[HN Gopher] Microsoft and the Metaverse
___________________________________________________________________
Microsoft and the Metaverse
Author : jonbaer
Score : 102 points
Date : 2021-11-09 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stratechery.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (stratechery.com)
| tompccs wrote:
| There are two types of technologies: those which give the user
| leverage in the real world; and games.
|
| Which is Meta? Ben Thompson tries to make the case that it's the
| former, but I have my doubts. Thinking about my current 95%
| remote work life, with very frequent calls, I think of the
| following frustrations:
|
| 1. Platform heterogeneity. Some people use phones, mobile, chat,
| Meets, Hangouts, Zoom, etc. Just trying to work out what platform
| (?) people use feels silly. 2. Bad hardware. I'm constantly
| having Bluetooth and wifi issues and so is everyone else. 3. Lack
| of engagement. Lots of people outside my org are just not as
| engaged as they were pre-pandemic. Customer service has become
| terrible. 4. Lack of space. My fiance and I have to plan for an
| extra room if/when we move because of the WFH situation. Since we
| are unlikely to have a glut of spare bedrooms in London any time
| soon, this is likely to be a systemic problem.
|
| I can't see Meta or virtual presence/VR solving any of these
| problems, except incidentally (for instance, everyone loves Meta
| so much that everyone switches over to their perfect hardware and
| platform overnight). What I _do_ see are a lot of drawbacks, such
| as
|
| 1. Nausea. It's well known that not everyone can tolerate VR 2.
| Compatibility. Can you still interact with people using other
| services? 3. Bandwidth. Do all your employees live somewhere with
| good enough internet service? 4. General creepiness. Usually the
| unease from new tech creeps up on you slowly (everyone normal saw
| iPhones and computers and even TVs as an unalloyed good from the
| start. Nobody seems to like the Metaverse). I think we might be
| on the cusp of a techno-reactionary Luddite movement.
|
| I could be wrong, but to me this feels too much like a case of
| companies and techies wanting something far more than customers
| having actual problems that this can solve.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| All you need to know about the Metaverse is every discussion
| about it is in conjunction with the largest corporations on the
| face of the earth.
|
| Literally the emperor's clothes.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > (On the beginning of home, personal computers) _Employers
| bought their employees computers because computers made them more
| productive; then, once consumers were used to using computers at
| work, an ever increasing number of them wanted to buy a computer
| for their home as well. And, as the number of home computers
| increased, so did the market opportunity for developers of non-
| work applications like games._
|
| I think this is the nail on the head, and the drivers will be
| remote work + talent shortage.
|
| Medium to longer term, this is going to drive more people to
| relocate out of high cost of living areas and questionable
| quality of life.
|
| Once they're decamped to cheaper (and probably smaller) cities,
| the obvious question for both employee and employer is "How do I
| maximize the value of an employee?"
|
| Some fusion of technologies with the outcome of persistence seems
| like a very compelling answer.
|
| And, and I think this is underrated, suddenly you're buying
| _productivity_ equipment and /or making _home improvements_.
| Which is a very different market, with a very different spending
| cap, than consumer gaming goods.
|
| F.ex. If someone offered a full persistence, comfortable,
| efficient, effective technical solution for $100k, would it be
| worth it at that price?
|
| What if it let you live in Boulder, CO (median home price $920k,
| high on liveable US city rankings) instead of SF, CA (median home
| price $1.5M)?
| fragmede wrote:
| That $600k difference in home price is only $120k different if
| you're putting the standard 20% down-payment for a mortgage.
| Which is still a large delta, but still, slightly less. If
| we're talking about spending $100k for a efficient technical
| solution, we're down to a $20k difference (though if it's a
| $100k of the company's money vs $120k of mine, then that's a
| huge difference). Problem is, I don't see companies lining up
| to provide for new (or continuing) employee's moving costs, so
| the employee can move to a city where the company has little/no
| presence.
|
| The best workplaces were already looking at developer
| productivity prior to the pandemic, and there are material
| gains to be had from the company spending real time/effort on
| things. But that easily costs (the company) way more than
| $100k.
|
| Until we collectively - execs, management, ICs - gain enough
| experience with hybrid and all-remote work models (and even
| some post-pandemic all-in-person work models, which is
| different from pre-pandemic all-in-person work), we won't and
| _can 't_ know what maximizes the value of an employee (and
| anyone that tells you different is trying to sell you something
| - probably that remote work is unilaterally better, which it's
| not).
|
| The Monty Hall problem says that moving is the optimal thing to
| do, but ignores the real practical difficulties of moving to a
| completely new city. I'd love to live in Boulder, CO, except
| for all the hassles of actually moving beyond the physical
| relocation of my stuff from point A to point B, which is
| trivially solved with money.
| deltree7 wrote:
| VR is also an excellent training tool for pre-defined tasks.
| The immersive part will make the learning more permanent, more
| kinesthetic and more real rather than reading a wall of text.
| deltron3030 wrote:
| > Apple's iPhone-centricity could be a liability, much as
| Microsoft's Windows-centricity was a liability once mobile came
| along.
|
| The iPhone and wireless connection to it could make the glasses a
| lot lighter, basically a mobile server. Apple is rollling out a
| wearable system, they distribute the platform across their
| wireless earphones, watch and phone, maybe even using their
| computers to power the glasses when you're at home. They already
| got a large part of it deployed and used by people..
| reggieband wrote:
| I'm surprised no mention of Amazon / AWS.
|
| > there remains a huge opportunity long squandered by Google: to
| be the enterprise platform that competes with Microsoft's
| integrated offering by effectively tying together best-of-breed
| independent SaaS offerings into a cohesive whole.
|
| I understand what he is saying, but AWS is already there. Azure
| may be on the rise but no platform comes close to AWS in the SaaS
| space as of now.
|
| Amazon have a history of physical products, from the ill-fated
| fire phone to all of their Alexa products, kindles, and fire
| stick. They own a significant gaming division which recently
| launched the MMORPG New Worlds.
|
| It seems the only thing they currently lack is their own VR
| headset. But they have their hooks in enterprise already, a
| massive computing infrastructure, experience in almost every
| related tech and an army of independent devs familiar with their
| offerings.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| Ok, here we go - the metaverse is not a single 3D/VR social app
| or group of apps, vendor-locked to an specific platform and OS.
|
| The metaverse is quite simply THE spatial successor to the
| internet, but more specifically the World Wide Web.
|
| Because of protocols like HTTP, TCP/IP, and HTML, you can read
| and view text + photos + videos on webpages because of agreed
| upon standards.
|
| The metaverse will most certainly utilize old standards, but it
| will also need entirely new ones built from the ground up. The
| way users currently navigate the web via hyperlinks will be
| mirrored in the metaverse, but instead of shareable URL's we will
| have portals instead, so as to not break immersion and to deliver
| a sense of seamless teleportation from one immersive destination
| to another.
|
| We'll also need a universal SDK and API that every world can hook
| into in order to tie all of this together, so as to share data
| back and forth and to allow for true interchange of virtual
| goods. Blockchain will provide the base layer to enable this.
|
| WebGPU will allow us to render using modern hardware, as the
| browser equivalent of Vulkan, Metal, and DirectX 12.
|
| WebAssembly will allow for programs to be compiled to a universal
| bytecode.
|
| WebXR brings all of this together, enabling a true sense of
| presence inside a webpage.
|
| As more headsets by Meta, Valve (and Apple!) are sold and they
| become a part of our daily lives, it will become apparent that we
| need a way to link worlds together that are hardware and
| platform-agnostic. The web seems like the most straightforward,
| obvious solution to this problem.
|
| Also, now that Facebook has soured the term "metaverse", a term
| originally termed in Snow Crash and now has connotations with a
| social media company... may I propose a new one? How about The
| Immersive Web?
|
| My startup Wonder Interactive is working on building the
| immersive web, and our current focus is on bridging the gap
| between native game engines and the web. We're have UE4 support
| up and running, with WebGPU actively being worked on as well as
| WebXR. Our 2D web as we know it today has to evolve to become
| 3D-first and immersive. If you're interested in trying out our
| platform, you can register your intent here via our website or
| join our Discord below:
|
| Website: https://www.theimmersiveweb.com/
|
| Discord: https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8
| kmnc wrote:
| People have been envisioning virtual show rooms and virtual
| stores/malls forever... but I don't believe they serve an
| actual purpose. What function does it solve? Unless you have
| fully realistic graphics and fully simulated senses (touch),
| why would a virtual store ever be better then just browsing a
| webpage?
|
| Things like "try your clothes on virtually", "buy furniture and
| upload your room schematics" have existed for decades, and have
| all been pretty much failures. I don't think most people care
| about a more "immersive" experience when it comes to commerce,
| a picture on amazon does the job. A product/review video on
| youtube does the job. I don't think people care about a more
| immersive meeting room, or a more immersive online event,
| because again those products have been tried for decades and
| have all failed.
|
| It honestly seems to me like the only actual feature of the
| "metaverse" is to force people into a gated experience, and to
| try and get them to stay there for as long as possible. Then
| you can advertise to them, then you can hook them into
| addictive behaviors (games, casino), then you can sell them
| worthless "pieces of the metaverse". The only function of the
| metaverse that I can see is to hijack 100% of a persons
| attention. In that sense, it is the obvious evolution of social
| media, yet as an evolution of the Internet as a whole it
| completely misses the point.
|
| Of course, I am likely completely wrong, and leaps in VR/AR
| could change everything, and what you are doing is very cool.
| It just seems like and updated VRML is just promising the
| things people 20 years ago said would exist. At the end of the
| day, there is still no Virtual Mega Mall, because amazon.com
| beats it in functionality by a long shot. Give me the best VR
| available, I still think amazon.com beats it by a long shot.
| The day I can't distinguish VR and real life, well maybe then
| you got something, but we are many moons from that sci-fi
| dream.
| spicybright wrote:
| Souce that this is how it will work? I've heard nothing of an
| open platform on existing standards so far.
| drusepth wrote:
| The metaverse is very much like the "Web 3.0" trend going
| around right now. Everyone has their own definition that they
| insist will be THE definition of what things will look like
| once it exists, but nobody knows for sure (and most people
| trying to say they do are just doing so from trying to build
| it themselves).
|
| The reality is that most, if not all, of them will be wrong.
| And that, if either comes to "fruition", it'll probably be
| some amalgamation of pieces from every "this is what that is"
| post out there.
| intrasight wrote:
| I enjoyed the article. I do disagree with the belief that VR will
| succeed before AR, and that for that reason Apple is at a
| disadvantage. From what I see colleagues who work in this space
| doing, I think AR is going to be more impactful in business and
| industrial settings.
|
| As for the metaverse being the next stage of the internet, I
| certainly hope that is the case, and that it is based upon open
| protocols. Does anyone have pointers to articles about the open
| metaverse? I'd like to get up to speed.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The Internet is not the metaverse. The Internet is primarily a
| distribution system for static documents, with extensions for
| interactive document exchange (most websites), and support for
| other media - music, video, etc.
|
| Key point - the other media are _not_ interactive. You can select
| your experience, but you can 't change it. This is because of
| content ownership traditions, not because of the technology.
|
| In other words, the Internet is a kind of automated bureaucracy.
| It has ads and clicky clicky things that pop up, but when you're
| buying a flight or shopping from a catalog or writing emails
| you're still doing something that would have involved paper or
| possibly people, but on a screen. Usually with lots of text.
| Which you're either reading or writing.
|
| The transaction friction has been lowered, and transactions that
| used to be local are now global (and sometimes vice versa). But
| the _type_ of transaction hasn 't changed. You're still
| selecting, ordering, buying, selling, communicating.
|
| This OP's vision of the Metaverse seems to be one where you start
| from this, but you're forced to _follow the documents and become
| part of the bureaucracy._
|
| Does it reduce friction? No, it increases it. Does it change the
| nature of the transactions? Not particularly. The idea is still
| to do the same things, but somehow the VR version is "better."
|
| Well - more pixel area might certainly help in some situations.
| But balancing that against the permanent impression that you have
| become an animated emoji trapped forever in a corporate work
| space is - I think - going to be a very tough sell.
|
| Second Life turned into an absolute shit show, with virtual porn,
| virtual gambling, and virtual rent seeking everywhere, because
| the fundamental truth is that this is what interests a lot of the
| population.
|
| I can see VR/AR following a similar trajectory. That's far more
| likely to be the killer app for it than the bizarre idea that
| it's somehow better than Zoom for meetings - which no one really
| wants to be in anyway.
| keppy wrote:
| Let's not get too ahead of ourselves; a general AI and better
| brain-computer interfacing first. Then we'll see where we are at.
| Everything else is just snapchat/tiktok/minecraft/roblox,
| HTTP/HTML, and cryptography.
| shmerl wrote:
| I'm waiting for them to announce "permanent reality" next.
| croes wrote:
| For me most of these Metaverses sound like Second Life on
| steroids. So the Metaverse bis just a software running on some
| companies servers. Shouldn't it be about standards and protocols?
| Animats wrote:
| There should be standards in three main areas:
|
| * Portals - you can leave one grid and go to another with your
| avatar, if the destination grid will accept it. (The
| destination grid may not want spacesuits in their cowboy sim.)
| Some of the browser-based virtual worlds already have this.
|
| * Asset portability - you should be able to take your stuff
| from one grid to another, if the destination grid accepts it.
| This is what NFTs claim to do, but don't. This may already be a
| legal right in EU countries, per Article 20 of the GDPR, "Data
| Portability".
|
| * Money portability - you should be able to spend and withdraw
| money on a grid without being locked into its payment system.
| Epic is currently fighting Apple over this.
|
| ("Grid" here means a virtual world or worlds under coordinated
| management. This term is used in Open Simulator, where there
| are grids run by various parties using the same software.)
| k__ wrote:
| As far as I could tell, the Metaverse idea is decentralized and
| based on standards.
|
| But I don't really know what companies like Meta or Microsoft
| have in mind for it.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| Ah, but the companies can't make money from standards and
| protocols like they can hosting it all.
| wildpeaks wrote:
| Each of them wants to own the walled garden and become The
| platform, that's why they're not basing it on the existing open
| standards, conflicting commercial interests get in the way (see
| XKCD #927).
| deltree7 wrote:
| successful companies are always about distribution.
|
| You can say the same about Smartphones, but Apple has created a
| $2T value using the open internet
| smoldesu wrote:
| I'm going to be honest, it's really hard to read this with a
| straight face when our current notion of a Metaverse is nothing
| more than Roblox and some telepresence apps. Hell, those examples
| _don 't even fulfill_ Matthew Ball's Metaverse definition that
| they referenced earlier on: both of them lack persistence, data
| interop, and have hard caps on how many people can inhabit their
| digital space, K8-scaling be damned.
|
| The biggest issue is that none of the companies investing in the
| Metaverse truly care about the fundamentals. We're rushing in to
| buy McRib NFTs on blockchains that may-or-may-not exist in 10
| years, and McDonalds is happy to turn a quick buck for selling
| _nothing_. Similarly, the companies who see this concept as
| collectible trinkets are entirely missing the point: NFTs are not
| a social service, they 're a digital one. I've seen a lot of
| people claim that NFTs solve an issue that doesn't exist, and I
| frankly disagree. The concept of decentralized digital ownership
| is a _huge_ conversation that stands to upend our current
| concepts of DRM and online possessions. The issue? There 's a ton
| of money to be made in preventing you from accessing the stuff
| you want. Rights holders exist almost exclusively to prevent as
| many people as possible from attaining persistent ownership of
| their intellectual property. So long as capitalism is the driving
| force behind the so-called "Metaverse", you can safely assume
| that the only meta thing about it is how it's hellish reality
| exacerbates the issues corporations pose to us in the real world.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| I think honest NFT fans would do well to find a way to separate
| the digital-goods aspect from the "here's a digital signature
| attesting that you own a hash corresponding to the Mona Lisa"
| aspect, the former being a real technical problem worth solving
| and the latter being pure grift.
| nathias wrote:
| I guess we'll just take the bad parts from all the dystopias.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Like a Metatopia?
| Kiro wrote:
| > while also providing each user with an individual sense of
| "presence"
|
| On the Internet I'm merely an observer, not a participant. Sure,
| I can contribute but that's like sitting on the bench screaming
| instead of actually playing the game.
| simonh wrote:
| You're on the internet right now, and participated by posting
| that comment. I don't agree with you (you feel how you feel,
| I'm just saying I don't feel that way), but it's certainly
| interesting and well articulated enough to spark consideration
| and further discussion.
| drusepth wrote:
| The internet is one of the few places I can truly feel like a
| "fly on the wall" and just watch a conversation unfold without
| feeling pressured into participating (contrary to me, you know,
| participating here!).
|
| I don't think a focus on "presence" in VR implicitly removes
| that ability, though. It depends on how it's implemented: I
| could easily see an app providing a "ghost" mode or something
| where you can interact with or just observe the world without
| being seen or using an avatar. However, I unfortunately don't
| see Facebook (or most of big tech trying to maximize network
| effects) allowing such a heinous feature.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| This is just so darn well put. Simple but effective. Props to
| you or whoever originated the quote.
| anonymfus wrote:
| Metaverse is the new cloud: the word used not to mean something,
| but to hide meaning.
| gradys wrote:
| Both terms mean _something_. Both are amorphous, change over
| time, and cast pretty large nets, but they serve as loose
| coordination points for many more specific ideas. That is a
| useful function that isn 't about hiding the underlying more
| specific ideas.
| k__ wrote:
| I'm dabbling in crypto for a few months now, and I don't quite
| understand the focus on XR in the "corporate idea" of the
| metaverse.
|
| To me, the main selling point of the metaverse seemed to be an
| alternative economical space based on tokens which are
| implemented in a decentralized matter. Everything else seems to
| be fluff.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Without the XR (or the ever increasing richness of media),
| you're just talking about the internet as it exists today.
| k__ wrote:
| The internet that exists today is to a huge degree based on
| advertisement revenue. It think, a replacement for this alone
| could be a game changer.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Meta is an advertising company. Their products will not be
| ad free.
|
| Source: a friend working on such matters there.
| deltree7 wrote:
| Your friend doesn't have access to Zuck's thinking or any
| other thought leaders at Meta. So, your friend just
| because he works there doesn't have anything special,
| unless he himself thinks like OP (Ben)
| azinman2 wrote:
| You're making a lot of assumptions :)
| k__ wrote:
| I thought we're talking about the Metaverse?
| azinman2 wrote:
| I am. Currently the biggest commercial endeavor for it is
| Meta aka Facebook's.
| k__ wrote:
| I'd say its Bitcoin or Uniswap.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Why would we expect that to change?
| azinman2 wrote:
| Which primarily is not driven by tokens (outside of video
| games for psychological manipulation of money), but in fact
| real government issued currency.
| jayd16 wrote:
| It's already primarily is driven by digital currency in the
| form of credit. We're not sending greenbacks through the
| intertubes.
|
| Perhaps cryptocurrency will force some change in
| international commerce, but I can't help but feel
| regulations will simply catch up.
| k__ wrote:
| This is obviously true now.
|
| But besides being government issued, tokens and the
| currency you talk about are both "make believe".
|
| I mean, people valued stamps, paintings, and tulips rather
| high too.
|
| I don't know how things will go, but at least these tokens
| seem to get quite some gobal interest lately.
| twalla wrote:
| They're both "make believe" in the sense that they're
| abstractions to move value around - except if you want a
| road or a hospital built, you use government currency, if
| you want to not get thrown in jail, you pay your taxes in
| government currency, both of those examples seem pretty
| not-make-believe to me.
| thom wrote:
| It lacks imagination to think we've already discovered all
| the different ways to create shared spaces and inhabit them
| with today's internet and available media. I've no doubt
| there will one day be an iPhone moment for VR or AR, and
| therefore for 3D interfaces. But I don't believe it's this
| decade, however much money VCs throw at it. The 3D worlds bit
| of the metaverse just seems incredibly tedious to me, however
| flashy the demos. It all detracts from what could be
| genuinely interesting conversations about if and how we
| _actually_ want to weave the internet more tightly into our
| lives.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Do you think no one is having those conversations? I think
| many people are talking about the things you mention, but
| flashy 3d renders will stay very common in new media and
| blogs.
| siproprio wrote:
| Relying on Microsoft software for collaboration has created some
| of the worst engineering disasters and waste of resources I've
| ever seen.
|
| The company's motto seems to be that every customer is unique,
| and has different needs - meanwhile, all the places I've seen had
| very similar core problems that were amplified by relying on all
| the different Microsoft solutions used across their teams, and
| across organizations they had to collaborate with.
|
| Not only that, but colleagues were always unhappy because they
| were forced to use poorly designed inconsistent tools that are
| user unfriendly and encouraged mistakes and apathy.
| suby wrote:
| All of the discussion around the metaverse as if it's something
| we should take seriously has me baffled. It's an ill defined
| concept and the effort is being led by a company that hardly
| anyone trusts or even likes.
|
| As far as I can tell it's the internet but in VR with an avatar.
| Or in other words it's the internet but with extra steps in the
| way of obtaining the information or completing the transaction,
| not to mention the increased hardware costs (VR headsets are
| expensive) and bandwidth costs associated with this superfluous
| fluff.
|
| I just don't understand how they aren't being laughed out of the
| room. This is fantasy level stuff and it's going to be an
| absolutely massive failure.
| [deleted]
| distrill wrote:
| Headsets today are not that expensive and they're getting
| cheaper.
| ghaff wrote:
| And basically no one wants to wear them besides some hardcore
| games and other niches. Certainly not going to wear one for a
| business meeting.
| MikusR wrote:
| Basically no one has tried them.
| sho_hn wrote:
| This to me is one of the sticking points I've been
| wondering about: Are VR/HR headsets just inherently too
| uncomfortable for mass adoption, or will we be willing to
| put up with them? Surely this depends on a lot of
| societal/economic factors (i.e. a "you do it or don't eat"
| job market, say) and the evolution of the form factor
| (size/weight/quality/individual ergonomic options).
|
| Is it just a variant of "button-less on-screen keyboards?!
| we will never!" or is there something more fundamental?
|
| I'm curious about the state of the art of serious research
| on this, if anyone has some good links/references.
| drusepth wrote:
| >Surely this depends on a lot of societal/economic
| factors (i.e. a "you do it or don't eat" job market, say)
| and the evolution of the form factor
| (size/weight/quality/individual ergonomic options).
|
| I think the former is a way bigger factor than the
| latter, here. Even on the old first-gen HTC Vive, I was
| entirely comfortable "working" 8+ hour days wearing one
| (coding, painting, and sometimes gaming). They've also
| improved massively since then in weight, weight
| distribution, softness, and heat management.
|
| I'd say the biggest detractor is how they look (and some
| other smaller factors like not being able to feel "safe"
| cut off from your surroundings, but all major VR
| companies are working on that, too). However, how they
| look ends up not really mattering much if you're VRing
| from home, where no one can see you.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Really, you could code on a Vive? What resolution would
| your IDE be in? Did it bring any real benefits over
| coding on a flat monitor?
|
| Would you have a visual of your keyboard or were you just
| touch typing?
| ahartman00 wrote:
| This was a good blog post and discussion of someone
| working full time in VR.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041
| smallerfish wrote:
| Thanks! That's interesting.
| suby wrote:
| Everyone already has a phone or desktop computer. Hardly
| anyone has a VR headset. VR headsets with good enough
| resolution for comfortably reading text is still very
| expensive, but even if the cost was cheap it's competing
| against something that everyone already has.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > it's competing against something that everyone already
| has.
|
| thankfully (?) we have forced-obsolescence and improvements
| in tech so over time, as things improve, they may make
| different decisions.
|
| > Everyone already has a phone
|
| Also i doubt the VR/AR headset would compete with a phone.
| distrill wrote:
| $300 is a barrier to plenty of people but it's really not a
| sticking point for a lot of the target demographic.
| sho_hn wrote:
| From an employer POV, a hypothetical equivalent $300 VR
| headset would be cheaper than two 4K 27" screens. Cost
| could even incentivize adoption, really.
| checker wrote:
| It's certainly an interesting concept. I'm not an expert
| but from what I've come across, it's currently very
| expensive to match the resolution of a 27" 4K monitor
| that's 2 or 3 feet away from your eyes. This is because
| the headset would need a very high pixel density on the
| very small screens sitting a few inches from the user's
| eyes. I'm sure someone has done the calculation somewhere
| but I couldn't find it. This page says we're at 2,000
| pixels per eye but we need 4,000 to get "Immersive VR"
| (not sure if that will fit this use case)
| https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtual-reality-desktops-
| save-...
|
| So it might happen eventually. People are actually
| leveraging "Virtual Desktops" now, but accepting the
| inherent resolution issues.
| [deleted]
| jayd16 wrote:
| >VR headsets are expensive
|
| Quest2 is $299, so actually on the scale of a very cheap phone.
|
| Maybe some things are more tedious but some things are better.
| Ever more ubiquitous computing and contextual/spatial computing
| of AR is really interesting.
|
| You don't get it but others find AR/VR compelling and Microsoft
| and FB smell money. It's worth talking about why these large
| companies are spending the effort.
| vkou wrote:
| > Quest2 is $299, so actually on the scale of a very cheap
| phone.
|
| The Quest2 is $299, but how much is a GPU good enough to
| deliver a better than a regular desktop/laptop/smartphone
| user experience these days?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > deliver a better than a regular desktop/laptop/smartphone
| user experience these days
|
| the quest delivers an experience you can't really get with
| those devices, and it does it with just that hardware. The
| GPU inside it does what it needs to do (mostly).
|
| Also, i bet an apple vr headset with apple silicon GPU
| would kick ass
| jayd16 wrote:
| Quest2 is standalone and supports things like RecRoom and
| such. No PC required.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > You don't get it but others find AR/VR compelling
|
| One thing I rarely see mentioned or discussed is the
| "longevity" of VR interest amongst users. As a (former? I'm
| not sure yet) VR enthusiast and adopter on the high end of
| things I noticed that the novelty wore off really quickly,
| after ~1 year of owning my Index my usage went from somewhat
| regularly to barely anymore and for most titles with VR
| support I prefer playing them the regular way and the VR-
| first titles can't get me to set it up, or were "onetime"
| experiences (like HL Alyx, which is one of maybe ~3 VR games
| that really felt enriched and improved by the VR experience,
| in hindsight).
|
| From friends and colleagues of mine I hear similar things, VR
| headsets collecting dust already.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| That's been the story of VR since the 90's.
|
| If you view VR as a spectrum between ViewMaster 3-D and a
| holodeck, we're very much still on the ViewMaster 3-D end
| of things.
| bryans wrote:
| We're really just a couple steps past the Virtual Boy,
| and that was 25 years ago.
| allturtles wrote:
| Carmack said basically the same thing in his Connect 2021
| keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo
|
| "There are no lapsed mobile users, essentially... but there
| are, right now, a whole lot of people that are lapsed VR
| users...."
| fartcannon wrote:
| Quest 2 is 299, plus the unknowable cost of supporting
| Facebooks Orwellian distopia.
| Zababa wrote:
| > Quest2 is $299, so actually on the scale of a very cheap
| phone.
|
| $299 is not a "very cheap" phone.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Yeah, a $10 phone is 'very cheap'. A $300 phone is at least
| lower midrange.
| entropie wrote:
| I agree. A phone is also quite a staple for a long time
| now. Smartphones were so successful because they are
| basically better phones.
|
| A VR headset is something normal people are just not used
| to. I guess that will be that way for quite a bit time.
| evilos wrote:
| It's a matter of perspective. Surprisingly poor people will
| get on cell plans with $1500 iphones.
| Spivak wrote:
| Under $300 is the "budget" category of new phones.
| ziddoap wrote:
| What companies arbitrarily categorize as "budget" doesn't
| really represent or communicate anything.
| Spivak wrote:
| My results if I Google "budget phones"
|
| * Toms: Under $400
|
| * Verge Under $500
|
| * TechRadar: Under $500 with the lowest category Under
| $200
|
| * CNET: Under $500
|
| * AndroidAuthority: Under $500
|
| * Wired: Under $500
|
| Like you can personally decide that a budget phone should
| be under $200 or something but real life people looking
| to buy "cheap" phones are looking to pay ~<$500 for it.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I think for a lot of people FB is just part of the landscape,
| like paved roads or baseball caps. Things are the way they are
| and people don't ask questions. People use FB for the network
| effect, and because it's the status quo, not because it's
| technologically amazing or morally correct. Most people just
| don't think about it.
|
| They've got a ton of money and billions of people more or less
| locked into their ecosystem. They're not being laughed out of
| the room because they've got a lot of what is considered a
| valuable resource today -- money and eyeballs / attention. In
| that way, they're a terrifying contender that will most likely
| win, even if them "winning" means creating a horrific reality
| for others.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I saw a local Baptist church sign that said "Streaming
| Sat/Sun at Facebook.com/..."
|
| Never in my wildest 90s imagination would I have imagined any
| part of that coming to pass.
|
| PS: And as to the value of eyeballs & attention, why does
| everyone think Chrome is the most used web browser now? Don't
| laugh at Facebook's ability to push things.
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| My very catholic mother has always been very picky about
| going to mass with Priests she enjoys.
|
| She enjoyed getting her pick via streaming during the
| lockdowns. Could attend mass from many different churches
| virtually.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I don't think they will most likely win just because they
| have eyeballs and attention. It's necessary but not
| sufficient. Take Marketplaces for example. It worked because
| facebook had the eyeballs and attention to seed the buyer and
| seller side of the marketplace. But it was also just a way
| better experience. I could post my used iphone in 30 seconds
| vs. 5 mins at my computer on craigslist. The thing with
| metaverse is that the use case hasn't even been proven yet.
| We knew people bought/sold used stuff on craigslist. And we
| know facebook's implementation was better. We don't know
| people want the metaverse, and we don't know whether
| facebooks implementation will be better. However, if both are
| true, they have the eyeballs and attention to grow and
| succeed with it.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| The only people I see excited for "web3" (which I believe has
| become a blanket term for the metaverse, NFTs, and other crypto
| schemes) are those carving out real estate there for themselves
| in order to become future landlords.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| If you're excited about web3, it's to be expected you'd be
| looking for ways jump on the opportunities you believe it
| presents.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| If you're a grifter, you're very much excited by
| opportunities for grift.
| Andrex wrote:
| Web 3.0 was already getting old ten years ago, I could have
| sworn we were on Web 4.0 or 5.0 by now...
| SllX wrote:
| I've been hearing Web 3 everywhere too. To be fair Web 3.0
| never caught on and this is Web 3, not Web three point oh.
| Andrex wrote:
| Ah, so the "new hotness" is just a Web 3.x point-release.
| Gotcha. :P
| SllX wrote:
| Yep. At some point, maybe after the 4.x or 5.x releases,
| someone will get fed up with point releases and push for
| an aggressive release schedule on new Webs and
| incrementing the whole version number each time.
|
| I hope to be present at that meeting so I can deliver a
| swift Service Pack to his face.
| HappySweeney wrote:
| At the very least, Facebook is/will be throwing a lot of money
| at the development of the metaverse, and people naturally want
| to be on the other side of those transactions. Also, many
| believe Zuck is some super genius and whatever he devotes the
| majority of his time to will be worth several billion dollars
| in short order.
| an9n wrote:
| > it's going to be an absolutely massive failure.
|
| And if it's not, and like a smartphone it becomes a requirement
| for life in the modern world, this is the step where I say nope
| and go full Ted innawoods for good.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Can we share a cabin?
| jonas21 wrote:
| All of the discussion around the internet as if it's something
| we should take seriously has me baffled. It's an ill defined
| concept and the effort is being led by a government department
| that hardly anyone trusts or even likes.
|
| As far as I can tell it's the telephone but on a screen with a
| typewriter. Or in other words it's the telephone but with extra
| steps in the way of obtaining the information or completing the
| transaction, not to mention the increased hardware costs
| (screens are expensive) and wiring costs associated with this
| superfluous fluff.
|
| I just don't understand how they aren't being laughed out of
| the room. This is fantasy level stuff and it's going to be an
| absolutely massive failure.
|
| - People of the 80's
| domador wrote:
| "The eminent, on the other hand, are almost forced to work on a
| large scale. Instead of garden sheds they must design huge art
| museums. One reason they work on big things is that they can:
| like our hypothetical novelist, they're flattered by such
| opportunities. They also know that big projects will by their
| sheer bulk impress the audience. A garden shed, however lovely,
| would be easy to ignore; a few might even snicker at it. You
| can't snicker at a giant museum, no matter how much you dislike
| it. And finally, there are all those people the eminent have
| working for them; they have to choose projects that can keep
| them all busy." -- Paul Graham, "The Power of the Marginal"
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > I just don't understand how they aren't being laughed out of
| the room. This is fantasy level stuff and it's going to be an
| absolutely massive failure
|
| I agree with your sentiment _but_ there are many utterly
| ridiculous ideas that people take seriously, think NFTs for
| instance. From that perspective, the metaverse isn 't that
| crazy. And something could get out of it even though it's not
| the original vision that you describe.
|
| And there are seemingly unreasonable ideas that become huge
| success. I didn't foresee the smartphone revolution (i thought
| we couldn't get a proper UI from a small device). I also
| thought youtube would be a failure.
|
| That being said, I wouldn't bet one penny on the metaverse.
| xook wrote:
| On one hand, I am of the laughing crowd. On the other, I have
| to wonder if there is something I (we?) are missing if these
| highly paid marketers and engineers are going after it.
|
| Surely it's not so shortsighted as to be about a few (<10)
| percent in investments? There has to be a longer term plan if
| not that. Maybe I am wrong.
|
| At the end of the day, I'm standing back, wondering which fire
| will blow out first.
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| Engineers and marketers are all steered into that direction
| by C-level visionaries who bet on a very high-risk / high-
| reward idea. This idea dials up all kinds of biases in
| people.
|
| For example, the article which started this thread criticizes
| Apple for moving into AR. This is despite AR being very
| feasible next step in having actual working tech applicable
| in real-life situations. Feasible and down to earth idea is
| being compared to a distant wild guess which has a high risk
| of never happening, yet somehow it loses this comparison.
|
| There is a certain irony people call this Web 3.0 all over
| again. Web 3.0 was originally envisioned by influencers as
| heavily relying on semantic web and anthologies[1]. Despite
| all the visions, 14 years ago few of these things actually
| happened.
|
| Could it be that people are just very bad at predicting the
| future? Could it be that we mis-invest into wild visions
| based on their popularity, instead of solving boring down to
| earth problems?
|
| "Ah shit, here we go again."
|
| [1]
| http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/10/web-30-semantic-
| we...
| deltree7 wrote:
| Yep, some people laugh at new ideas. They are also the same set
| of people who cry about Rich-getting-richer when they had the
| same set of opportunities as other new millionaires to invest
| in these laughable ideas.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > new ideas
|
| Your post makes it sound like many new ideas succeed. This is
| certainly not the case, "new ideas" happen all the time,
| everywhere, spawned by both small and large companies and
| individuals. Most of them fail, and everyone wants to be "the
| new internet".
|
| > they had the same set of opportunities as other new
| millionaires
|
| This is not true for the majority of cases. If you take a
| look at millionaires and billionaires and their parents, most
| of them already started at what many would consider
| rich/wealthy (or very close to it). But the exceptions
| obviously make for better stories and headlines.
| meatverse wrote:
| The Meatverse is where the action is. It is estimated that by
| 2050, at least half of the world's population will be made of
| meat (mostly). Not only that - this has been true for as long
| as our species has been around.
|
| The Meatverse is high-bandwidth, high-definition, and high-
| protein. The Meatverse is the future.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| When I was a child I was in an "Odyssey of the Mind" group and
| in one competition we had to solve some problem and the plan my
| team came up with had a few steps, one of which was "Build a
| robot". We were all children and none of us had even the
| slightest idea of how to build a robot or any relevant
| technical experience or ability. But somehow, we never realized
| this deficit and came up with our plan and tried to execute it.
|
| It wasn't until we had destructively disassembled a power tool
| that one of us had access to, on the theory that we could use
| whatever motor was inside of that tool to drive our robot, that
| we realized we had no idea what we were doing nor any
| conception of how to build a robot. I had a feeling of
| amazement that sticks with me today that we were able to
| articulate our plan to solve the problem, which depended on our
| robot helping us with some sub-task, but were completely
| unaware of the fact that the robot was far beyond our ability
| to construct. Our plan was like something that might have
| worked in a cartoon but not in reality.
|
| That feeling comes back to me as a kind of "Build a robot"
| moment in cases like this. "In our virtual reality metaverse
| people will be able to attend concerts with one another and
| save the tickets as NFTs!" Okay, but what you have is a screen
| that you can strap to your face and is nothing like a virtual
| reality metaverse and you have no idea how to get there.
|
| Another way of thinking about it is taking the hardest part of
| the problem and hand waving it away to solve the easier parts
| and then forgetting that there is a big blank spot in your
| plan. It's easy and fun to think about all the stuff you can do
| in a compelling virtual reality metaverse, but you don't have
| one and aren't likely to get one any time too soon.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > In our virtual reality metaverse people will be able to
| attend concerts with one another and save the tickets as
| NFTs!
|
| I completely agree that this sort of marketing of metaverse
| entirely misses the reality of tech we have and expectations.
| I think its also a great analogy, and i had a similar
| experience when i myself did Odyssey of the mind :)
|
| Based on the article, however, it seems clear that we could
| be around the corner from real use-cases for this tech that
| are actually an improved experience. I think VR tech could
| def improve "mise en place" tech use, where a user is focused
| on accomplishing one goal at a set time and place using tech.
| This could even be as vague as "do my remote job".
| shuntress wrote:
| I think we are actually much closer to being able to "build
| the robot" than you seem to think.
|
| The "Metaverse" is not necessarily anything more magical than
| HTTP serving 3d models rendered on the screens strapped to
| our faces (rather than 2d documents rendered on the screens
| strapped to our desk)
|
| I think the bigger questions is, will people driving this
| shift try to keep it a part of the decentralized Internet or
| will they try to put up walls around their gardens?
| msbarnett wrote:
| > The "Metaverse" is not necessarily anything more magical
| than HTTP serving 3d models rendered on the screens
| strapped to our faces (rather than 2d documents rendered on
| the screens strapped to our desk)
|
| But that's just it, isn't it? GP said:
|
| > > That feeling comes back to me as a kind of "Build a
| robot" moment in cases like this. "In our virtual reality
| metaverse people will be able to attend concerts with one
| another and save the tickets as NFTs!" Okay, but what you
| have is a screen that you can strap to your face and is
| nothing like a virtual reality metaverse and you have no
| idea how to get there.
|
| Why would most people _want_ "HTTP serving 3d models to a
| screen strapped on their face" to take the place of
| "attending concerts with one another"?
|
| Without significant, ground-breaking advancements in
| freedom of movement/input and feedback/presence beyond the
| screen & headphones strapped to their face and maybe some
| shitty rumble from a playstation controller, this isn't
| "attending a concert with one another" in any meaningful
| sense, this is just "watch a concert from your couch while
| talking to your friend over discord", except with a more
| expensive screen fewer people own or seem inclined to buy,
| and clumsier input.
| Uehreka wrote:
| I feel like a lot of people who bring up "the concert use
| case" really need to think about it for more than two
| seconds.
|
| Imagine jumping up and down headbanging to your favorite
| 2000's pop-punk song, blasted off tequila and red bull,
| except you're in your living room and wearing an
| expensive but loosely-fitting headset that obstructs your
| vision. This idea is gonna need a second draft.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I think that's why Facebook wants to own it so hard they
| made it the parent brand and are trying to steal what the
| word "metaverse" even means so that people expect to always
| mean Facebook's ideal of a walled garden they control.
| Andrex wrote:
| The metaverse concept might make sense with perfect AR.
|
| Things like QR codes on posters being highlighted, "hologram"
| store mascots that everyone walking by can see with AR glasses,
| answering an "AR" phone call while still being able to see
| around you (and not having to hold your phone up to your face
| as in video calling - early versions of this could use iOS
| Memoji before consumer face-scanning tech gets good), virtual
| computer screens to do programming or other work *anywhere*
| without monitors (while still being able to respond to external
| stimuli), etc. Maybe you could even portray yourself as a
| custom avatar (instead of your actual body) to those with AR
| glasses.
|
| IMO an early prototype of the metaverse is already here:
| Ingress/Pokemon Go. These games don't use fantasy-land maps,
| they use the Earth and real-life locations. Data and user-
| interactions are layered on top of that.
|
| On the other hand, any kind of VR metaverse will likely be a
| poor-man's Second Life, just prettier and with far more
| restrictions. I'm sure there's a market for that, but it's not
| really civilization-defining.
| wffurr wrote:
| Or you know Google Maps, Yelp, etc. Any kind of local search
| or data.
|
| But hardware has to come first. None of this is possible
| while we're still in the "magic window" step having to look
| through our phone screens.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Totally agree.
|
| To add: it's an orchestrated effort to distract people from
| realities of the world (including FB's own troubles).
|
| Nothing in this metanonsense helps people to be more productive
| in solving real world problems.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > Nothing in this metanonsense helps people to be more
| productive in solving real world problems.
|
| Unless you read the shared article where the author describes
| using this tech successfully to be more productive at work.
| jobigoud wrote:
| > distract people from realities of the world
|
| And that's exactly what people want. Escape. Just like with
| games, movies, sports, arts, etc.
| mavhc wrote:
| It's multiple things, it's cross platform 3d information, using
| your avatar from one platform in another etc.
|
| It's future AR and VR tech.
|
| It's placing things in the real world.
|
| But mostly it's a land grab to be the platform everyone else
| wants to integrate with, based on the assumption that AR
| glasses will exist in the future.
|
| Niantic's Lightship SDK is another attempt, be the platform
| everyone else builds their AR stuff on.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >and the effort is being led by a company that hardly anyone
| trusts or even likes.
|
| This isn't true at all, Instagram and WhatsApp are hugely
| popular even with people who are anti-Facebook.
|
| The rebrand makes a lot more sense when you realize just how
| diverse their product offering is and many people very vocally
| against FB still use IG and WhatsApp.
| artfulhippo wrote:
| I think there's a big gender and culture gap in the VR/AR debate.
|
| People who place significant value in their physical appearance
| (eg most young women) are not in a rush to replace their bodies
| with an avatar. And we know that men go where the young women
| are....
|
| Now, can Facebook or Microsoft succeed by serving the fantasies
| of nerds like us who read sci-fi as a kid? Of course. But Apple
| is still in pole position given that they are targeting the mass
| consumer market, not a niche.
| uyt wrote:
| There's actually a current trend called "vtubing" where
| streamers use a virtual avatar, typically in anime style.
| Afaict, it's entirely dominated by women streamers (which is
| the opposite of the regular streaming, where the top earning
| streamers are all men). See https://playboard.co/en/youtube-
| ranking/most-superchatted-al...
| artfulhippo wrote:
| Interesting, and news to me, thanks. Is this a business for
| these streamers, a way to make money from male fans? Or are
| girls using an anime avatar just to hang out with their
| friends?
| kipchak wrote:
| It's fairly big business, at least for the larger agencies
| like hololive. It's somewhere in between streamers and
| Idols. There's character goods and YouTube ad revenue but I
| think most of their income is through Twitch subscriptions
| and the like.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >Or are girls using an anime avatar just to hang out with
| their friends?
|
| VRChat is the place for that.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _People who place significant value in their physical
| appearance (eg most young women) are not in a rush to replace
| their bodies with an avatar._
|
| This seems backwards. Wouldn't being image conscious make you
| _more_ likely to want to replace your real-life self with a
| perfectly shaped avatar?
| artfulhippo wrote:
| A "perfectly shaped avatar" could be used by a young woman,
| or by an old man. So, in a way it's leveling. But that's also
| what makes it worse for people who are physically attractive.
|
| And what's more, having a "perfectly shaped avatar" means
| that the avatar designer made a beautiful design. But what
| many people want is to feel beautiful.
|
| Personally, I'm a rather fashion conscious male, and I have
| no interest in buying virtual clothes because I like to wear
| nice clothes, not just be seen in them.
|
| It's the difference between experiencing something and having
| a reputation for it.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| So much talk about VR. In the end of the day the question is how
| good the tech can be in the next decade. I don't question the
| value that VR can bring to enterprise and consumer, but these
| things usually don't succeed until the tech is really good. I'm
| happy a company like Meta is going all in on it.
| rytcio wrote:
| Who wants to make a new extension to replace the word Metaverse?
|
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-plus...
| astlouis44 wrote:
| The Immersive Web.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| "This makes not an epsilon of (meta)sense, but I am paid to try
| to find logic and determinism in the highly idiosyncratic and
| inbred Siliconia and that's what I am about to do"
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| This has been said before, I'm sure, but the problem with "The
| Metaverse" is that it's trying to be controlled; to be captured
| and caged, by a select number of corporate/quasi governmental
| agencies who sell themselves as "an open platform, welcome to
| all".
|
| If "The Metaverse" truly is to take off, it needs to be an open
| standard, like HTTPS or websockets, that any virtual device can
| connect to and let anyone with the compute power to create their
| own "virtual world". And, just like the internet, it will be
| pretty basic at the start, and there will be disgusting sites
| because there will be no gatekeepers.
| simonh wrote:
| As I understand it, that's exactly the plan. The metaverse will
| be an open, standards based network of VR environments, each
| analogous to a web site. Each could be based on different
| products, in the way that a web site can run on apache or
| nginx. The key to it will be a public set of standards for
| avatars, identity management, authentication and persistent
| assets which is potentially where a blockchain comes in as a
| public ledger for shared information. Imagine being in
| Minecraft, then walking your avatar through a portal that takes
| you into Roblox. Or more likely just hitting a button and being
| there.
|
| This is exactly what Zuck is working on, plus of course a
| proprietary VR stack and suite of applications for his own
| implementation. there are other firms working on pieces of this
| too though and they are talking to each other. Here's another
| voice on this, independent of FB/Meta:
|
| https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/11/02/herman-na...
|
| I'm a skeptic that it will be as big as they reckon, we're
| physical beings living in a real world and I think that will
| always be prime reality. Also mobile isn't going away, I'm
| still going to have my phone on me all the time, not so much a
| VR head set, but they do seem to have thought all of this
| through.
| XMPPwocky wrote:
| "Imagine being in Minecraft, then walking your avatar through
| a portal that takes you into Roblox. Or more likely just
| hitting a button and being there."
|
| Microsoft has actually been experimenting with this
| technology for a while - their implementation is quite
| sophisticated, and it's shipping in Windows now. You can
| actually try it out today: open Minecraft, then press the
| World Switcher hotkey combination (press the Tab key while
| holding Alt), press the Windows key, type "Roblox", and press
| Enter. If done correctly, your avatar will now be in Roblox!
|
| It's pretty groundbreaking stuff, to be honest. Under the
| hood, the old universe is dynamically unloaded (possibly
| swapped out to disk) while the new one loads in. And, even
| better, if you press the World Switcher hotkeys again, you'll
| be right back in Minecraft - exactly where you left off.
|
| ...
|
| Of course, I'm sure you meant that you'd somehow share
| information between Minecraft and Roblox- I'm sure you'd
| agree that _arbitrary_ in-game items are unlikely to be
| transferable, but at least avatar appearance, surely? Well,
| hmmm, that 'd make both games look worse, with awful art-
| style clash. Well, I guess you could store a few parameters
| and transfer _those_ , and let each game interpret them to
| render an avatar that fits in the game's style?
|
| ... Ah, I've just made Miis again.
|
| Okay, well, hm, if transferring avatar appearance isn't
| especially interesting, what about stuff that doesn't
| directly correlate to anything in-game? For example, the
| social graph, friends list, communications. Imagine being
| able to see what worlds your friends are in, talk to them
| while in your current one, and join their worlds with just a
| cli-
|
| ... oh, that's just Steam and Discord.
|
| So... what's new, here?
| simonh wrote:
| Right, Miis and Steam chat, but in VR and shared between
| services. I'm the wrong person to boost this stuff, I think
| it will work but I don't think it's the next big thing.
|
| What you are describing is custom built individual partial
| integrations, many of which aren't even VR. They're the
| equivalent of Gopher while the Metaverse is the equivalent
| of HTTP web sites.
|
| Right now you can't seamlessly transition your digital
| presence across thousands of virtual worlds and service,
| with a variety of independent services having integration
| points and presences in each other's virtual worlds and
| interoperating with a variety of VR equipment. That's what
| they're building.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| My hesitation about this is that he also said that Oculus was
| going to operate independent inside of Facebook:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/zuckerberg-why-facebook-
| boug...
|
| That lasted a few years and then was tossed away. It looks
| like, after a fairly huge backlash and a lot of technical
| issues, they've finally decoupled the Facebook account
| requirement.
| kurthr wrote:
| Zuck wants to know where your eyes are pointed, in what
| order, and for how long. Whether he is showing you "user
| content" (user generated for free) or "sponsored content"
| (customer generated for free), they will build an adaptive
| attention model for you. Then they will show you what is most
| distracting/engaging. You have no control over where your
| eyes look. It is a gold standard in advertising. That
| attention model is likely worth more than even an extremely
| high end VR/AR/MR/XR setup.
|
| Guess what high resolution low latency binocular video
| requires, eye tracking for foveal rendering. You can do the
| calculations for 2x120Hzx(100deg)^2x(60pix/deg)^2 and
| multiple gaming GPUs can't keep up, transport HDMI/DP can't
| keep up, and display (MIPI/lpDP) can't keep up. Foveal
| rendering allows ~10x reduction in bandwidth, which makes it
| possible on mobile/wireless.
|
| "Sorry, honey, for all the billy goats in high heels... it
| was just a phase in college"
| babyshake wrote:
| It seems to be against the fiduciary duty of Meta the company
| to encourage a truly open environment where it would be easy
| to escape their advertising and other modes of generating
| revenue. As usual, the corporation says one thing while
| intending to essentially do the opposite.
| simonh wrote:
| It's not against facebook's fiduciary duty to allow you to
| post links to other sites in facebook, so I don't see why
| this would be different.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > the fiduciary duty of Meta the company
|
| This argument for public comapanies needs to be de-bunked.
| This isn't a real thing, "fiduciary duty" means don't burn
| money and don't fraud your investors not don't do a
| slightly-less-shortterm business decision.
|
| Also zuck owns a majority, so even if it was a real thing,
| if he approves, no other shareholder's opinion on duty
| matters.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > The metaverse will be an open, standards based network of
| VR environments, each analogous to a web site.
|
| I think an important enabler of websites is the click-to-
| download nature of web surfing. You download the HTML site at
| read-time without worrying about installs. This makes it a
| lot easier to jump around.
| bagels wrote:
| Facebook, TikTok, Google aren't open standards, and they "took
| off". They use https just like the metaverse will.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Standards are not the issue. Content is. There is no metaverse;
| just a lot of empty rooms and walled gardens with not a lot of
| compelling stuff to do in them. All the content is where the
| people and the audience with money are, which is the walled
| gardens provided by Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Google, etc. Then
| there are various social platforms. News, games, etc. All
| vaguely connected and accessible via this thing called "the
| internet" which despite the fact that is half a century old at
| this point is still a surprisingly loosely defined something.
| Creating more standards just adds more empty rooms. It's the
| content problem that needs to be solved.
|
| There's this notion that "the metaverse" is going to require
| special hardware, special software, etc. Of course many of us
| have been playing 3D games on 2D screens just fine for the last
| few decades. Adding goggles to the mix makes some of those
| games a bit more immersive of course but mostly they work fine
| without the goggles as well. It's not clear to me that the
| metaverse actually requires new hardware.
|
| Which raises the question why we don't have it (whatever it is,
| which is a relevant thing that people seem to be asking). A lot
| of those games are multiplayer and basically involve people
| socializing for large amounts of time. I never really engaged
| with world of warcraft but I know multiple people that spend
| enormous amounts of time on that and other games. Is that "the
| metaverse"? Maybe. It's definitely an escape from reality for
| some. Is doing the same with some VR goggles going to be
| massively different? Some people probably already do that.
|
| If you stop focusing on hardware and formfactor and just ask
| the question if having the same stuff that we have today (aka.
| the Internet), but with AR/VR goggles is actually worth having,
| the answer is probably going to be no. That's the problem.
| Either we have the meta verse already and it's a bit
| underwhelming or we don't really have it just yet because it
| hasn't actually been invented yet.
|
| Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is 30 years old now and actually
| predates much of what we now are used to. His recent books are
| also quite nice and features some updated musings on what the
| internet used to be and could become. E.g. "Fall, or Dodge in
| Hell", published three years ago or so, features blockchains,
| ar goggles, post truth society, people using bots to spread
| misinformation and drive political (and other) agendas, and a
| few other things. It paints a pretty dystopian near future (or
| even present day). But no Metaverse. A nice observation in that
| book is that "the internet" stopped being a special thing when
| multiple generations had grown up with it and mostly a term
| used by older generations that actually still remembered a
| world without it. That would be us.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| This x 1000.
| zachmx wrote:
| This is going to be an unpopular opinion here on HackerNews,
| but I think that potential protocol is Ethereum. It will be the
| tool that enables all sorts of Metaverse type things to exist
| (via NFTs), but I don't think that's where it stops. The
| metaverse and the real world will eventually be one in the same
| and are going to become interlinked. In game items, Car titles,
| house deeds, and any sort of asset that requires proof of
| ownership are all going to be part of a future
| society/metaverse.
|
| All fungible as well as Non-Fungible tokens will represent the
| value that the users bring to the platforms/systems and reward
| us for participating.
|
| For example, imagine playing a video game where all in game
| items are built on the NFT standard. A super rare item in game
| might end up having some sort of real value that a user can
| then later extract for time spent in game. They could either
| sell the item via a decentralized market, or leverage that item
| and take a loan out on it by using it as collateral. And why
| shouldn't they be allowed to do that? If a user pours hundreds
| of hours into an online game, they are generating value for
| that game network by being someone that other users can play
| with.
| dreyfan wrote:
| > house deeds
|
| (HN, June 5th 2028): "Ask HN: I was phished in Meta Horizons
| and they stole my house deed NFT. They've already moved in,
| my wife is furious. How can I get my house back?"
| zachmx wrote:
| I find this to be a null argument with the potential future
| development of smart contract wallets that help secure hot
| and cold assets and require multiple users to sign off on a
| transaction for cold assets. You can delegate sign off
| authority for transactions to multiple other wallets of
| users that you trust in the real world. That way there are
| multiple tiers of asset transfer authentication.
|
| For example I wouldn't be able to transfer my house deed
| NFT without first getting a relative to sign off on the
| transaction via their wallet as well as maybe my best
| friend. The beauty of a smart contract wallet is that there
| can be multiple if/then statements that determine when cold
| assets are allowed to move, all of which are up to the
| discretion and preference of the end user.
|
| An alternative solution is altering how we manage assets in
| general including the suggested Harberger tax from the Book
| Radical Markets. But I feel that's a deeper dive into more
| theoretical territory.
| setpatchaddress wrote:
| What happens if your relative or friend is incapacitated
| in some way?
| zachmx wrote:
| You have if/then statements that act as a clause allowing
| you to bypass that system for that specific person. Since
| all identity will be intrinsically built into the system,
| you can hypothetically initiate this bypass mechanism
| which would require multiple associated wallets to
| confirm that that particular wallets owner has become
| incapacitated and can't fu-fill their duty as an
| authenticator to your wallet.
|
| I don't have any specifics on what that type of mechanism
| would look like (I'm just spitballing), but it's a
| something that definitely is interesting to think about.
| Maybe that mechanism randomly selects wallets that have
| no known correlation to your own and ask those
| individuals to confirm that the specified person is
| incapacitated. Since those people wouldn't have any stake
| in your transaction (allowing it to go through or
| preventing it from going through), they would be
| incentivized to be truthful.
|
| Edit: to add to this last thought, maybe the wallet
| requesting the incapacitation confirmation is abstracted
| from the users confirming the incapacitation. The wallet
| essentially probes other active wallets and requests them
| to confirm that person is incapacitated without revealing
| who is requesting the information. this could help
| prevent collusion
| mehlmao wrote:
| Why would anyone want to play a game like that though? That
| sounds significantly less fun than playing a game where
| everyone is on an even playing ground. Also, unless the game
| itself is open source and any forks / successors honor the
| same chain, how is that any better than just storing who owns
| what in a SQL database?
| jmathai wrote:
| NTFs provide an elegant way to deal with this that an SQL
| database can't.
|
| 1) The ability to sell/trade items you've purchased is
| valuable and I don't believe is universally supported. NFTs
| make this trivial and supported on a number of marketplaces
| (like OpenSea) in a standard way.
|
| 2) Game makers could build resale revenue into the smart
| contracts of NFTs they sell through their games.
|
| This is just one example where it's a win-win and
| improvement over what exists today.
| Tenoke wrote:
| People already play a lot of games where items are bought
| and sold for real money (not just gacha but e.g MMOs,
| Diablo etc.) so you can look through gaming forums to find
| what drives them.
|
| >Also, unless the game itself is open source and any forks
| / successors honor the same chain, how is that any better
| than just storing who owns what in a SQL database?
|
| I also don't see that many benefits to be sure it's worth
| it but there are some in theory. One people mention is that
| games can easily share items - e.g. owners of a cool sword
| NFT for one game can use it in another or cryptopunks can
| have cryptopunk skins etc. Trading would be more
| streamlined.I guess another potential benefit is you can
| also have them listed forever like Xbox achievments that
| can be looked at by others even if after the game is no
| longer active.
| zachmx wrote:
| > Also, unless the game itself is open source and any forks
| / successors honor the same chain, how is that any better
| than just storing who owns what in a SQL database?
|
| I think future game development in the metaverse actually
| will be mainly open source and community driven. Imagine if
| you will a DAO that players of the universe can interact
| with and basically vote on new features that will be added
| to the game world. Rather than waiting for a centralized
| developer to patch and update the game they want, players
| will pool assets together in a sort of tax that helps fund
| future game development. Pair that with a Retroactive
| funding and other cooperative mechanisms and you will be
| providing incentives for player themselves to build out the
| game that they want to see.
|
| It would almost be like building a town in the real world,
| but this is in the digital world.
| smoldesu wrote:
| >I think future game development in the metaverse
| actually will be mainly open source and community driven.
|
| Nope. The cost of generating these assets are insane, and
| assuming that some nebulous, non-existent community will
| build Rome for you is a recipe for disaster. We made the
| same gambit ~2010, and all we got was a lousy Github
| acquisition by Microsoft. The reality is that our
| socioeconomic disparities will be _exacerbated_ in a
| digital world, particularly if the majority of content is
| owned and operated by private interests. We can _hope_
| that a vibrant open source community comes out the other
| side, but you can 't build a metaverse on empty promises
| and vaporware.
| zachmx wrote:
| > The reality is that our socioeconomic disparities will
| be exacerbated in a digital world, particularly if the
| majority of content is owned
|
| I definitely agree with this sentiment, but if it's not
| centrally owned by a government or a corporation what are
| our other options? We sit around and moan about how
| centralized entities are ruining the world and how we
| don't have alternate ways of coordinating? Ethereum and
| projects like it are the only ones actually experimenting
| with changing up the formula and seeing if you can
| combine typically contradictory ideologies.
|
| In my opinon, if we can't find a way to decentrally
| coordinate we are doomed as a race and will eventually
| destroy ourselves via capitalistic/corporate greed or by
| the tyranny of a government.
| technotony wrote:
| High Fidelity tried to build this and failed. I think one of
| the issues they had was that the whole hosting thing was pretty
| tricky and created barriers to having worlds up all the time,
| this meant there were never as many places to explore as other
| more closed systems like VRChat. I'm not totally sure how you
| solve for that, maybe they should have hosted some sites
| themselves?
| boardwaalk wrote:
| There are plenty of places that already solve this for game
| server hosting. You pay, they pull up a VPS on their
| preferred provider with the game server installed and
| running, and you get a dashboard to control it.
|
| Having that sort of layman-can-do-it feature seems pretty
| vital.
| deelowe wrote:
| The problem with the metaverse is that people don't actually
| want to live a virtual life in a virtual world for significant
| periods of time. I honestly think the only people who are
| interested by this are grifters.
| JohnPrine wrote:
| Sooo many people already live a virtual life in a virtual
| world by using social media, netflix, youtube, etc for hours
| and hours every day. Imagine a VR platform where you could
| have a virtual living room and hang out with your friends
| while doing those same activities. Imagine the headset is so
| light as to be hardly noticeable and the resolution is
| indistinguishable from reality. You don't think people would
| want to use that?
| xxpor wrote:
| This has been what every techno-optimist has said about every
| technology since the dawn of the commercial internet, and it's
| always been wrong. There will be open standards up to the layer
| the user actually interacts with, and that final layer will be
| proprietary. It's basic aggregation theory (to continue the Ben
| Thompson point). There's too much money to be made, and
| modularized systems are too complicated for most people.
|
| Why did XMPP fail? Why is Discord more popular than Matrix? Why
| does Twitter still stomp Mastodon? Etc.
| zaik wrote:
| XMPP failed only in the sense that Facebook and Google
| decided to stop participating in the federation. Other than
| that it's still alive and a good way to communicate.
| oneepic wrote:
| What do money and modularization have to do with Twitter
| stomping Mastodon? IMO it would happen because Mastodon
| mostly looks like the same product to most people, just more
| complicated and it's not as easy to find and follow
| interesting people. My anecdata is that I joined out of
| curiosity and quit the same day, because it just looked like
| the same sarcasm and shitposters that made me drift away from
| Twitter.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| Hmm. The closest analogue to metaverse is probably the
| internet. And the way that played out is probably the most
| notable counterexample to your claim. It's not clear to me
| that it's a foregone conclusion how this will play out.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Well its true the internet's most valuable open layers are
| TCP/IP and worked up to the user interaction layer (HTML5),
| but then shifted to proprietary/locked experiences. I think
| the reason is the answer to this simple question: What
| creates a better experience for an individual user? more
| money invested into the platform? or agreement of a
| protocol? It's money. And thats a deleware c corp. Until
| incremental investment leads to only infinitesimal
| experience change, we will be operating in this mode.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I think a better example is the app stores.
|
| HTTP + HTML was "pre commercial" or commercial-dawn. Adding
| JS was a pro-commerical act, and it enabled richer
| experiences.
|
| We later got mobile-apps, which are often website-adjacent
| in function and UI. They're less common standards in how
| they're built (proprietary device api's, competing
| languages across brands, etc). We still have the ability to
| deep-link across apps, but its much less common than on
| web, and its not as easy to "extract" a deep link for
| sharing, its basically the developers choise.
|
| I predict the commercial metaverse will be the same, we'll
| need deep-linking, and we'll get it. We need some
| standardized file formats (for things like 3d models,
| avatar clothes maybe), but mostly it'll be siloed
| experiences that are made for each platform. We're a little
| better off here than with phones because we already have
| game engines that allow some portability of rendering and
| UI logic. Is that enough to re-create the HTML-style free
| web? probably not.
| soneca wrote:
| My current impression of AR/VR is that is the new 3D TV: it is a
| futuristic-looking tech that big companies were pushing like
| crazy because its adoption would mean a whole new market and
| revenue stream to be created. Only that no one really wanted to
| adopt it.
|
| The difference is that I never saw myself ever buying a 3D TV
| (and always hated 3D cinema), but I consider the possibility of
| being a late adopter of AR/VR several years from now.
| andybak wrote:
| People have been making this comparison since the Rift DK2 was
| released 5 or so years ago and it is still wrong. 3d TV never
| had broad buy in from enthusiasts, artists, developers or
| anyone else that VR has consistently maintained support from
| for half a decade with no sign is a drop off. I work in the
| arts and the level of enthusiasm and support is increasing if
| anything.
| ghaff wrote:
| I actually have one because the 3D part was essentially free at
| one point. Of course I have almost no 3D media to play on it.
| lostgame wrote:
| 3D had a major problem that it never solved. I continually
| stated I'd be interested in 3D displays when they developed
| them using glasses-less technology.
|
| I avoid going to 3D films specifically to avoid wearing the
| glasses.
|
| But they never got that far. Beyond the gimmick of the 3DS
| screen, I've never seen glasses-less 3D.
|
| Let's say you're a couple and you have two pairs of glasses.
| What happens when you have friends over?
|
| Furthermore - the glasses were not interchangeable between
| brands of television sets, meaning it's not like you could just
| bring a pair and expect them to work.
|
| A VR headset costs $300, and offers a truly unique experience
| that excites me as a developer and is very interesting as a
| user.
|
| A 3D TV cost more than a standard HDTV - and never really
| offered anything that made it worthwhile. IMHO it was DOA.
|
| The existence of VR cafes and interactive installations has
| already made VR a real 'thing'. The inexpensive nature of the
| Oculus Quest is helping that a lot, too.
| DougWebb wrote:
| One of the reasons I bought a Quest 1 was because it has apps
| that can connect to my Plex server and play 3D movies. It's
| neat, and nicely replicates the 3D theater experience including
| barely being able to see clearly through the grubby lenses. I
| only have a few 3D movies and don't bother watching them
| anymore.
|
| I do still watch lots of 2D content using the Quest, though. I
| like the immersive feel of watching movies and TV on theater-
| sized screens with none of the visual distractions in my living
| room.
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