it's ostensibly not.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > probably going to resemble some kind of a hybrid between the
| social platforms that we see today, but an environment where
| you're embodied in it
|
| Opensimulator (the open source version of second life server)
| already exists, it is decentralized, self-hosted, and a few
| thousands of people re already living in it :
| https://opensimworld.com/
| Niglodonicus wrote:
| Second life is a truly sad consequence of late-stage
| capitalism.
| Niglodonicus wrote:
| Serious question regarding my flagged comment in this thread
| since I'm new here:
|
| What's wrong with it? Is it not ok to express that I feel a
| phenomenon is sad? Did I need to go into more detail about how
| the phenomenon arose? Is criticism of capitalism or our
| societal systems unacceptable?
| tantalor wrote:
| Referring to "late-stage capitalism" sounds like sarcasm or
| shallow dismissal.
|
| What does "sad" mean in this context?
| nanidin wrote:
| My thoughts: your username starts the same as a very
| culturally sensitive word for USA. You come in and leave a
| short comment that does not really contribute to the
| discussion, just brings about negativity. That's kind of like
| running up to someone and punching them, then running away.
| Not cool - you should engage in rational discourse rather
| than snipe. Fight, but fight fairly. You have a green
| username (new)?
|
| People see things like this and think, "Troll", hence the
| flagging. I did not flag or downvote in this case, as I came
| across it hours after it already occurred.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Its just dismissive and rude sounding.
|
| Why is it sad? Surely the people who built it and use it
| think its cool. As others said "late stage capitalism" is a
| very opinionated and loaded phrase.
|
| Your comment is very negative, without inviting room for
| critique or feedback. It does not open a discussion, just
| judgement and derision.
| Niglodonicus wrote:
| I can see how it's a bit short and simply makes a claim
| without going into more detail, but clearly there is enough
| there for people to be able to reply and disagree and why
| (as the few of you replying to this have). I just don't see
| the point of flagging such a comment so that it can no
| longer be replied to. I think it's unfortunate that
| downvoting and reporting seem to be merged together on this
| site, since those are separate functions (downvote- this is
| a shitty take or I strongly disagree, report- this is a
| garbage rule-breaking post that needs to be removed).
|
| As for why SL is sad, is because it offers a shallow
| alternative to RL for people for whom RL is either
| unaccessible due to economic conditions (hence the late-
| stage capitalism thing) or for those who just want to
| escape it altogether (but replace it with a frankly
| shittier version, as opposed to some completely different
| fantasy world where you can do stuff you couldn't do in RL
| such as the aforementioned WoW). Not to mention that vast
| swathes of the userbase are creepy perverts, but perhaps it
| is for the best that they've chosen to confine themselves
| there. Hence, the sum total of this is quite sad imo. In
| the early stages when it was a fun and novel type of thing
| and alternatives for similar things were much less
| widespread, my points don't apply as much, but in 2021,
| they absolutely do.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| SL was a milestone in what it's trying to do but I'm not
| all that sure if its intentions are any more crazy or sad
| than AOL-era chat rooms and online communities- some of
| which were also graphical. VRML was developed for chat
| rooms in the late '90s. The only difference with SL is
| that it was developed later on in history and further
| along late capitalism, I guess.
| Niglodonicus wrote:
| I'm not referring to the intentions or what it was/is
| trying to do, but to the reality of its userbase and how
| they play the game and live their life. I mean, as a
| whole gaming tends to be similarly 'sad', but not to as
| large an extent as SL (in my opinion, of course).
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The comment's kind of puzzling. Second Life has its own
| passionate community but was niche even in the mid 2000s when
| it came out, dwarfed by the MMORPG craze exemplified by World
| of Warcraft. What's so sad or consequential about Second
| Life, in comparison? It had its own niche and its own fans
| and never even became mainstream.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Mr. Zuckerberg doesn't understand the word "embodied"
| Finnucane wrote:
| They don't have that on his planet.
| spazx wrote:
| I love OpenSim so much. I wish it had a bigger community!
| buttholesurfer wrote:
| So glad I deleted my account years ago. That place is garbage.
| mudlus wrote:
| Ethereum's vs. FB
|
| The enemy of your enemy is your friend. (Bitcoiner, here)
| lazyeye wrote:
| A new section needs to be added to ant-trust laws outright
| banning "metaverses".
| ve55 wrote:
| I'm surprised how negative the comments here are, even if it is
| true that 'metaverse' is turning into a pretty silly buzzword. I
| think there's still coherent concepts defined by it (interfaces
| becoming much more inline with what humans find natural,
| integration of VR+AR capabilities, and the 'Internet' becoming
| more and more 'real life' in general).
|
| Facebook is absolutely one of the best-positioned companies to be
| able to become a long-term market leader in these areas and has
| been investing heavily into R&D in all related categories.
| Although some of us dislike many ways the company operates, this
| still does seem like a very well thought-out and aggressive long-
| term mission that is worthy of being pursued, and I'm pretty
| excited to continue to see innovation in the more difficult areas
| like AI and VR here.
| grawprog wrote:
| >the 'Internet' becoming more and more 'real life' in general
|
| >Facebook is absolutely one of the best-positioned companies to
| be able to become a long-term market leader in these areas
|
| I think the reason for the negativity is possibly because maybe
| a company that's managed to create a massive platform where
| reality is massively distorted and manipulated algorithmically
| to maximize ad revenue and engangement, whatever the quality or
| lack thereof, should not be a leader in trying to make the
| internet 'real life' or whatever you want to call having ar/vr
| avatars that will allow you to participate in the new virtual
| corporate consumer world.
| after_care wrote:
| It's simple natural selection that the most engaging social
| media platforms became the most profitable, influential, and
| popular. There's no guarantee that VR/AR will have the same
| selection pressure, and if the tech does have the same
| selection pressure than whoever wins will be engaging as
| well.
|
| IMO Facebook creating the metaverse is like Xerox creating
| the GUI. Most likely the things that made Facebook
| successfully in social media will not make them as successful
| in VR/AR and they'll either pivot hard or (more likely) lose
| their market leader position.
|
| (I'm holding FB stock until their AR offering is announced,
| and possibly for a few years afterwards but I'm doubtful I'll
| have their stock in 15 years.)
| baby wrote:
| That's my worry as well, that they're not capable of
| capturing the market due to being a software company.
| But... they have hired like crazy and at this point I'm
| assuming most people working there have no link whatsoever
| with fb, so if they own all the experts there's a good
| chance they'll capture the market. As long as they keep
| iterating they'll be fine.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Check out our social 3D/VR web metaverse platform here:
|
| https://vrland.io/lobby
| bborud wrote:
| Why are you surprised?
|
| Whenever some form of immersive "universe" under corporate
| control is described in fiction, it tends to be a fairly
| dystopian tale. Every so many years VR is going to "finally be
| here" ... and then it never materializes. Add to that the head
| of the corporation in question is a hop, skip and a jump away
| from near Bond-villain status.
|
| It would be remarkable if the gut reaction of most people were
| not negative. Which makes your surprise at the negative remarks
| remarkable.
| CyanBird wrote:
| "Meta verse" to me, includes some type of discussion, a
| "verse", but these days Facebook as a website does not have
| much "worthy" discussion going on at all, if anything to me
| this rebrand reads as "metaspying" (we can spy on you from a
| meta multitude of gadgets, scripts and bots)
| echlebek wrote:
| The comments are negative because people hate facebook, and
| they hate Mark Zuckerberg, and they have good reason for that.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| The Metaverse is just a mmo, except some of the characters are
| real, the world is a parallel of ours, the bad guys are whoever
| is trending as a villain (good for engagement), and the quests
| are ads.
|
| The end goal would be primarily to have this digital world leak
| over to the real one as much as possible, having untold
| profound influences on human life
|
| The negativity is because it will be awful if they succeed.
|
| Imagine logging in to your job via this metaverse or some small
| country using it for voting in 50-100 years, or not being able
| to take part in conversations because you are not logged in to
| your ar.
|
| Imagine the data collection and potential for manipulation and
| censorship in the distant future
| JohnFen wrote:
| > long-term mission that is worthy of being pursued
|
| Sure, it's worthy of being pursued, but Facebook doing it means
| that the end result is likely to be dystopian, not something
| that leads to a better future.
| viscanti wrote:
| Zuck pitches it as being like current social media but that
| you're embodied in it. That sounds pretty dystopian to me.
| bostonsre wrote:
| I'm not sure the negative comments are due to some tribal
| rationalization. The social network-ization of society hasn't
| had great effects in a lot of cases like increased depression
| and affecting the course of democracy. I think facebook has
| proven that the only thing that they care about is the all
| mighty dollar and their leadership seems to have machiavellian
| like reasoning of the ends (connecting the world) justifying
| the means (monopolistic like market dominance by assimilation,
| duplication and/or crushing of competition). The guy at the
| helm literally models himself after caesar and has absolute
| control over the company.
|
| They are proposing to further mold and control society. To me,
| that sounds a lot like some kind of dystopian future and not
| something I would enjoy being part of. It may sound nice and
| all butterflies and flowers, but I don't think it would be
| prudent to just ignore their track record and say "o, it will
| probably be fine".
| radmuzom wrote:
| I'd rather have JC Denton usher in the new dark age than allow
| this raving lunatic control more of our lives.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I get the feeling that it's all going to look immensely stupid
| until Apple releases a VR headset, and Facebook is the first
| company with a native client on it. From there, this
| "metaverse" concept introduces a virtually limitless amount of
| content. They could start porting over original VR titles,
| creating first-class video sharing tools and more.
|
| I despise Facebook, but I wholeheartedly agree here: this is an
| incredibly well-thought-out move from a company that has money
| to burn.
| r00fus wrote:
| I have a strong feeling that this situation will never occur.
| Tim and Mark aren't exactly on partnership terms.
| stuart78 wrote:
| There is no need for a partnership beyond the one that
| allows Facebook to be hosted in the App Store. I think the
| point is being ready on day one to take advantage of
| whatever Apple delivers in this space. Facebook switched
| from web-first to mobile-first/native relatively slowly
| when the first mobile App Stores, and I think the point is
| they don't want to be second movers in the future.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Now that Facebook has announced their intentions, it
| seems like Apple would be motivated to construct
| precautionary measures against intrusive data collection
| and user tracking into their hypothetical imminent AR
| platform.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The Google Graveyard gets all the attention but Facebook has
| built and retired more clones of existing products and
| attempts to break into other people's moats than anyone can
| remember.
|
| Investing in "metaverse" is just ticking a sub-category box
| after they've already ticked off "VR" with their Oculus
| acquisition. It's doubtful that all the money they have to
| burn on this boondoggle will actually go anywhere.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| > Facebook is absolutely one of the best-positioned companies
| to be able to become a long-term market leader
|
| No its not, and Mark knows it: "Critically, no one company will
| run the metaverse"
|
| Its not in Facebook interest to have competitors and they will
| act accordingly. My guess is Facebook will first try to buyout
| the 'metaverse', then it will try to 'emulate but different',
| and then they will switch to being an over-engineered data
| hosting provider.
| dasil003 wrote:
| By this logic, FAANG is best positioned to every tech
| innovation because they have the resources and know-how to
| pursue it.
|
| I think it's a dangerous line of thinking as the power these
| company wields absolutely corrupts their governance. Sure they
| give us cool toys, and they have the marketing budget to make
| sure know it, but real talk: we need restrictions on their
| ability to dominate every area instead of cheerleading the
| horizontal economies of scale that erode our privacy, kneecap
| the next generation of startups, and consolidate power in ever
| smaller group of global corporate oligarchs.
| nomel wrote:
| > FAANG is best positioned to every tech innovation because
| they have the resources and know-how to pursue it.
|
| This isn't what I've seen. FAANG, and all large corporations,
| have many layers of bureaucracy that are required for
| approval of projects. "New" and "innovative" are "different"
| and "not well understood" by definition. As the bureaucracy
| get crusty, and more risk adverse, the ability to get these
| "unknowns" approves becomes harder and harder. Instead, you
| see buyouts of small companies, who didn't have that layer of
| bureaucracy to dig through, as the larger source of
| innovation. Going forward in time, like Intel, these small
| and innovative acquisitions get integrated and destroyed by
| that overwhelming bureaucracy, before they can even be
| fruitful.
| [deleted]
| andreilys wrote:
| They also have the war-chest to acquire any startup that does
| the hard work of tech R&D.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I'm surprised how negative the comments here are
|
| Honest discussion about Facebook on tech-centric forums is
| nearly impossible these days. Facebook and Zuckerberg are
| favorite villains in the tech discourse in 2021. I don't agree
| with everything Facebook has done, but the vitriol directed at
| Facebook has become so disconnected from reality that it's
| getting hard to take it seriously.
|
| > this still does seem like a very well thought-out and
| aggressive long-term mission that is worthy of being pursued,
|
| I agree. Once you get past the anti-Facebook hyperbole, it's
| interesting to read about where they're headed next. They have
| a lot of excellent engineers and a lot of revenue, so I'll be
| keeping an eye on where they invest their R&D spend.
| yann2 wrote:
| Excellent engineers and revenues that massively dwarf FBs can
| be found at AT&T too but tell us how much attention you pay
| to whatever bullshit comes out of their CEOs 6 inch chimp
| brain.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Though I haven't been a customer of AT&T since the 1990s, I
| can see they run a large physical infrastructure operation
| that delivers communications services. I understand where
| their revenue comes from and what they mostly spend it on
| (ie I understand that as well as I do FB's business despite
| having no contact with AT&T).
|
| Also, AT&T isn't constantly spamming me with disinformation
| and bad memes, nor do I have the impression that they're
| tracking my every move across the internet.
|
| While knowing nothing about AT&T's CEO, I'm pretty sure
| that s/he doesn't sit atop a weird corporate governance
| structure where the CEO holds a majority of the voting
| shares and is thus a dictator-for-life.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| I wouldn't characterize people as being dishonest when they
| talk about the societal-scale issues posed by platforms like
| Facebook. It's tough to separate those emotions from a purely
| analytical discussion of their technology.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Every community needs a villain, but ask yourself this:
| whatever happened to Libra? Portal? (Or Building 8 in
| general.) Did you know that Facebook built its own drone
| (Aquila) that it abandoned in 2018? M? Facebook Home? Parse?
| Wirehog?
|
| As seen with Google, just having excellent engineers and
| revenue are insufficient to building lasting products, much
| less fulfilling an aggressive long-term mission.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| >whatever happened to Libra? Portal? (Or Building 8 in
| general.) Did you know that Facebook built its own drone
| (Aquila) that was abandoned in 2018? M? Parse? Wirehog?
|
| Agree with your point - to a limit. Some of facebook
| experiements flopped but not all. Also, unlike Google, fb
| mostly marketed them as experiements.
|
| Replying mostly for sharing purposes since not all of these
| products' histories are common knowledge. Not to one-up
| anyone...
|
| > Libra Government Blocking. Seemed interesting, especially
| in a crypto world. Unclear if world needs more crypto
| projects. Some economists suggested the "basket of
| currency" approach at scale would just be an arbitrage
| opportunity for someone to drain the bank-of-facebook. I'm
| guessing this project existed partially as a vanity project
| or honeypot for hiring.
|
| > Portal? Still sold, still developed (uses alexa and amzn
| develops alexa-for-portal work still), still used. IMO it
| was good tech no one trusted (understandably).
|
| > Or Building 8 in general IIRC they have build a few
| internal products for fb and probably a lot of learning
| that goes into oculus/portal/etc.
|
| > M I think this was never GA and only a test trial?
| Would've been cool but again, because fb it couldn't be
| trusted.
|
| > Parse? Open sourced and available, but obviously mostly
| unused. FB doesn't really have a b2b sales team for this
| sort of product so it wasn't sustainable since it was not
| really invest-more-effort quality. I think it was a huge
| missed opportunity for fb to enter the data center race
| against aws/gcs/azure. If fb built a benign cash cow, maybe
| they'd taper down their scummy social network ambitions. Or
| at least the value extraction. AWS cash seems to fund cool
| amzn loss leaders (alexa, etc). I think the same thing
| applies to wit.ai and other AI products they buy - if they
| could commercialize them into an "AWS for AI" product suite
| maybe they'd find a new profit center. They have world
| class ML work already, so seems a good place to do this.
|
| > Wirehog I never heard of this one so i googled it [1].
| Apparently it was a legal risk to continue at the time
| (ha!). Very similar to napster. Makes sense that a startup
| business (< 2 yo) would kill a controversial product.
| Ironic now that they seem to be above caring about legal
| risks.
|
| [1] https://techcrunch.com/2010/05/26/wirehog/
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > Also, unlike Google, fb mostly marketed them as
| experiements.
|
| Fair enough. Though I'd argue that with these big
| internet companies, the line between actual product and
| perpetually in beta experiment is blurred, more often by
| Google than others.
|
| > IMO it was good tech no one trusted (understandably).
|
| And as a consequence, the adoption of Portal seems pretty
| negligible.
|
| > I think it was a huge missed opportunity for fb to
| enter the data center race against aws/gcs/azure. If fb
| built a benign cash cow, maybe they'd taper down their
| scummy social network ambitions. Or at least the value
| extraction. AWS cash seems to fund cool amzn loss leaders
| (alexa, etc). I think the same thing applies to wit.ai
| and other AI products they buy - if they could
| commercialize them into an "AWS for AI" product suite
| maybe they'd find a new profit center.
|
| Very intriguing point that provides useful thought for
| both a what-if (Facebook didn't kill Parse) and potential
| future opportunities- if only Facebook cared for them.
|
| > Makes sense that a startup business (< 2 yo) would kill
| a controversial product.
|
| Yeah, I just threw it in to get a full category range and
| historical range of different products killed by
| Facebook. I also edited in Facebook Home as well to touch
| upon smartphone software.
|
| My main point is that it's all well and good for a
| corporate behemoth like FB to make the claim that they're
| getting into a new speculative field, but it's natural to
| be skeptical given how many of their experiments or
| (attempts at) products don't stick around. So as exciting
| as this sounds like, I give it as much credence as, say,
| IBM saying that Watson is going to revolutionize and
| transform healthcare through artificial intelligence.
|
| It also goes in line with my cousin comment in another
| subthread about how Facebook's history is littered with
| retired replications of existing products. I didn't even
| mention Facebook cloud gaming (Facebook Gaming -
| admittedly still in progress), video streaming (Facebook
| Live), Clubhouse
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27580014), even HQ
| Trivia (Confetti). So that makes one wonder- does
| Zuckerberg really care about the metaverse idea, or is he
| just getting into it because Apple supposedly is?
| baby wrote:
| I'm wondering about numbers for portal actually. It's
| hard to believe that it didn't turn a profit during
| covid. I had one to talk to my parents (who had one too)
| and it was too small but it was still great to have. If
| the big version wasn't so expensive I would have bought
| it in a heartbeat for me and my oldies.
| paconbork wrote:
| Libra became Novi and is still in active development for
| what it's worth
| baby wrote:
| Libra became Diem*
|
| Novi is the team at facebook that works on Diem and the
| novi wallet.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| You can hide a lot of stupidity and aimlessness in growth.
| baby wrote:
| Libra and Portal are still things. Not sure I hard about
| the others.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| >the vitriol directed at Facebook has become so disconnected
| from reality
|
| It has completely poisoned discussion on a number of virtual
| reality communities, since Facebook owns Oculus and the Quest
| 2 is very commercially successful. The /r/virtualreality
| community has become incredible negative, tribal, and toxic
| over the last couple years, mostly revolving around
| conspiratorial speculation about the future of the oculus
| platform as owned by Facebook. Almost any discussion about
| any topic is guaranteed to have at least a couple comments
| somehow relating it back to why Facebook is evil and
| "destroying VR."
| baby wrote:
| I find that very sad. Talked to a friend today who really
| want a Quest but didn't buy one because facebook. I told
| him to just create a fake account, but heh. People are
| scared of cookies nowadays.
| salt-thrower wrote:
| Is it hyperbole to say that Facebook helped enable genocide
| in Myanmar? Or that it has been an incredibly useful tool for
| political propaganda, more so than traditional media ever
| was?
|
| They have not done anything to meaningfully address the very
| real issues their platform has, and are forging ahead
| regardless to become even more ubiquitous. The negativity is
| very understandable.
| meowface wrote:
| >Facebook is absolutely one of the best-positioned companies to
| be able to become a long-term market leader in these areas and
| has been investing heavily into R&D in all related categories.
| Although some of us dislike many ways the company operates,
| this still does seem like a very well thought-out and
| aggressive long-term mission that is worthy of being pursued,
| and I'm pretty excited to continue to see innovation in the
| more difficult areas like AI and VR here.
|
| I agree, and I'm sure it may even end up as a great/fun
| experience, but I'm just concerned about what's likely to come
| along with it. There was a recent article linked on HN titled
| "even if you're paying, you're still the product", and that's
| pretty much how I see this going.
|
| Facebook lost all good will years ago. It's not about the
| product quality, but the monetization strategies and what those
| entail.
| croes wrote:
| The problem is what is the premise of this metaverse. I will be
| data collection for FBs core business. Imagine something like
| Horizon for Oculus in big, a virtual world observed and
| controlled by FB. Before Sky Net we will get the Matrix.
|
| https://pic.clubic.com/v1/images/1236090/raw
| nodejs_rulez_1 wrote:
| I agree because I believe the future is likely to be some shape
| of a socialist dystopia.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Is it a metaverse he'd like to live in?
| greg7mdp wrote:
| That would be an amazing transformation from a dumpster.
| eplanit wrote:
| Facebook is becoming "Buy-n-Large" from "Wall-e". The prescience
| of that movie is more evident every year since it was made.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Facebook is becoming AOL.
| SN76477 wrote:
| Facebook want to be the curated internet.
|
| I work with their ads and manage facebook pages all day. I have
| little faith in them to do what is right.
| al2o3cr wrote:
| Marketing droid: "We're not a social media company, we're a
| metaverse company"
|
| Normal person: What does that mean?
|
| Marketing droid: "The metaverse does not have a specific
| definition"
| maxwell wrote:
| It's "a place where all IP can live together, where all kinds
| of experiences can happen."
|
| https://twitter.com/juliey4/status/1205393085145874433
| xxxtentachyon wrote:
| Really wish they launched last year. Imagine all the Second
| Life proms
| CyanBird wrote:
| Ahh yes, Facebook has finally ascended and become Zombo.com,
| their final form
| zeruch wrote:
| ...to be fair, even Zombocom has more actual focus.
| r00fus wrote:
| Wow. Either it's a bold and unifying claim, or complete
| corporate BS.
| chaostheory wrote:
| I believe the meta verse refers to Facebook's efforts with VR
| in Oculus and their upcoming AR release
|
| https://www.oculus.com/facebook-horizon/
|
| I know the article mentions that it goes "beyond AR and VR",
| but all that means is that Facebook will have flat pancake
| screen versions of their meta verse apps
| [deleted]
| meiraleal wrote:
| Feels like he is trying to copy Elon Musk
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| With the power of imagination, the metaverse can be anything!
| dharmab wrote:
| When is FB buying Zombo.com?
| [deleted]
| cblconfederate wrote:
| We sell ads
| verytrivial wrote:
| LOL. No.
|
| A week or so ago I unfriended every one of my 'friends' on
| Facebook, many there since 2007. I'm now just squatting my own
| identity for the handful of community and sports clubs that use
| Facebook as a bulletin board. These people are 'acquaintances', I
| know most of them by sight, but don't see what they're having for
| breakfast or when their baby does something amazing. So,
| basically neighbours in a village.
|
| I realised I did not want to be the reason people were using
| Facebook, posting their curated/fictional 'best self'. Basically,
| friends don't encourage friends to use Facebook[1].
|
| Write that email if you expect someone to read it, write a blog
| post if you don't. But I'm over being party to mining other
| people's attention spans and identity for personal gratification
| and someone else's profit.
|
| [1] Or any other parasocial medium in my opinion.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > I realised I did not want to be the reason people were using
| Facebook
|
| I gave up my Facebook account about a decade ago. Not for this
| reasons (although I very much agree with it), but because I
| realized that I wasn't using it. Friends and family would try
| to communicate with me over it, and they wouldn't get a
| response because I wasn't looking.
|
| A lot of them thought I was ignoring them, so I figured it was
| better to not have a presence there at all, to eliminate any
| possible misunderstanding.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I was recently forwarded a big comment thread from a while
| ago on that site where a bunch of people I haven't talked to
| for like 5-8 years were figuring I blocked them when really I
| just deleted my account a long while back, which was pretty
| funny.
|
| I didn't bother reaching out to correct this at all. I think
| I value the ability to keep people who think their time is
| best spent staring into nightmare rectangles and pretty much
| just gossiping their way into hell experience out of my life,
| and the people who aren't into that as much in.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > A lot of them thought I was ignoring them, so I figured it
| was better to not have a presence there at all, to eliminate
| any possible misunderstanding.
|
| This is how I feel about email. I'm not sure it's possible to
| function in modern society without an email address though.
| viscanti wrote:
| So you don't want to be embodied in a world full of Russian and
| anti-vax propaganda (along with the fictional 'best self'
| content from 'friends')?
| tharne wrote:
| Right on. I quit Facebook about 2 years ago for the exact same
| reason and never looked back. I think you're on to something
| here. Network effects work both ways. If each new user on a
| platform compounds it's utility and desirability, then the
| reverse is also true. This means even a relatively small, but
| non-trivial, number of people shunning Facebook can drastically
| reduce it's desirability and power.
|
| I saw a little tiny glimpse of this when an organization I'm in
| wanted to use Facebook to schedule events and communicate.
| There were perhaps 30 of us in the group and myself and one
| other person spoke up and said we weren't on Facebook, so we
| would either need to be emailed the events or simply not
| participate. The head of the org decided it was easier just to
| send everyone an email. So two stubborn people out of 30
| changed the way an organization decided to interact with it's
| members.
| DickingAround wrote:
| The 'intolerant minority' is a very interesting and
| surprisingly useful concept.
| CraftingLinks wrote:
| Within a decade FB will be the next dying messenger and the world
| will have moved on.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Facebook the company or Facebook the platform? The thing with
| Facebook owning Instagram is even as Facebook itself becomes
| less and less relevant to younger generations, the company
| still owns the platform those younger generations favor. And as
| Instagram inevitably becomes itself irrelevant, I'm sure
| Facebook will just buy the next social media platform.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Instagram has already peaked and is on the down-trend.
|
| TikTok is what the kids are using now - and they're valued at
| about half of what FB is valued at, so unlikely that FB will
| be able to buy them.
|
| Maybe FB will buy whatever replaces TikTok.
| vlozko wrote:
| In light of all the details that has come out with regards
| to buying out Instagram to prevent them from being a
| competitor, it's a massive uphill regulatory approval climb
| even if money is not an issue.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I still wish Oracle took over TikTok. It would have been an
| amazing plot twist. Would they come up an Oracle style
| licensing agreement for all the tweens on TikTok?
|
| Just like how Gen Z realized much faster than millennials
| that the economy and their future is hogwash, they would
| learn the consequences of agreeing to an Oracle license
| agreement much faster than their older peers.
| baby wrote:
| "Tiktok is a national security threat" hahaha. I miss
| trump.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > "Tiktok is a national security threat" hahaha. I miss
| trump.
|
| More accurately, it's a _potential_ national security
| threat, but not yet an _actualized_ one.
| spideymans wrote:
| >Maybe FB will buy whatever replaces TikTok.
|
| It's unlikely that the government would permit such a sale.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| As long as they buy it before it gets big, then the
| government probably won't protest too much
| nradov wrote:
| If Facebook buys the next TikTok as a small startup when
| they have minimal market share then the federal
| government would have no legal basis to block a sale.
| ben_w wrote:
| Governments can and do change the legal basis, and they
| _all_ seem to have a problem with Big Tech right now,
| albeit for inconsistent reasons.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The governments, one should say.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Maybe FB will buy whatever replaces TikTok.
|
| If they're allowed to. There's a lot more antitrust
| scrutiny now than when they bought Instagram.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| I think Instagram has more staying power than TikTok as
| TikTok users start aging and the next generation moves onto
| their own platform. There's a good chance I'm wrong, but my
| guess is that publishing videos of yourself as a primary
| communication format gets less appealing with age as social
| circles shrink.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Personally as a 31 year old male, I could never get into
| Instagram. Always just felt like a shopping catalogue
| posing as social media, and the discovery is terrible, no
| matter how much data I try to feed it.
|
| I love TikTok though, and not only do I feel like it "got
| me" after only a few hours of use without hearting
| anything or having any friends that use it. I've learnt
| about a lot of local events, restaurants and days out -
| in a way that seems way more organic than Instagram paid
| influencers.
|
| Honestly, their algorithm has been great for me, in a way
| that only really Spotify has rivalled.
| baby wrote:
| > having any friends that use it
|
| That's the point, tiktok is 9gag, instagram is
| snapchat/facebook/twitter
| baby wrote:
| ^ this. I would think of snapchat as a competitor to
| instagram, but not tiktok. You don't go on tiktok to talk
| to your friends or see what's up. Tiktok is the new 9gag
| rather.
| RegW wrote:
| Even FB will make a wrong turn one day. Every time it buys a
| new name it gets bigger. Eventually it will be a fat man
| standing behind a lamp post
| nebula8804 wrote:
| It takes a long time for the fat man to die. In the
| meantime it will drag us all along kicking and screaming
| until its eventual demise.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Young people look at Instagram the same way they look at
| Twitter: it's a platform filled with millennials and older
| people that take it way too seriously.
| mgbmtl wrote:
| Facebook will be like cigarettes. Legislated to death in some
| countries, preying on the vulnerable like vultures in other
| countries. Prospering.
| libertine wrote:
| Things are different this time around, I don't think we can
| assume that... probably no company has ever had access to so
| much cheap money combined with the global reach they have.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Yeah but (1) it is not the only one and (2) what you bankrupt
| Facebook will be a different leverage, not access to cheap
| money (or access to even cheaper money?)
| zthrowaway wrote:
| They buy up competition to stay alive, it will be a much longer
| time that they stay around.
| vmception wrote:
| Probably but even underused chat apps sell enough ad space to
| convince shareholders to trade at $100bn marketcap
|
| So good thing Snapchat didnt sell to Zuck
| haaserd wrote:
| One can only hope.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| "We lived on farms and then we lived in cities and now we're
| going to live on the internet!"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiIGwmTocdU
| Ataraxy wrote:
| We're back to AOL again are we?
| makecheck wrote:
| The main value Facebook ever had to me was a way to reach people
| that were otherwise hard to reach. Over the years, literally
| every other possible benefit eroded away as the platform changed.
|
| Therefore, I make sure people I care about know how to reach me
| _outside Facebook_ so that it really does not matter if I log in
| to Facebook. In other words, I no longer need it even to reach
| people.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I think and have thought for along time we are indeed headed for
| a few competing "metaverses", but having ruminated on the topic
| for a long time, I could tell you all kinds of reasons a
| metaverse created by someone like facebook will inherently not be
| _the one metaverse_ aka the one that actually makes a paradigm
| shift.
|
| Ive pitched metaverse style training systems to the department of
| education for example. There is a lot of really good progress to
| be had in the space.
|
| If done right, a good metaverse will be the next WoW. Thats
| billions of dollars. Im not surprised facebook is doing this, Im
| surprised they all didnt start their own metaverse programs much
| sooner...
|
| The race is on, may the best win.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Metastasis.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Zuckerberg and the Metaverse of Madness
| 3gg wrote:
| This guy truly lives in his own universe.
|
| To enter the Facebook metaverse, you need to abandon whatever
| preconceptions you had about humanity, ignore all social and
| political problems around you, and trascend all previously
| established limits of ignorance, arrogance and technological
| naivete past the gates of cyberhell. Oh, and you need love ads
| because, oh boy, are you getting some.
| marto1 wrote:
| and we all cheer him on, right !?
| 3GuardLineups wrote:
| yall need to read Snow Crash
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Check out https://vrland.io
|
| It's my startup's take on what the metaverse should look like -
| entirely web-based, so it works everywhere. It's a 3D/VR social
| platform where you can upload photos, videos, and even 3D models
| into rooms. Complete customizability plus easily configurable
| avatars.
|
| Link to our Discord: https://discord.gg/cNfG834
| rglover wrote:
| Facebook is IOI in Ready Player One and Zuckerberg is Nolan
| Sorrento.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Can't say enough how much I despise the term 'metaverse', mainly
| because it can mean pretty much whatever the speaker wants it to
| mean, and it's usually used to hype with obscurity (i.e. it
| sounds cool but nobody really knows what it means), as opposed to
| clarifying with specifics of what something actually does.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://www.independent.co.uk/life-
| style/gadgets-and-tech/fa..., which points to this.
|
| There was also:
|
| _Zuckerberg on why the social network is becoming 'a metaverse
| company'_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27921327 - July
| 2021 (15 comments)
| [deleted]
| robertwt7 wrote:
| Almost got me buying oculus quest 2. But then after looking at
| the available applications I didn't pull the trigger
| marban wrote:
| Can I ride my hoverboard while waving a flag in the Metaverse?
| Animats wrote:
| Yes, in Second Life. [1][2]
|
| [1]
| https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?utf8=%E2%...
|
| [2] https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GD-Flag-
| Pole-280-in-1-W...
| klyrs wrote:
| I don't feel like clicking on this... are they getting into the
| quantum hype game?
| Choc13 wrote:
| >>> ""I think [it] is probably going to resemble some kind of a
| hybrid between the social platforms that we see today, but an
| environment where you're embodied in it", Mr Zuckerberg also
| said. One of the benefits of this ecosystem would be that, "if
| you go back 20 or 30 years, a lot of people's individual
| opportunities and experience was dictated by their physical
| proximity", and that easy movement through a virtual space
| could avoid such barriers."
|
| He seems to be saying they're getting (more) into the Black
| Mirror game.
| Choc13 wrote:
| Oh and "The metaverse does not have a specific definition"
| klyrs wrote:
| Oh, good, the real problem with social media has always been
| relegated to electronic devices. What we really need is
| enragement metrics for meatspace
| ssklash wrote:
| And by Black Mirror game I assume you mean creating a
| dystopian hellscape and not some interactive TV thing.
| Choc13 wrote:
| Correct. This episode in particular
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| No, the VR / Augmented reality goggles hype. They bought
| Oculus, remember.
|
| Dystopian metaverse.
| https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/22/11087890/mark-zuckerberg-...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| This is like calling a blockchain "decentralized"
|
| How is it a metaverse if there's only one canonical environment
| hosted at Facebook.com?
| chaostheory wrote:
| Because it's really on oculus.com
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| You have to give one thing to the guy, he keeps pushing, he could
| retire 1000times over.
|
| What is driving him? Anyone knows him from younger years?
|
| Most similar people(on a smaller scale) i know are money driven
| even though they have enough.
|
| But at this level? Makes you wonder what his final goal is?
| gilmore606 wrote:
| Most people have to constantly remind themselves they can't
| change the world, and adjust their expectations and priorities
| accordingly. Some tiny fraction of people find themselves in
| the position where they actually can change the world. I'm not
| surprised they try to; I'm more surprised that more of them
| don't.
| baby wrote:
| The kind of pressure (and hate) you get at that level is not
| for everyone...
| baby wrote:
| It's his calling. He believes he is changing the world for the
| better and connecting people.
| moogly wrote:
| > What is driving him?
|
| Megalomania. His 2017 "manifesto" made that rather clear to me.
| In it, he came off as trying to sound like the president of the
| world.
|
| I think that was also the year he spent time traveling the US
| states "to meet real folk".
| baby wrote:
| You want him to stay in his ivory tower instead?
| moogly wrote:
| You have a point, but nevertheless it was reminiscent of
| some kind of campaigning.
|
| Not sure where I want him for him to make the least damage
| to society. Maybe on the first manned rocket to Mars?
| shmerl wrote:
| On the way to Virtuaverse's1 idea of permanent reality?
|
| __________
|
| 1. https://www.gog.com/game/virtuaverse
| egypturnash wrote:
| yeah, sure, Mark, I'll believe in this "unprecedented
| interoperability" when I can follow someone on Facebook using an
| open standard like RSS without having an account, and when I can
| have my personal Wordpress site auto-post to my personal Facebook
| account.
|
| I'll believe in this "unprecedented interoperability" when you're
| not constantly trying to get me to pay a ransom to have my posts
| shown to people who have said they wanna follow me, either.
| baby wrote:
| > when I can follow someone on Facebook using an open standard
| like RSS without having an account
|
| Ahhh, being out of touch
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It was particularly galling when they silently disabled the
| Twitter integration a few years ago and removed years' worth of
| my cross-platform posts.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I'm thinking that chances of Facebook turning into a 'metaverse'
| are less than the chances that Facebook will turn into the next
| MySpace. But perhaps I'm overly cynical.
|
| It was pretty clear to me that had Blizzard a bit more vision
| they might have been able to pull this trick off with World of
| Warcraft but at this point I think that too is off the table.
|
| One of the more interesting things I've learned over the course
| of my career is that the ability of an organization to "change"
| is tightly governed by the ability of its leadership to "see".
| Truly the most fascinating part of my time at IBM after it had
| acquired Blekko was seeing a company from the inside that
| actively at war with itself between the folks who wanted to
| modernize it and the "old guard" who wanted to keep the status
| quo.
|
| As an executive it is important to understand that in order for
| change to happen, all of your leadership has to see their _own_
| role in the new vision and how they will be successful, otherwise
| they will treat it as a threat and work against it, both actively
| and passively.
|
| Given how Zuckerberg has handled the disinformation problems at
| Facebook (essentially by throwing other executives under the bus
| rather than take ownership) it seems unlikely they would be able
| to pull of such a transformation. Mostly because the other
| executives would be sabotaging efforts for fear they would be
| thrown out.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Both scenarios can be true. FB could be at the forefront of
| AR/VR with Oculus and maybe related things like Identity. And
| on the social network side, they could be a in a slow decline.
| My bet is something more akin to AOL/Yahoo rather myspace,
| where the remain relevant in certain niches (older people more
| focused on the legacy experience, mom & pop stores that
| currently use facebook pages as their webfront, etc ...). That
| said, it seems entirely likely that they would make an
| acquisition like instagram once one gains traction and stay
| relevant that way.
| baby wrote:
| I doubt it will end like this for two reason: it's a money
| printing machine AND there's a strong engineering culture. I
| think fb has more chance to turn like wechat, especially with
| their move towards payment.
| iammisc wrote:
| In two days, my facebook account will be gone for good.
|
| I plan on throwing a party!
| kgin wrote:
| Great, send me the link after you make an event page on...
| artfulhippo wrote:
| The Verge podcast[0] where Zuck made this comment was quite
| revealing.
|
| Without naming Apple specifically, Zuck managed to communicate an
| intense fear that Facebook would be locked out of Apple's
| upcoming AR platform.
|
| Is the 'metaverse' inevitable? Or is it merely sci-fi wishful
| thinking?
|
| If 'interoperability' and 'decentralization' means that you can't
| avoid targeted advertising, I'll pass.
|
| [0]: https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-
| facebook-c...
| Niglodonicus wrote:
| I seriously hope enough people are still grounded enough in
| this reality to reject AR/VR bullshit besides as a fun
| playground like VRchat or what have you. Integrating either or
| both into daily life would be fucking godawful.
| baby wrote:
| VR is awesome.
| recursive wrote:
| To me, VR is really cool. I wouldn't want to give it up. It
| functions as a game console with a different input/display
| device. I'm not too keen on the metaverse concept, and I
| don't use it for social stuff.
| goatlover wrote:
| Agreed on that, but I don't want it to become like a
| smartphone where it almost becomes a necessary component of
| a majority of your waking life. I already take in enough
| digital content and am tracked by enough things as it is.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I hate to be the one to bang on about standards, but the
| cyberpunk vision of the Metaverse -- and I am aiming at kind of
| a bog-standard middle ground of it -- will depend on some very
| open standards that are decentralized at the core, starting at
| _Snow Crash_ and ending in the John C. Wright "The Golden
| Oecumene" sense of things.
|
| Anything _but_ an open and radically-decentralized
| interoperable set of standards and you 're Running On Someone's
| Specific Hardware. That means that they and the country (or
| other municipal structures) might have opinions on what you can
| run on their hardware, and thus the Four Horsemen of the
| Infocalypse will be invoked at the start.
|
| As you slide toward less interoperability and more
| corporate/government control, you're going toward the _Johnny
| Mnemonic_ territory (maybe without the cyberdolphin). You 'll
| have to hack your way around the place, and that means that the
| ordinary folks are left out. They might not have the smarts,
| the hardware, the wetware, and so on.
|
| Further levels of control and you're into Second Life -- one
| platform, one company, but perhaps some local rules/anarchy.
| And if you're still _thinking of the children_ , the Metaverse
| eventually looks like Club Penguin. You can finally rest
| assured that the concept is functionally dead when we are all
| sending each other only various emojis of unrealistic skin
| tones.
|
| So, the question then becomes, does anything in the
| Facebook/Zuckerberg history suggest where on that spectrum we
| will land?
|
| As a side note, I believe that pretty much any version of this
| Metaverse means targeted ads. On the controlled side, the
| people running the hardware will want money, and that means
| ads. On the uncontrolled ads, randos will want money, and that
| means that they'll do whatever they can to sniff your activity
| and monitor you, and then send you ads.
| Animats wrote:
| _will depend on some very open standards that are
| decentralized at the core_
|
| There's a performance problem. The open Web only works
| because we have enough compute power to tie up multiprocessor
| computers with a few gigaflops per CPU and gigabytes of RAM
| to display 2D text with a few pictures on the screen. A good
| 3D game world pushes the limits of what current hardware can
| do. The level of inefficiency associated with
| Javascript/HTML/CSS won't work for an interesting 3D world.
| It was tried. See X3D.
| fnord77 wrote:
| sooner or later hardware will be sufficient
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Oh, I have no illusions about how well the radically
| decentralized business works out. It is wildly inefficient,
| the content could be _anything_ , and so on. Think Freenet.
| And I have watched the VR promise die enough deaths to make
| a cat envious.
| akeck wrote:
| Could I trouble you (or anyone) for a "metaverse"-related
| fiction reading list? It's been awhile since I dug into some
| classic cyberpunk.
| TRcontrarian wrote:
| The founding text is Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992).
| It's short, funny, entertaining, and full of new ideas in a
| freewheeling early 90's spirit. The list in the comment you
| are replying to is not bad, since most interactions you
| will ever have with someone about a metaverse will hinge on
| shared descriptions you have with them of a metaverse, so
| whichever books you hear about the most are by definition
| the most useful ones to read.
|
| Almost everyone has read or heard of Ready Player One
| (2011), which contains extensive descriptions of its own
| corporate dystopic metaverse, albeit one that I find
| insufferably cliche and unoriginal.
|
| Metaverse descriptions are descended from the first
| cyberspace descriptions in Neuromancer (1984) which is a
| beautiful book worth a read.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Really just watch the Spielberg film for Ready Player One
| and to get the gist of it.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Aside from what I mentioned, you're looking at Bruce
| Sterling, maybe a little Stross. I hesitate to recommend
| Doctorow -- he is faddishly distracted and senselessly
| optimistic. Vinge's "True Names" stands out. Maybe _When
| H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One_ for the AI side of things. The
| amusing _Headcrash_ , writings by Pat Cadigan, Jeter's
| deliciously dystopian _Noir_ is a favorite if you want to
| see how bad it might get. _Hardwired_ , by Walter Jon
| Williams, but that one has been a while.
| TRcontrarian wrote:
| Vernor Vinge is usually fantastic.
| pbadg3r wrote:
| You may enjoy http://www.technovelgy.com/
| chaostheory wrote:
| It's already here. All you need to see it is either Steam VR or
| Oculus. Then try Virtual Chat, Alt space, Rec Room, or
| Facebook's Horizon.
|
| Even Roblox and Minecraft support VR now
| SrslyJosh wrote:
| > Without naming Apple specifically, Zuck managed to
| communicate an intense fear that Facebook would be locked out
| of Apple's upcoming AR platform.
|
| We can sure hope.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| This makes a lot of sense. And given the Oculus, they already
| have a pretty decent foothold in the AR/VR world.
|
| So as a reaction for Apple becoming "the" gatekeeper for a
| metaverse platform, Facebook is now doubling down on becoming
| "the" metaverse platform. Whatever that means.
|
| I wonder whether Facebook is going to try to accomplish this
| using their existing social networks, or do some acquisitions
| in the space.
| fossuser wrote:
| AR is the obvious next platform and UX leap if the hardware is
| workable.
|
| Zuck and Apple both recognize this and are both working on it.
|
| The winner will be similar to an iPhone level win in terms of
| shift, it's hard to know how close viable hardware is though.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I doubt Facebook really needs to worry about Apple's upcoming
| AR/VR push. They're the people who sell $300 VR headsets, if
| anything they should be encouraging Apple to drive the price of
| their headset up.
| cityzen wrote:
| Never knew Revenge of the Nerds would get so dark...
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