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Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

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Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#221

Post by WhiteNoiz3 »

jostmey wrote: post #148
ravenstine wrote: post #136

I would not take marketing around things like VR and AR very seriously because nobody knows whether any of them will catch on, and their track record isn't very good. Oculus, for the most part, is a niche. A lot of people have an Oculus but it's primarily for games, and it hasn't reached the level where everyone's gotta have one . Only time can tell whether Metaverse has something that Second Life did not. My guess i…

Palm pilots didn’t become pervasive. So you could have applied that argument to iPhones. It is a matter of if the technology is ready. When it is, it will take off

I agree. VR is allows for great game experiences, but today's devices are still cumbersome and we won't see a VR device get mass adoption until we have something that is: - Not much bigger or heavier than a pair of glasses - Lets me work all day on virtual screens to replace my monitor. It would be great if it also connected to my phone to give me more screen real estate there, showed my notifications etc. - has pass through video so I'm not totally unaware of my environment and other people.

Outside of VR, AR glasses need to be all of the above, plus offer something that works better in glasses than on a phone - like indoor wayfinding, using the cameras to allow people to search by image for things they are looking at, virtual assistants that are proactive and context/location aware, or just being able to do things quickly and privately without pointing a phone at something. Or it could just be that the immersive/spatial experience is just better than looking at a small phone window.

Facebook / Meta is working on all these things, so I think the Metaverse talk kinda distracts from some of the more concrete and useful applications and paints an unrealistic picture for how much time people will want to spend in VR worlds.

There are so many challenges and so much interoperability required to make this happen and be useful - I think it will be some time before it becomes a reality. But, the original iPhone was pretty limited initially, and I can remember lots of people saying "Why would I use a smartphone when I can just browse the web and send emails on my computer more easily?". I think it's likely that VR/AR will follow a similar trajectory with it becoming much more powerful and easier to use as time goes on.

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#222

Post by teucris »

gfodor wrote: post #200
somewhereoutth wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until we can see each other's faces in VR, this won't work for social presence. Shrinking everything down to contact lenses (even sunglasses get in the way of social contact) is likely to be beyond us for quite some while if ever. I'd rather not put something in my eye anyway. Further, VR does not work well for switching - you can't be in VR and scribble notes at the same time. AR might be an improvement, but not by…

What you’re posting here is “common knowledge”, but it is actually in conflict with social presence research. VR beats video conferencing even without any facial tracking, and the abject failure of video conferencing in the pandemic to replace most of the feeling of face to face communication should be enough to convince people there is merit to the studies that have been done showing it scores poorly. In VR you mult…

Interesting. Links to research?

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#223

Post by gfodor »

shafyy wrote: post #180
gfodor wrote: post #146

It’s simple really, and most commenters don’t “get” what is going on with all this. Remote communication tools like video conferencing fail to deliver what academics call “social presence”, which is the feeling of being together in unmediated communication. VR and AR have the necessary capabilities to do so, and deliver social presence on par with face to face. With a fully immersive experience, you can feel like you…

I agree that social presence is the most underrated aspect of VR, especially from people who have never tried it. Of course, it's not there yet, but if you experience it today you can see glimpses of how it will be in the future. However, that has nothing to do with the "metaverse". Metaverse is just a fancy word Facebook is trying to establish to somehow rebrand their walled-off social media platforms.

I agree Facebook is kinda taking their eye off the prize by focusing on the metaverse concepts. But they’re not dumb, they understand what I wrote above, so there might be a reason this is being done towards that end.

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#224

Post by rackjack »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #177
gfodor wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is a study that was done on PC rift hardware that showed it was already competitive with f2f on most measures of social presence except for facial expressions (which makes sense, given the lack of facial tracking.) The bottleneck for adoption is probably mostly about UX, comfort, norms, marketing, etc. Not raw capabilities.

Laughable - that's like saying "this cake has 80% of the required ingredients, we're almost there with the exception of flour and sugar". The uncanny valley on the raw capabilities of these current products is a grand canyon. Holodeck it ain't.

I wonder how much we need facial expressions for VR communication. You can convey a lot in Source games just by crouching and violently shaking your mouse... plus nobody's trying to blow you up in a work environment (hopefully).

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#225

Post by gfodor »

TillE wrote: post #215
abeppu wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who arbitrates which NFTs-based claims are respected versus not? How does one decide authenticity? And once you have an answer to such a question (relying on some preexisting system of ownership in the real world), then why should we care about tokens? E.g. if someone _does_ try to create an NFT for the Mona Lisa, our ability to refute / accept its authenticity is premised on the knowledge that in the real world, the…

Right, it's just shoving some arbitrary data in a decentralized database. People will still need to get together and agree on which bits of data to care about, and at that point the blockchain is adding very little value besides a cumbersome way to transfer ownership.

The value is that the blockchains (or analogous tech) maximize durability and odds of societal consensus across time and space. For example, I would put higher odds on the Ethereum blockchain still existing and being citable in a century or two than most centralized authorities today. (These may be low odds in absolute terms, but in relative terms I think the Ethereum chain wins.)

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#226

Post by woodruffw »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #193
charlesju wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already happening. You're thinking about this in reverse. The web 1.0 and 2.0 way of thinking if we build the product, then we own the community. The web 3.0 way of thinking is there are existing communities out there (BAYC, Punks, etc.) that we can enable to use our product and come into our space. And this is already happening.

BAYC is light years beyond everything else in the NFT space. The way they've built a community and played up their cool factor to make you want to be a part of it all is impressive. Their parties this last week in NYC for NFT week pretty much locked them as the model to strive for. I don't know if others can do it, but they've set the standard.

At every cryptocurrency party I've been to, the people (i.e., the normal ones, not the true believers) stop coming when the free drinks and food stop flowing. I wouldn't confuse that with a "cool factor."

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#227

Post by gfodor »

teucris wrote: post #222
gfodor wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re posting here is “common knowledge”, but it is actually in conflict with social presence research. VR beats video conferencing even without any facial tracking, and the abject failure of video conferencing in the pandemic to replace most of the feeling of face to face communication should be enough to convince people there is merit to the studies that have been done showing it scores poorly. In VR you mult…

Interesting. Links to research?

Here is a talk I gave a few years ago - I haven’t kept up tho so there may be better sources now.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5w8xbeCc2Q

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#228

Post by woodruffw »

gfodor wrote: post #225
TillE wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it's just shoving some arbitrary data in a decentralized database. People will still need to get together and agree on which bits of data to care about, and at that point the blockchain is adding very little value besides a cumbersome way to transfer ownership.

The value is that the blockchains (or analogous tech) maximize durability and odds of societal consensus across time and space. For example, I would put higher odds on the Ethereum blockchain still existing and being citable in a century or two than most centralized authorities today. (These may be low odds in absolute terms, but in relative terms I think the Ethereum chain wins.)

I can only speak for myself, but I do not feel any particular predilection towards "social consensus" when I'm told that a think has cryptocurrencies mixed into it. If anything, it's a negative signal that tells me that someone has undisclosed financial interests in whatever they're trying to tell me about.

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#229

Post by tomc1985 »

charlesju wrote: post #153
gfodor wrote: post #146

It’s simple really, and most commenters don’t “get” what is going on with all this. Remote communication tools like video conferencing fail to deliver what academics call “social presence”, which is the feeling of being together in unmediated communication. VR and AR have the necessary capabilities to do so, and deliver social presence on par with face to face. With a fully immersive experience, you can feel like you…

I agree this is one facet, but other is we now have a trustless ownership protocol (ie. cryto + NFTs) that will lay the foundation for people "caring" about the stuff and status you have in the metaverse.

Yes let's crystalize greed and avarice into our brave new virtual meta world thing

How about a virtual world of no ownership? Why must we give the wealthy yet another venue to lord their status over us?

Re: Ask HN: How is the “metaverse” concept different from the Second Life boom?

#230

Post by long_time_gone »

tremon wrote: post #181
long_time_gone wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fundamentally the people like Zuckerberg responsible for its execution do not understand what people want I agree with the broader point, but Facebook owns three of the most popular apps in the world. They have at least some idea of what people want.

Do they really? Only one of those they created, the others they bought after they'd already become the most popular apps. You don't have to have any ideas to just measure what's already popular and buy it.

They built Facebook and Messenger from zero users to billions. Instagram had 50 million users when Facebook bought them. WhatsApp had around 300 million. Now they each have over a billion.
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