You know, I've been wondering what could possibly possess Meta to be so, "FUCK YEAH, ALL IN MF'ERS!!!" about the metaverse for a while now. This actually makes a lot of sense; companies control the platforms we are on, which then determines how we must operate (read: which prevents us from invasively monitoring you as much as we'd like), so why not control the full stack as people close more doors on us?

I still think they are going to fail spectacularly there, but I suppose I can't blame them for trying.

Perhaps they shouldn't have bailed on making phones. Android phone arena is still very messy and they could just...have good hardware and a slick skin on Android and probably make a go of it.

I know I'm armchairing the devil so to speak but I think this would have been a good long term play for them, but I imagine their expertise at the time was antithetical to hardware.

Meta/Microsoft/Amazon all did not want to plow the billions of dollars and years it takes to develop hardware that can compete with iPhone and Android.

They bet that they did not need to, but unfortunately for Meta, looks like they should have.

Not even compete with Android, just build a better Android phone, and sell it near cost (or at cost). Would have given them troves of data I'm sure.

The muscle is around contract negotiation with the carriers and co-opting those partnerships, but they had the money to burn on this.

Who in their right mind would buy a Facebook phone, considering the neverending security issues, data leaks and total disregard for user privacy?

7-10 years ago it would have sold. Especially if they marketed is as "use FB as your address book".

I would've loved a basic FB integrated tablet for my parents. Something that had easy video chat for the kids. This would have worked really well with the friend graph. My options both on Android and iOS leave a lot to be desired.

The Meta Portal is exactly what you want. The hardware is actually pretty nice.

I mean people buy google phones, it can't get a lot worse than them. And they aren't bad phones either.

Imo at the end of the day people don't give two shits about privacy, convenience is king

The same people that still use Facebook. Which is to say, we could probably find a couple of billion people who couldn't give two rats asses about all that, and just want to respond to Aunt Nancy's political rants[1] in a space where everyone can see.

[1] Or watch Feel Good Videos ABOUT People Spontaneously HELPING Poor ANIMALS Trapped In A PREDICAMENT [2].

[2] That the people in question may or may not have put them into.

I genuinely despise the people that make [1][2] for monetisation purposes and ad dumping. Intentionally torturing and starving small animals for likes. Fuck.

It would tell if it was like one plus. Premium phone at a discount. One plus has horrendous privacy issues

They all DID plow billions of dollars into phone efforts, but they just couldn't muscle their way into a competitive position

They could all definitely manufacture Android devices and hold some Android sub-market share, but that business isn't interesting to them. They wanted to control a platform, and when it was clear that wasn't going to happen (after spending many billions), they gave up.

Clearly they needed to plow more billions and years. They are competing with company that has spent a decade+ developing a retail store presence as well as iterating over and over on their product.

But Microsoft and Google and Meta were not interested in “in person support” or business that does not scale, and part of the price they pay for that is to be gimped by Apple at a moments notice and watch your market cap dive.

I think Google showed with Windows Phone that they were very much willing to sacrifice a few users of their huge platforms in order to sabotage any competitor platforms entirely (e.g. refusing them access to the YouTube API, and refusing to develop a YT app for WP). I think that once Amazon and MS stopped developping their phone OSs, the message was well and truly sent: you either make a Google phone, or you try to make a popular phone without easy access to YouTube and GMail and Google Maps (obviously, Apple was already too big by the time Android really got going for Google to have any chance of hurting Apple more than themselves with this same strategy).

I have a Quest 2 and It's sitting inside a box behind the PC inside a Nike shoebox and when I try to use it, I need to basically go through a whole process all over again. A factory reset as it were because something to do with facebook account wasn't needed... but then it was needed so i made a fake account... something to do with I don't need facebook anymore... something to do with a meta account.... something to do with I needed to switch on dev mode to stop it annoying me about guardian when I want to use it on the sofa... something to do with installing some kind of app on my phone to sync to it to make it work... something about my occulus dev account is invalid... something about....

I can't use the device.

If I dig into the box, and drag it out, I need to deal with all of this stuff. I want to play for example Superhot, but I have no idea how to even reinstall or even if I need to reinstall because I need to login with something above "all over again".

Fucking trash.

The "Metaverse" is just a bad joke regardless if it worked perfectly, but all of this crud means that I can't even be bothered picking up the actual device.

> They want to change that by having people switching en masse to the Metaverse but I'm really not sure this is happening.

The tech isn't even close to there yet.

Current gen VR tech demos sparks the imagination, and it's definitely great for people that want to like it... But that's not even close to good enough for mass adoption.

Their teased prototypes look like a solid upgrade, but it's still not going to be enough.

Mobile procedures just don't have enough graphics power yet and the one's we do have consume too much power. We're missing several hardware breakthrough before mass adoption becomes likely from my perspective as a VR headset owner.

It's probably gonna happen eventually, but not necessarily with current tech.

Meta might succeed if it stays on the ball and keeps pushing for centuries, but i don't think it's management will do so.

> centuries

Centuries? I haven't taken a close look at VR (though I'm flirting with buying a headset soon, just for kicks...) but I'd always assumed it was more like 10-25 years away.

What are the hardware breakthroughs that you think would do it?

Brain implants. Or very light AR glasses.

Are you going to be willing to install a brain implant from Facebook? Dear God. It's like something out of a dystopian movie. No amount of money will convince me to do something like this, especially coming from Facebook, but any corporation really.

Very light AR glasses can be an interesting proposition but they will not provide the VR immersive experience.

I'm not sure what people expect from VR but it's not Ready Player One and will not be for a very long time. However, playing Half Life Alyx is quite phenomenal even today on current hardware.

I would bet money that Meta is going to fail spectacularly at their attempt to build the metaverse.

And it will be fun to watch from the outside.

Unfortunately, I don't expect this endeavor to give interesting fruits to humanity, but sometimes happy accidents happen.

Only thing I can think is that GP is making a sports reference (1 century = 100 runs in cricket) a la "home run" being used to mean a smashing success.

True lightfield display would be a start....

Which reminds me, whatever happened to magic leap?

They burned through an ungodly amount of money. There was a headset that they released four years ago - it was a flop. Similar deal to the hololens, first generaion aimed at developers. Recently they've pivoted and there is a second generation headset announced that is aimed at business users.

Flailing about? And of course what they were doing was NOT true light field display.

I walked in oculus for like 10 minutes, and I puked. The technology isn't ready.

Lots of people get car sick but nobody would say that the car isn't ready yet.

First of all, no one gets car sick while driving - already a major difference to VR. Secondly, most people who can get car sick can avoid it by sitting in the front row and looking only straight ahead.

Finally, even for people who get hopelessly car sick as passengers no matter what they do, the advantage of a fast safe private ride often outweighs the discomfort - especially since no one is spending more than 1h in a car more often than a few times a year. It is very hard to imagine what application could make VR give even close to the amount of utility that cars give you.

I'd bet those people only use cars when needed. Nobody will go cruising on a puke machine.

And we never need Oculus for anything. That's a big difference.

*for you.

for most people, I'd posit.

Very few people need oculus/VR, while a lot people need cars. Possibly a lot more like 10000x

honestly i want to know, what need is there for it? Why should i wear something on my head? what advantage does it have on computers/ handheld devices? what can i do on a VR headset that I can't already do on a computer or handheld device?

Sounds like a difference in kind.

This reminds me of what Apple did just before Web came to the fore. They had something called HyperCard. Then they had something called "Agents" for automating your online activities. But neither of those platforms succeeded.

The biggest question isn't even whether its technology is ready. The biggest question is WHY?

Why as a consumer, do I want to wear something on my head? especially since, handheld phones are already way more engaging than I need. Are VR headsets just another entertainment device (something I have way too much of already) or will it facilitate work from home?

But Facebook is a platform unto itself. If it was still an enjoyable product that everyone used, and connected to their local interests and groups on, they could still have great, targeted advertising I think. But people don't really seem to use it much anymore in earnest, and their targeting probably relied more on 3rd party scripts across the Internet which are being restricted.

I'm still in the habit of clicking that Facebook bookmark occasionally, and have a few extend circle contacts who regularly post. But nine out of ten times the page does not even update anything beyond the server-side populated parts above the fold. Those "story" or what they are called snapchat(?) clones? They work even less frequently. Sometimes they do, so I assume that it can't really be a systematic failure on my side like some weird browser configuration issue. Apparently Facebook, the website, is crumbling on the inside (technology) as much as on the outside (audience).

> Apparently Facebook, the website, is crumbling on the inside (technology)

This is what makes me really uneasy about React. I feel there is too much cargo cult of a technology that doesn’t even work for their creators in the first place.

> A problem I see with FB is that they don't control anything on which they run. They run on stuff from their competitors: it's either Google (Chrome / Android), Microsot (Windows / Edge) or Apple (OS X / Safari / iOS).

You do realize you just described the vast majority of all tech companies that exist today, right?

Yeah, and fb is bigger than them. The question is more about what it takes to be a trillion dollar co.

So what? Where's the cutoff? Tell me one tech company besides Apple, Google, and Microsoft that logic wouldn't apply to. (No, Tesla doesn't count.)

The only other tech giant that is a trillion dollar company is Amazon, and they own a lot of platforms. Beyond those 4 there are no other trillion dollar tech cos. The cutoff is pretty clear and the field is small.

Meta buys firefox.. metafox!