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Re: Meta

#51

Post by stevofolife »

AlexandrB wrote: post #38
seph-reed wrote: post #7

Nice article. It's amazing how much bike-shedding there is here around the name and logo, and how little capacity most have for what these changes actually mean. Meta is going full in on the metaverse... so that's going to be hitting some critical mass fairly soon (less than a decade). And that's nuts. We should take this time to enjoy living before that moment. Who knows what changes it will bring, but surely enough…

> Meta is going full in on the metaverse... so that's going to be hitting some critical mass fairly soon (less than a decade). That's a stretch. Tech history is littered with big companies who went hard on a technology only for their attempt to flop. See: Newton, Virtual Boy, Windows Phone, and most recently Google Stadia. There's also little reason to think that CEO Mark Zuckerberg of 2021 is as in-touch with the wh…

And there's also little reason to think that anyone on Hacker News is more in-touch than Zuckerberg of 2021 with what the public wants and the tech trends. Someone who owns Facebook and Instagram can identify the trend easier than you. Unless you also happen to have a platform of more than billion of users, then please share your thoughts about trends.

Re: Meta

#52

Post by handrous »

mrkramer wrote: post #42
Steltek wrote: post #35

Has a huge company ever rebranded themselves like this to a dream that they're so far away from delivering on? The Metaverse isn't an unfamiliar or abstract thing, it's well represented in movies and TV, and it's a pretty dramatic territory to claim: full sensory immersion in an infinite, interactive world. No one has gotten even a fraction of those things "right" and a social media company is gonna bet the farm on i…

I think VR/AR Metaverse will happen but it is decades away.

Most major tech companies seem to be betting that non-shit AR glasses aren't far off, and are prepping to be ready for that day 1.

Big VR bets makes less sense to me. AR is the next smartphone. VR is the next... TV or workstation monitor, and even then, only for some use cases. Just seems like a much smaller opportunity.

Re: Meta

#53

Post by codezero »

Steltek wrote: post #35

Has a huge company ever rebranded themselves like this to a dream that they're so far away from delivering on? The Metaverse isn't an unfamiliar or abstract thing, it's well represented in movies and TV, and it's a pretty dramatic territory to claim: full sensory immersion in an infinite, interactive world. No one has gotten even a fraction of those things "right" and a social media company is gonna bet the farm on i…

The one thing they might have done that is closer to a metaverse than just immersion though: creating a completely digital economy, where work inside the metaverse has value based on creating within the metaverse. Facebook has nailed the economic walled garden, so may have some good ideas for digitalizing people's work using VR/AR as a starting point.

Re: Meta

#54

Post by monkeybutton »

zamalek wrote: post #41
nemothekid wrote: post #28

Personally, I'm less bullish on FB/Meta now. Half of me believes if someone can turn it around it would be Zuck, and the other half believes that FB's culture has optimized the wrong the thing for the past 5 years. Consider this, and call me out if I'm wrong, for the past 5 years we were led to believe by FB/YouTube that algorithmically generated could only have negative consequences as it moved people to more and mo…

> betting against a company with such a huge war chest is like trying to catch a falling knife. Indeed. My biggest fear is that succeed. I happen to prefer PCs (and there is no reason to argue for or against that). Apple has been incredibly successful at capturing market share and their devices are now mandatory at my new job. I might not like it, but it's not the end of the world: Apple behaves ethically. Now imagin…

Here's hoping Microsoft's HoloLense takes off in the corporate world.

Re: Meta

#55

Post by jmknoll »

gear54rus wrote: post #50
zamalek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> betting against a company with such a huge war chest is like trying to catch a falling knife. Indeed. My biggest fear is that succeed. I happen to prefer PCs (and there is no reason to argue for or against that). Apple has been incredibly successful at capturing market share and their devices are now mandatory at my new job. I might not like it, but it's not the end of the world: Apple behaves ethically. Now imagin…

Apple behaves ethically with those file scanners on your devices? Iphone parts that show errors when replaced with the same parts from another phone? Lobbying against the right to repair? Blocking access to 3rd party app stores? lol. It's just marketing, nothing more.

Apple has certainly displayed some anti-consumer behavior. No one will argue with that. But not all sins are equal. Let's not say that blocking access to repair stores is the same thing as knowingly aiding and abetting genocide.

Re: Meta

#56

Post by Ninjinka »

Wow, so much negativity! I'm surprised to find that I am one of the few who was super inspired and excited by the keynote. Granted, I'm a VR/crypto fanboy, but it all just seemed like a move in the right direction.

Re: Meta

#57

Post by georgeglue1 »

nemothekid wrote: post #28

Personally, I'm less bullish on FB/Meta now. Half of me believes if someone can turn it around it would be Zuck, and the other half believes that FB's culture has optimized the wrong the thing for the past 5 years. Consider this, and call me out if I'm wrong, for the past 5 years we were led to believe by FB/YouTube that algorithmically generated could only have negative consequences as it moved people to more and mo…

I don't think I've gotten an actual misinformation / hate speech / etc. recommendation from Youtube, Facebook, or Tiktok.

On Facebook, I see potentially divisive posts from friends with very different political views. The difference with TikTok is that those friends don't post content.

I think if you explicitly seek out problematic content you can end in a rabbit hole on any large algorithmic app.

Re: Meta

#58

Post by threeseed »

gear54rus wrote: post #50
zamalek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> betting against a company with such a huge war chest is like trying to catch a falling knife. Indeed. My biggest fear is that succeed. I happen to prefer PCs (and there is no reason to argue for or against that). Apple has been incredibly successful at capturing market share and their devices are now mandatory at my new job. I might not like it, but it's not the end of the world: Apple behaves ethically. Now imagin…

Apple behaves ethically with those file scanners on your devices? Iphone parts that show errors when replaced with the same parts from another phone? Lobbying against the right to repair? Blocking access to 3rd party app stores? lol. It's just marketing, nothing more.

a) The CSAM scanning on your phone only happens if you specify that you want your photos to be uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. And if doesn't happen client-side then it simply happens server-side with less privacy and security.

b) iPhone parts showing errors issues was a bug that was already fixed and applied to TouchID security validation. If it's something new then it's almost guarenteed that this is a good thing i.e. you're trying to tamper/remove the biometrics components.

c) Apple's customers don't want 3rd party App Stores. It's not a computer to them but an appliance like a microwave. They want security, privacy, moderation, convenience and alternate stores trade those away for features e.g. flexibility, price that no one really wants.

Re: Meta

#59

Post by Terretta »

munk-a wrote: post #20

> Zuckerberg made a similar mistake last year, forcing Oculus users to login with their Facebook account, which not only upset Oculus users but also handcuffed products like Horizon Workrooms, Facebook’s VR solution for business meetings. IMO this point is just a single example of the pattern we've seen. Everything done at Facebook is to drive that network data even if it harms the individual component. That's why Me…

> stepping it back significantly with aliases and multi-account management tools

PdM: "Oh, users don't want one account? OK, let them make aliases they think are different, and log in that way. They won't realize it's all still one account, even when we show them their picture and list all these ~~aliases~~, er, "different accounts" they can log in as ..."

Users: "Yay, different accounts!"

Analytics: "Yay, one account!"

Advertisers: "Hey, thanks for tying even more of their identities together for me."

Re: Meta

#60

Post by ihumanable »

seph-reed wrote: post #29
mathgladiator wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think as technology goes more... meta, the more valuable reality will become. I can't help but thing of Duncan Trussell's quote: "Some poor, phoneless fool is probably sitting next to a waterfall somewhere totally unaware of how angry and scared he’s supposed to be." The way I see this playing out is that the metaverse is going to be for poor people while reality is enjoyed by those with resources for "all five sen…

> The way I see this playing out is that the metaverse is going to be for poor people while reality is enjoyed by those with resources for "all five senses". Given my experience in Alt Space thus far, I think there's a really good chance you're right.

I don't claim to know what exactly the metaverse will look like, but I remember the first time I put on an Oculus Quest.

The first experience you have is being dropped into your "home" and mine defaulted to a big mountain side house, warm wood, fireplace, massive window looking out into a beautiful valley.

It was virtual but convincing enough and I still sometimes enjoy just taking in the virtual view before or after playing a VR game.

I remember thinking it a bit odd, the actual world around me could be awful, but in here it was just good enough to trick my brain. Throw $10B at that experience and I'm curious to see what happens. Maybe a scarcity-free utopia where everyone can "live" in whatever beautiful environment they want to, maybe a dystopia where you get home and enter your unadorned concrete cube and plug in to your real home, needing just enough physical space to use the VR.

If they can ever get it fully jacked into your brain, I could see people just plugging in and never coming out.

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