Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 381 posts

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

#41

Post by rndmind »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #27
cybernautique wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't use a non-FOSS platform or experience for non-corporate reasons. My employer wants me to use a particular hardware? Fine, but I'm not using my money for it, I won't like it, and I'll break it every chance I get. The idea that I will work and play in the metaverse is forever and eternally blocked by which particular group of assholes is trying to wrangle me. If it's a group that allows me the same access th…

> I wouldn't use a non-FOSS platform or experience You are in the extreme minority, if smartphone trends are to be treated as any kind of indication. So your actions likely would not matter to Meta/Apple/Google.

I'm with him in that. And I am glad I am able to clarify this for you, Android OS is built upon a FOSS project ( AOSP ) and that is by and large the most popular OS in the world. There's ton of community projects that prove that millions use and contribute to FOSS mobile software.

Oh and there's no way in hell this corny Horizon Workrooms will ever, ever take off.

To me, Meta is a more nefarious hint at the collection and backroom sale of users' metadata.

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

#42

Post by symlinkk »

kooshball wrote: post #30
ed wrote: post #17

Don’t read much into the product side of meta. Metaverse is just a hedge, so that if Apple shows us how to do VR/AR “right,” Facebook will have $10B worth of pieces on the board to be competitive, allowing them to avoid another iOS platform risk. Owning a platform provides leverage elsewhere too. Apple will be Apple, but maybe Facebook can be Android, next time around. (As a side benefit, it also helps “rally the tro…

ya obviously it's reasonable that Facebook changed the name of their company for a "hedge"

Actually it’s totally reasonable. They got bad press and rebranded to seem hip and futuristic. It’s that simple

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

#44

Post by kristiandupont »

noduerme wrote: post #36
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,…

I'm pretty skeptical it'll ever take off. Having tried to hang around in the Oculus Go spaces early on, it was pretty clear no one really had a great reason for being there. You'd sit around a badly rendered bonfire and hear people talking, sometimes interestingly, but it had about the same level of interest as getting on a CB and talking to strangers. There are two kinds of people you can meet in VR: Friends and str…

>Friends, you can meet privately

if you live close to one another. If you don't, I guess this could be interesting? I don't really see myself using it but I am so old fashioned that I prefer my laptop over my phone so I get that the world doesn't always agree with me.

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

#45

Post by keyle »

If you strap enough rockets to a pig, it will fly.

If you throw enough cash at a problem, it will be "solved".

I remember google wave. Remember that? The noise it made when it came out. What a mess. And then we got slack and discord and we must admit it somewhat solves the same ideas.

So I don't know. We might very well be in VR goggles in 10 years surrounded by 25 virtual screens, 5 notification systems and parallel windows updates while bidding on a new VR background, on a NFT trading platform using some shitty cryptocurrency we've never heard of 2 weeks prior.

Or we could just be on a terminal in vim doing the same shit as today.

I only hope we have choices. Because this new internet they're trying to push is further away from RFCs and open protocols than we've ever been. And that's very sad. Our parents gave us a free internet where everything is possible, and we're doing our very best to destroy that idea to a world of wall gardens and consumerism where the very few will even know how it works.

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

#46

Post by cybernautique »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #27
cybernautique wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't use a non-FOSS platform or experience for non-corporate reasons. My employer wants me to use a particular hardware? Fine, but I'm not using my money for it, I won't like it, and I'll break it every chance I get. The idea that I will work and play in the metaverse is forever and eternally blocked by which particular group of assholes is trying to wrangle me. If it's a group that allows me the same access th…

> I wouldn't use a non-FOSS platform or experience You are in the extreme minority, if smartphone trends are to be treated as any kind of indication. So your actions likely would not matter to Meta/Apple/Google.

Unfortunately, I was born into a world without FOSS phones yet where phones are mandatory. I've therefore unhappily furnished Google with more money than I'd ever have liked to, did my best to scrub the hardware of their taint, and treat it like an adversary.

Thankfully, for now, VR is not mandatory. If it becomes mandatory in the long dusk of my latter years then I will be content as a grumpy old man humbuggering about the kids with their newfangled record players.

And, yes, I am in the extreme minority. It has a negatively, and severely, impacted my social life (on top of being socially ungraceful, I have relatively far less space to ply my social wares). I'm so thoroughly radicalized that this is merely another price I'm happy to pay.

My actions don't matter to them, and I aspire to a day where their actions have a similar impact to me.

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

#47

Post by quickthrower2 »

noduerme wrote: post #36
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,…

I'm pretty skeptical it'll ever take off. Having tried to hang around in the Oculus Go spaces early on, it was pretty clear no one really had a great reason for being there. You'd sit around a badly rendered bonfire and hear people talking, sometimes interestingly, but it had about the same level of interest as getting on a CB and talking to strangers. There are two kinds of people you can meet in VR: Friends and str…

But there is clubhouse (presuming it’s still popular?) which has turned strangers into friends but maybe that’s because of it being pure audio and minimal interface. It’s possible someone will create a similar popular “gameplay” in vr?

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

#48

Post by mgraczyk »

I'm a former Facebook employee, and also worked on VR at Google ~2015.

I don't think it's different. I think if you went back in time and asked 18 year old Zuck what the future of online interaction would be, he'd basically tell you about second life.

The only difference is that now the technology is better and enough people who are not Zuck are talking about it, so Zuck can steer the ship without everyone jumping off.

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

#50

Post by ed »

kooshball wrote: post #30
ed wrote: post #17

Don’t read much into the product side of meta. Metaverse is just a hedge, so that if Apple shows us how to do VR/AR “right,” Facebook will have $10B worth of pieces on the board to be competitive, allowing them to avoid another iOS platform risk. Owning a platform provides leverage elsewhere too. Apple will be Apple, but maybe Facebook can be Android, next time around. (As a side benefit, it also helps “rally the tro…

ya obviously it's reasonable that Facebook changed the name of their company for a "hedge"

Eh, I don’t know. Nothing of value was renamed — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are unchanged. And “Meta” is a good name for an umbrella organization, even if they drop their VR ambition entirely.
Post reply on HN