[HN Gopher] The VR Winter Continues
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The VR Winter Continues
Author : andsoitis
Score : 17 points
Date : 2024-07-16 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ben-evans.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ben-evans.com)
| JohnFen wrote:
| > it's obvious that the devices will get better, lighter and
| cheaper, but much less obvious whether that's enough. How many
| people will care?
|
| I don't know the answer to that question, but I certainly won't
| care. I am not in any of the demographic groups that can
| currently get value from it.
|
| VR/AR is a thing that covers several niche use cases very well,
| but it's hard to see how it would be useful enough generally that
| it would become a common consumer item.
|
| I could see it becoming popular amongst gamers, and its utility
| in specific things like industrial use are pretty clear, but most
| people aren't gamers, and most people don't need to do industrial
| sorts of things in their daily lives.
|
| I don't see it taking the role of smartphones in most people's
| lives even if the gear becomes no more onerous than a pair of
| glasses for a number of reasons, but if the tech does reach that
| point, I could see a large minority of people swapping to them.
|
| But who knows? What I'm very confident about is that this won't
| be a mainstream thing for a nontrivial number of years.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Maybe I'm not a visionary, but I can't think of a mainstream
| use case. Maybe as a telepresence thing for better situational
| awareness? But I think for a lot of things the tech we have
| today is "good enough". I'm not going to jack into cyberspace
| to pay my water bill "in person" when I can use an app or
| website with less friction.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I can only see it working if you have like, a telepresence
| device on the other end. An unpopular example might be a
| robot solider with its "handler" halfway around the globe.
|
| Maybe a "better" example would be of the same ilk, a robot in
| space repairing something with the handler back on earth
| controlling the thing.
| kevindamm wrote:
| The radio delay alone will cause vection, I would think,
| and unless near-term technology advances include something
| like an ansible I don't see a way around that.
| marssaxman wrote:
| This is the _second_ VR winter, of course; perhaps there will be
| another yet to come.
|
| This is a key idea, and a pattern one sees over and over:
|
| > Something can be amazingly cool and part of the future, but not
| a big part of the future.
|
| I think that self-driving cars will also prove to be in this
| category.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| _Third_ VR winter. Don 't forget that Sensorama
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensorama) also failed to take
| off.
| xcv123 wrote:
| That's basically a 3D movie. Doesn't count as VR.
| Legion wrote:
| The fact that consumer VR remains a niche category even in its
| best use case - gaming - tells you everything you need to know
| about whether or not it's ready for development in the non-gaming
| consumer space.
|
| Until VR tech is strong enough that it becomes a must-own product
| type for the average gamer, any other consumer-focused use case
| should be considered dead in the water.
| kawsper wrote:
| I have an Oculus headset, but just getting going is an ordeal, I
| have to turn on the goggles, load into MetaOS (or whatever the
| name is), then load up into PCVR-mode, an then load my game
| (through Steam).
|
| It's like inception, and I am 3 layers deep, and every layer has
| it own controls.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| The problem is that video games and social media are already
| optimized for dopamine. There is little boost to the dopamine hit
| offered by the immersion of VR. People aren't going to become
| addicted enough to VR in itself to overpower the inconvenience
| and simulation sickness of putting a computer on your head.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| VR is failing because it requires too much activation energy.
| Games are fundamentally about leisure. VR as it exists requires
| clearing space and standing and moving. It's also high intensity.
| High intensity is good under certain circumstances but I think
| humans are actually wired to prefer lower intensity things.
|
| When VR becomes something that is effortless to use and I can
| just slip on some glasses and not even feel them on my head is
| when it will break out.
|
| Apple has some fundamental aspects of VR right such as
| controlling the UI with eyes and slight hand movements. Also most
| apps are geared towards sitting down. The problem is their
| headset is too heavy.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| The entirety of this VR cycle feels like companies desperately
| looking for "that next thing" and leaping on VR because it kinda
| looked like there was traction.
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