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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?

#281

Post by [deleted] »

BoorishBears wrote: post #11
junon wrote: post #2

Second Life required you were at least 18 at one point. It was meant more for social gatherings and meeting spots and I think (though I'm not 100%) that they shifted toward "virtual" office spaces with a focus on community building and digital trade using real-life currency. The metaverse, as I understand it, is just Facebook Games but in VR, for kids and bored adults. I think the outcome will be the same, though. I…

I'm shocked people are taking "Meta" at face value. To me it's a way to signal to outsiders that Facebook is still cool and hip. That's it. Now when recruiting they can play the Meta-not-Facebook angle. Now if they can pad earnings calls with the amazing success the metaverse is seeing (so what if it's losing us money, that's the future!) - It's like an inverse Alphabet. Where Alphabet silently serves as an umbrella…

[deleted]

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

#282

Post by notsureaboutpg »

hakfoo wrote: post #89
Shank wrote: post #33

Conceptually speaking, the difference with AR/VR is that you can have a truly immersive experience, which really does give you more possibilities than just Second Life, which was always just a 3D game world on a 2D screen. The pitch from Meta and with AR/VR is that with the ability to use 3D space, you can actually turn Second Life-style virtual worlds into something useful with actual tangible benefits. For example,…

To me, the problem is finding situations where immersiveness actually adds value. I think for a lot of social interactions, it doesn't, or it offers rapidly diminishing value. This conversation would not be meaningfully better as a virtual/augmented reality 3D live chat. The Google Hangouts (or whatever it's called this week) meetings with my team at work would not be better either. I'm not even sure it would beat pl…

I think that immersiveness would be great for programming.

Stacking windows with a z axis may give you a sense of how nested an abstraction is. You could follow a function in a class to it's base definition a lot easier, etc.

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

#283

Post by umvi »

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'll believe it when I see it. I think most people will find the cost of strapping on headsets to be greater than benefits of the social presence it provides

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

#284

Post by roveo »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #166
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…

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…

There are algos that reconstruct photorealistic 3D facial expressions from headset cameras in realtime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XcQtoja_Y

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

#285

Post by goopthink »

kibwen wrote: post #189
hakfoo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the problem is finding situations where immersiveness actually adds value. I think for a lot of social interactions, it doesn't, or it offers rapidly diminishing value. This conversation would not be meaningfully better as a virtual/augmented reality 3D live chat. The Google Hangouts (or whatever it's called this week) meetings with my team at work would not be better either. I'm not even sure it would beat pl…

Note that Amazon already supports product listings with interactive 360 degree product visualizations. It's only a small step from there to full 3D modeled product renderings. That said, I can't say I would find it especially compelling to peruse a 3D model in VR as opposed to perusing it on a normal screen. Either way it just involves rotating our perspective around the rendering and observing it via the 2D planes o…

From experience in DTC retail, this is more of an AR (not VR) benefit. I think (because I can’t remember the exact examples) that Amazon, IKEA, and a few others already do a “See it in your room!” feature. With smartphones with LiDAR/equivalent scanning this becomes really easy. Other retailers like H&M already use digital human models and clothes so it’s a short leap there as well.

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

#287

Post by indymike »

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…

> Remote communication tools like video conferencing fail to deliver what academics call “social presence

When we have Star Trek's transporters, we can achieve "social presence". Until then, you can have "this is cool". There is a real problem with VR: it requires way more focus and attention that being live, in person. Where VR does shine is shared experiences you can't have in real life. Those shared experiences are really cool, but are not such that people want to have them whenever they want to interact with grandma or Bob in accounting.

> it’s all about removing the need for physical co-location to communicate, work, and spend time together with full social presence.

We already have technology that may be "good enough". The issue with VR is that it requires so much cognitive effort to work... so you really are dealing with something that is cool. Cool to the level that it seems magical, but not cool enough to beat the ease we can communicate via other channels. Playing a flight sim with VR? actually great. Trying to have a conversation with my kids via VR? Not so great.

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

#288

Post by roywiggins »

charlesju wrote: post #186
roywiggins wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stops me from minting an NFT that says I own anything I want? If platforms are only honoring NFTs minted by other platforms then they might as well just share that information in a database.

Same way you can't just print out a copy of the mona lisa? People care about status and authenticity. Imagine a virtual world where 1. You have the validate you are an avatar you own 2. You can be anything you want The virtual world 1 is way more interesting because it's authentic and the people of status will want to use it and people of less status will build towards being higher status.

> The virtual world 1 is way more interesting

What use are NFTs in such a world? If it's permissioned anyway, and there's only a few approved vendors, you can do this with a database. Suppose you already developed a Roblox/Fortnite/Minecraft metaverse, why do you want NFTs on top of that?

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

#289

Post by roywiggins »

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.)

Okay, Ethereum is still around, but all it says is that in 2023 you bought a string of digits that referred to a special hat in Fortnite. But it's 2040 now and the special hat has linkrotted away because Fortnite got taken over by Zuckerberg.

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

#290

Post by dvh »

herbst wrote: post #102
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #77

There are three “branches” of the metaverse concept today: 1. VR rebranded (Facebook’s approach) 2. a specific family of games that allow you to buy and own land/territory, mediated by the blockchain (see Bit.Country[1] as one of many examples) 3. a term used widely in crypto/web3 world to refer specifically to the fact that we can finally build networks that people can own (buy/sell but also control directly via pro…

This so much! I earned money in second Life. Back then I exchanged it all to bitcoin and lost it gambling, but the fact that SL was rewarding my real efforts in real world money was amazing. Investments I did in current projects (ex. Sandbox) also doing well. Facebook is going to have nothing of that. Money will flow into one direction only and it essentially never be more than an VR entertainment hub. I honestly fee…

So basically all Facebook need to do is allow people to earn money from day one.
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