[HN Gopher] Meta plans to devote ~20% of overall costs to Realit...
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Meta plans to devote ~20% of overall costs to Reality Labs in 2023,
up from 18%
Author : donsupreme
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-12-19 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Why didn't Meta just buy VRChat and improve that? Why did they
| have to build their lame metaverse from scratch?
|
| Serious question
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I believe Zuckerberg's play with buying Oculus was brilliant. I
| had basically stopped using anything Facebook but I couldn't
| resist the temptation to play Robo Recall with a Quest. So now he
| got a set of updated personal data from me and I even paid him
| for the privilege.
|
| I believe what Zuckerberg is doing here is to publicly announce
| that he has funding ready to purchase whoever could be the next
| Oculus. Based on Carmack's complaint, I don't have high hopes of
| Meta building the metaverse in-house. But if I was considering
| working on metaverse technology, this might be a nudge for
| entrepreneurs and their investors to get started, because
| Zuckerberg just painted the map leading to a unicorn exit.
|
| I like electronics and have AI + PCB experience. Anyone wanna
| start the next Oculus ;) ?
| nyrulez wrote:
| I want to admire their tenacity and faith. Lot of great things
| can come out of that. But then there's the financial side and
| responsibility. So it's a tough call. But as a non-stock owner
| for Meta, I'd favor tenacity of innovation than an ever
| increasing stock price.
|
| I've been an avid Quest 2 user. There is nothing else like it. I
| use it for portable workouts and it does the job pretty well.
| Meta is years ahead of anyone else in this field.
|
| But will this ever reach mainstream adoption? I think Zuck and
| others need to understand that the ask of putting a headset on is
| a pretty big one and is one of the biggest impediments, even if
| the stuff inside that headset can be pretty cool! I just don't
| see a path to that ever becoming normalized in our society or
| workplace.
|
| I feel Zuck is letting his personal bias inform his decisions
| because he is an avid early adopter and is perhaps super comfy
| with VR headsets. I mean he bought Oculus in the first place !
|
| I personally think stuff like VR/AR doesn't become truly
| mainstream until we hit a contact lenses level form factor. I
| know that sounds way out there but I don't see any other way.
| Getting to a sunglasses form factor will be a big win but still
| won't be enough to go mainstream, perhaps 25% of the way. And
| even that is easily 10 years away if not more.
|
| If I was part of their innovation team, I'd buy another smaller
| company like Nreal Air that's innovating in he sunglasses
| display/AR space quite well and then try to marry VR/AR with
| that. If they can achieve that, they will get a big jump in
| adoption. It will require an external computation box, perhaps a
| smartphone sized one, but that's still an easier ask than putting
| a whole headset on.
| prng2021 wrote:
| Sunglasses type form factor makes sense. I think a contact lens
| form factor would hurt adoption though. Some people wear
| contacts full time and you wouldn't want another similar sized
| device stuck on top of it. A lot of people do not wear contacts
| and it can be a major struggle to force yourself to stick
| something onto your eyeballs.
| nyrulez wrote:
| I agree that sticking contact lenses isn't going to be too
| fun unless the utility is really good and then it becomes a
| part of your routine.
|
| Light weight glasses is another option but it does limit the
| utility a lot in many scenarios.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Presumably they could just manufacture them ("them" being
| magical computers the size of a contact lens, so I know I'm
| going out on a bit of a ledge here) to also include your
| prescription along with the magic computer bits.
| illegalsmile wrote:
| I just picked up a second hand quest 2, pretty cool. What
| workout app(s) do you use? So far beat saber can get the heart
| rate up a little depending on what song and difficulty you
| choose but I haven't tried anything else. Mostly I've just been
| playing through Alyx.
| nyrulez wrote:
| My favorite so far is Les Mills VR. It feels like a genuine
| workout, especially the longer more intense ones.
|
| Other famous ones are Supernatural, FitXR etc. But they all
| have subscription models and Les Mills doesn't.
| ssgodderidge wrote:
| Isn't it possible that since they cut costs (inhumane way to
| describe layoffs), as long as they keep the investment dollars
| the same, the percentage would go up?
| joshstrange wrote:
| I'm bullish on VR/AR but FB seems to have totally lost the plot.
| The metaverse is a joke, the Meta Quest 2 software is utter
| garbage (super buggy, unintuitive, extremely frustrating), and
| the Quest Pro was incredibly lackluster.
|
| I enjoy my Quest 2 overall once you get into a game but the OS is
| trash and FB's layer on top of Android is not well done. My
| friends and I spend way more time than we should just trying to
| get into a "Home" all together and launching a game from the OS
| is a crapshoot. The OS is completely full of papercuts from
| unresponsive UI to things like switching to passthrough kills
| party audio for a second or two. Staying in passthrough for more
| than a minute (sometimes less) will kick you from the game you
| are playing which is infuriating. Do they think that people don't
| need to step away to deal with kids/pets/drinks/bathroom/etc? I
| can't tell you how many gaming sessions have been ruined or
| screwed up because someone had to take a short break and the
| OS/Game just shit the bed.
|
| I was excited for the Quest Pro and was ready to buy one if it
| was compelling... it was not. The specs are a minor bump over the
| Q2, the color passthrough camera feels very "beta", and from
| videos I've watched of it in action I'm glad I didn't get one.
| The (literal) bending of "reality" when using passthrough looks
| terrible and feels like it would really break immersion. The
| controllers did look interesting and I haven't heard anything
| really bad about them, they do seem like a big step up from the
| Q2 controllers. You can pair the QPro controllers with the Q2 so
| that might be something I look into though I'd prefer to never
| get Meta another dollar if I can help it. I'm looking forward to
| whatever Apple is working on.
|
| Sidenote: Maybe it's an industry term that I just don't
| know/understand but "of overall costs" doesn't make sense to me.
| The Subtitle has "Company says 20% of spending to go toward
| Reality Labs" which makes a lot more sense.
| Pwntastic wrote:
| https://archive.vn/FMGOH
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Reminds of 3D TV which fizzled out because folks don't want to
| wear glasses.
| trafficante wrote:
| As much as I'm unhappy about the death of PCVR thanks to the
| Quest 2, I have to agree with Carmack that it was very close to
| being the Right Device for bringing VR to the masses - and the
| sales numbers mostly reflect this.
|
| But I can't help but feel _something_ dysfunctional happened
| internally since the Quest 2 launch.
|
| The Quest Pro should not have been launched at $1500 with its
| current feature set/SoC and no depth sensor. And I find it
| difficult to accept the "enterprise market" claim as anything
| more than a cope when I go into BestBuy and see it being demoed
| to consumers and displayed prominently in an endcap.
|
| Then you look at the software side. Horizon is a horrible pile of
| ugly jank that no one uses. I gave it another shot for the first
| time in ages last week after seeing an advertising campaign for a
| deep faked Notorious BIG concert in Horizon. Long story short,
| the "live metaverse concert" had fewer attendees than an average
| Wendy's and the performance was low res 2d video on a screen.
| Embarrassing stuff.
|
| As far as gaming is concerned: Meta spent hundreds of millions
| acquiring some of the largest third party VR devs over the past
| couple years - and still not a single game has been announced.
|
| It sure smells like rotten bureaucratic infighting combined with
| Zuck doggedly chasing where he thinks the puck is going and
| Carmack's resignation letter certainly doesn't disabuse me of the
| notion.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I'm bullish on the metaverse only because I see it as the only
| viable solution to one of the biggest problems in the world
| right now: loneliness.
|
| Sure, metaverse interactions are a distant second to real world
| interactions, but at this point, real-world doesn't work out
| for lonely people anymore, and I haven't seen any compelling
| real world solutions either.
|
| Loneliness is a problem that needs to be fixed. You'd ideally
| fix it irl. But if you can't, at least giving people a virtual
| experience of togetherness might be worth it
| tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote:
| How is loneliness fixed by putting on goggles? Why wasn't it
| solved by phones?
| joezydeco wrote:
| Was the Quest 2 cheap because the BOM was low, or because
| Facebook subsidized hundreds of dollars of each headset?
|
| If VR is costing them 10s of billions of dollars yearly, where
| else could that much money have gone?
| bni wrote:
| I agree with everything in your comment.
|
| I think Zuck is impatient. He wants to skip the gaming stages
| of the VR evolution.
|
| Yet VR must be a huge gaming success before something like a
| social network in VR can happen. Quest 2 and Rift before it is
| almost that, but still a large part of gaming fans remain
| unconvinced. But that is surely possible to solve.
|
| We are at the Doom/Quake stage and he wants to skip WoW,
| Fortnite and get directly to what comes after that by building
| the equivalent of VRML or Second Life. Its too early.
|
| Also AR is a distraction, not possible to do well with tech
| existing today, if ever.
| SideQuark wrote:
| >He wants to skip the gaming stages of the VR evolution
|
| You don't need a gaming stage to make it useful any more than
| you needed a gaming stage of face to face video conferencing
| to make FaceTime and Zoom and the like extremely useful.
|
| The proper plan is to try to get many use cases working, and
| try to solve technical problems for each, until one of them
| meet in a useful product or solution. Claiming it has to be a
| certain way will miss quicker and possibly much more fruitful
| cases.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| But here's the thing: no group but gamers is excited enough
| about VR to even be a candidate for a market right now. The
| only people who want to strap goggles to their face are
| those looking for gaming experiences. Why try to dodge that
| reality?
| ecshafer wrote:
| VR has a place. I don't know if Meta is capable of getting it
| there. Occulus is a great piece of tech, I own one and I enjoy
| it. My wife who does not game at all, also likes it. There are
| games like Beat Saber a few others that are good for getting
| the masses in. And games like Half Life Alyx that can get
| gamers in. But outside of that there is nothing that really
| makes it seem like an improvement to life, its still a novelty.
|
| >when you look at the software side. Horizon is a horrible pile
| of ugly jank that no one uses. I gave it another shot for the
| first time in ages last week after seeing an advertising
| campaign for a deep faked Notorious BIG concert in Horizon.
| Long story short, the "live metaverse concert"
|
| Why would I want to go to a low resolution hologram concert and
| sit in my house instead of being at a concert? That's not cool.
| People don't take photos of that, they don't talk about it at
| lunch the next day, they don't reminisce about that. Its
| divorced from people.
|
| I think that the "Metaverse" is actually on the right track
| somewhere but doesn't have the vision of a product to get it
| finished. I would love the Metaverse as some kind of "tabletop"
| simulator. My vision of the metaverse after Zuck's announcement
| was that it would be cool if I could play rpgs in there, where
| I can customize my avatar, and a gm can build a dungeon out.
| Let me do fantastical otherworldly things, not just try and
| save myself a 20 minute drive.
|
| That is where I think metaverse will win, unique experiences
| that I can only get in there. The problem is that the Metaverse
| is trying to see copies of real world experiences, but worse.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| I think in the Quest you can see Zuckerberg trying to create
| Meta's iPhone. Most of Apple's profit comes from selling
| hardware for more than it costs to make it. Sure there are
| other phones but most people would prefer an iphone, for
| various reasons. Branding is not the least of which.
|
| I see the quest pro as a similar product to the iphone pro.
| Technically better, but almost as much of a status symbol to
| ramp up profits long term as much as anything.
|
| I suspect we'll see those two lanes continue to be developed
| with fairly fast releases on a similar schedule to iphones -
| with Mark's dream being that one day Meta will be the new Apple
| complete with the walled garden app store.
| nharada wrote:
| At this point doesn't feel like there's many other options long
| term for Facebook. If they _weren 't_ doing this, how long would
| they have before all that money is gone anyway? Anyone have
| suggestions on something besides VR to replace their current
| business?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Why not get into IaaS infrastructure? Like Facebook Cloud or
| something
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Google and Microsoft are burning so much $$$ right now
| competing and buying share, I don't think Facebook wants to
| get into that business.
| raverbashing wrote:
| MS actually might get it to be profitable, they can always
| sell/bundle Azure to their current customers
|
| Google's case is harder to make.
| MisterPea wrote:
| Disclaimer, I'm in the minority of people that's long Meta's
| vision into VR and own a good amount of Meta stock.
|
| I truly believe that there's like a 95% chance that Meta builds a
| great product but it hemorrhages money and will ultimately need
| to be gimped - but I'm really in it for the 5% chance that it is
| a home run on the financials.
|
| What Zuck is doing represents everything I admire about Silicon
| Valley (and honestly it's a short list of things) and sure he's a
| strange personality and questionable past but his vision and
| persistence into this is something I would hope to see succeed
| and valued.
| ramblerman wrote:
| Not even 1% that the product isn't a market fit? Given all
| first impressions point that way.
| badrabbit wrote:
| The quality of the product is irrelevant to me as well as
| millions of others who distrust Meta at the most fundamental
| level. Right out the gate it has that going against it. Outside
| the US just about every country is gunning to regulate or fine
| it somehow. Highly recommend selling what you can now before Q2
| MisterPea wrote:
| There are millions who distrust Meta, but public perception
| changes rapidly and companies this size don't die quickly.
| Their cash cow with ads allows them to stay solvent and make
| big risks
|
| I'm not saying that Meta will definitely have a change in
| perception but that's what I'm betting on if they truly do
| have a competent Metaverse.
|
| The best example of this change is Microsoft - it wasn't too
| long ago that it was the most hated tech company by the tech
| community and shareholders alike and now it's the ~least
| hated~ big tech out there.
| badrabbit wrote:
| I can't remember any time microsoft was distrusted and
| considered outright hostile or even a threat to democracy
| and civil society like fb. I am sure meta will remain a
| profitable company for itself and be around a decade or two
| more, even Yahoo is still around but my caution is don't
| hold its stock because it could be devalued significantly
| in the short term and then stabilize eventually due to its
| whatsapp and instagram dominance. Gen-z and younger
| millenials don't like it much. It is also struggling to get
| competitive talent due to its reputation and has gotten to
| a point where innovation=aquisition.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| The argument goes like this:
|
| I hate meta
|
| Why
|
| Because they track me
|
| Why do they do that
|
| To show me things I might want
|
| Why is that bad
|
| Insert slippery slope
|
| --
|
| At some point you need to be objective and ask if a little of
| that hate is just herd mentality.
| ljw1001 wrote:
| >To show me things that I want
|
| That's an extraordinarily generous interpretation of
| Facebook's motivation.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| My argument is more like "I hate Meta because it silently
| allowed, even encouraged the ruling party in my country to
| spread hate, to the point that it led to riots in my city"
| badrabbit wrote:
| No, they keep shadow profiles on people that never used
| them as well as record private phone conversations. If they
| were an individual they would be in prison for stalking so
| much. Even google is nowhere as bad as Meta, the only
| company objectively worse is linkedin.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Interesting position. My personal thought process around it was
| : Even if Meta succeeds at bringing a technological marvel to
| the market(I haven't seen anything convincing that they will)
| they have amassed astronomical bad reputation with Facebook
| that anything that is remotely associated with Meta/Zuckerberg
| would be seen very skeptically. I know I wouldn't jump in and
| create assets in their virtual world like I uploaded so many
| pictures and shared location to Facebook in their early days..
|
| Do you believe their bad reputation can be fixed in such short
| timeframe?
| MisterPea wrote:
| I think at the end of the day it's whoever creates the best
| product - right now, I only see Apple with the resources and
| ambition to tackle something like this but Meta already has a
| huge head start.
|
| I would like to compare it to AWS' lead in cloud due to their
| head start but this is obviously a much larger gamble.
| eklitzke wrote:
| I agree with you (although I don't own Meta stock). There isn't
| an imminent threat of Facebook collapsing, but if you look at
| things mid to long term the situation for Facebook isn't that
| rosy. There is serious competition from newer social media
| platforms like TikTok. And more importantly, Facebook's revenue
| is 100% dependent on advertising and their ability to do
| effective ad targeting is basically dependent on the policies
| that Google and Apple implement in Android/iOS and
| Chrome/Safari. Even if you think that Google for example isn't
| going to seriously change how tracking works in Chrome/Android
| (since they are also highly dependent on ad revenue),
| increasing regulation, especially in the EU but also possibly
| in the USA in the future, could force things to change.
|
| The situation is especially bad for Meta here compared to
| Google because even though most Google revenue comes from ads,
| Google still has a bunch of other product verticals like Google
| Workspace (G Suite), GCP, Android, Chromebooks, GPay, and
| numerous other products (including moonshot bets like Waymo).
| And Google doesn't need to rely on ad retargeting nearly as
| much, they can serve personalized ads just based off the text
| in search queries and gmail.
|
| In the long term it is very important that Meta diversifies and
| finds new scalable sources of revenue. Even if you don't think
| VR has a high probability of success, it's one of their best
| shots at finding something that has the potential (if
| everything goes well) to eventually generate serious revenue
| and diversify their business. It's easy to throw stones but
| what else do people want from Meta? It's extremely dangerous
| for them to do nothing. Since they're printing money today they
| can afford to make these huge bets on their future, and without
| huge future bets their future looks pretty bleak.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| I don't think any of googles other bets, even when combined,
| make anyth8ng close to their ad revenue, they are 100%
| dependent just like Facebook. As I understand it, their
| advantage over meta is that lots of search is browser based
| and also they get intent from user keywords
| MisterPea wrote:
| > It's easy to throw stones but what else do people want from
| Meta?
|
| Exactly. However, I think their AI play will need to come
| into fruition - AI as a service will need to be their second
| cash cow before anything Metaverse
| ericmcer wrote:
| This is a good take and something I needed to be reminded of. I
| find myself hating Zuckerberg and Musk, etc. but I absolutely
| want to live in a world where humans have walked on Mars, we
| have amazing VR tech, and cars all run on quiet and clean
| electricity. They must have real strength of vision to keep
| pursuing these things that are impossible level challenges,
| while the entire world hates them for it.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| As someone in the VR industry, I think VR will succeed _in spite
| of_ Facebook.
|
| Meta horizons is a solution in search of a problem, and they
| refuse to recognize that. Meanwhile the rest of us are making
| money solving actual problems that actually exist today. I do
| industrial and cockpit simulations, things that are unsafe or
| expensive to train on IRL, which is basically an ideal use for
| VR.
|
| Capitalism simulator VR 22 is not something that anyone wants. It
| doesn't fill a need or solve a problem other than "how do we
| extract more money from consumers?". People are starting to
| become resentful of their entire life being monetized, who wants
| to have their recreation monetized?
| sytelus wrote:
| Zuck immediately needs to hope on the AGI train before it leaves
| the station. He needs to pivote from Metaverse craziness. He
| needs to come out for making a mistake and course correct ASAP.
|
| He has massive walled garden of data that no one else has. He had
| MetaAI folks who knows how to build LLMs. He has AppliedML team
| who knows how to productize AI. He now even has better reputation
| for saner policies and privacy, thanks to Twitter. He should be
| able to spin up AI based search engine in 6-12 months. He can
| produce AI based Office in similar time frame. All the stars are
| aligned for him if he has courage to course correct.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Zuckerberg doubling down like this seems quite crazy. I know he
| was bullish on VR/AR/MR but he's now gambling the future of his
| company on it. With the bleak view Carmack had on their R&D and
| his departure, I doubt a breakthrough product is coming any time
| soon.
| bioemerl wrote:
| What's the alternative?
|
| Slowly face into obsolescence as kids abandon Facebook and
| Google/apple use their monopolies to totally invalidate your
| ability to serve ads?
| jerrygenser wrote:
| Meta just took on debt for the first time ever in the last few
| months. Meta could cancel all Reality labs work and keep slowly
| taking on debt while keeping their central properties alive. It
| would make for a very boring company but would likely result in
| decent returns for shareholders. This is what Oracle has done
| -- their company is boring but their shareholders are happy.
|
| In order to have any sort of future growth story, Meta pretty
| much needs to create or somehow capture major economics from a
| new platform like they did for web2.0 and mobile web. Due to
| antitrust concerns IMO, they can't just acquire their way into
| more value by acquiring a company like Pinterest so their
| remaining options are moonshots like AR/VR to invest heavily
| for the next platform to become ubiquitous and then extract
| economics from it.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Meta has no shareholders only suckers that own non voting
| stocks
| mv4 wrote:
| He has no choice. The old model (ad revenue) is declining, and
| the new model (monetizing AR/VR and the Metaverse) hasn't been
| proven yet.
| andsoitis wrote:
| This is great for advancing the technology. Probably not great
| for shareholders. I'm for it.
| ilaksh wrote:
| My gut feeling is that it's hard to build these devices in ways
| that are affordable, profitable, untethered, and realistic. I
| think that hating Facebook and disrespecting Zuck is driven just
| as much by the popularity of the pastime (hating) as by anything
| real.
|
| Credit to Zuckerberg for staying the course. I think that other
| products will soon come out from other companies over the next
| year or two that because extremely popular, and AR/VR WILL go
| mainstream, and practically no one will ever admit that he was
| right about it being a good overall direction to go in. And if
| they don't end up making a lot of money from these things it
| won't prove that it wasn't the right direction. It's hard to pull
| off and there is going to be a lot of competition.
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