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The metaverse is bullshit

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Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#112
post #20
post #9

> "The metaverse is bullshit because it already exists, and it's called the internet > Being 'inside' a virtual world was never really the important part" Well, the facebook keynote presents a compelling argument how social interaction with VR can be more meaningful than through a 2D screen in many situations. However, what IS bullshit, is the display of obviously fake demonstrations with highly experimental and expe…

What’re you talking about? You can make a low end VR headset out of a $100 smartphone and a $5 plastic box today 5-10 years after VR starts to really take off, you’ll be able to get a decent standalone VR headset for $200 or less. They’ll probably be cheaper to make than laptops or TVs in the long run because of the smaller displays.

> You can make a low end VR headset out of a $100 smartphone and a $5 plastic box today

That's not low end VR, it's pain and frustration from knowing you just wasted 105 bucks.

It sounds to me like you never tried a setup like this. Because in reality you mainly spend time adjusting the lenses because focus is so bad you can't even tell which setting is better. The pixel grid is so huge that reading any form of text (like menus) is near impossible. The latency is bad and your view constantly drifts over time because the phone sensors don't cut it, so you better sit on a rotating chair. Oh, and if you've all that covered somehow you'll realize mediocre VR video players and bad rollercoaster demos are pretty much the best phone VR can offer.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#113
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How am I going to have a video chat while I wear VR goggles covering half my face?

Avatars and eye-tracking. https://www.oculus.com/workrooms/

Maybe I'm old, but I don't see what advantage this has over video conferencing unless the focus of the discussion is on things - like documents, schematics, or 3d models - rather than people.

Avatars would feel like creepy cartoons because your brain knows the voice of the person but your eyes see a cartoon image.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#115
post #52

> In a September 2021 Washington Post interview, Tim Sweeney imagined the future of advertising. "A carmaker who wants to make a presence in the metaverse isn't going to run ads," he said. "They're going to drop their car into the world in real time and you'll be able to drive it around. And they're going to work with lots of content creators with different experiences to ensure their car is playable here and there,…

I wonder if this has it backwards.

Cars are a symbol of status and people will want to have that status wherever they are - look at how much people will pay for a skin in Fortnite.

I think it’s more likely car manufacturers (the expensive ones) will only let you drive their car in the metaverse if you buy it for real in the real world.

If this metaverse really does come to pass, it will be just as (if not more) valuable as a place to be than the real world.

I know that sounds mad to most of us, but by the time it happens we’ll all be 10 years older and not the main market for it anymore. Everyone else will have grown up paying for Fortnite skins and NFTs and it will all seem a lot more… normal.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#116
post #77

So far, we have three basic "metaverse" approaches. 1. Augmented reality, that is, overlays on the real world. A cross between Pokemon Go and Google Glass. The Facebook version of this would probably look like that "Hyperreality" video I mention too often. This is all too likely to happen, if only to free up the hands of people who walk through the world staring at their phones. John Carmack expects it as soon as the…

I'm guessing by that Hyperreality video you mean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs – it's not nearly mentioned enough!

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#117

Let me be honest: the metaverse may or may not be bullshit. But the Zuck is a doer. Y’all are talkers. Your opinion counts for as much as it did back when you cheered FB down to $13. Y’all don’t have a clue. Blind men trying to describe why color doesn’t matter. Less memory than a nomad. No insight. Lame.

Zuck stole one idea, a good idea, and ran with it. Everything since has been damage control, copying, and buying. Zuck is a determined person at the right place at the right time. Nothing wrong with that. But a 'doer' or even idea guy? We'll see.

Yeah yeah and Elon Musk is a PR guy, Bill Gates couldn’t code his way out of a paper bag, Steve Jobs taped four iPhones together and made a (max)iPad lolz etc etc

Zero information content article.

Ideas can’t be stolen, man. They can only be copied.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#118
post #52

> In a September 2021 Washington Post interview, Tim Sweeney imagined the future of advertising. "A carmaker who wants to make a presence in the metaverse isn't going to run ads," he said. "They're going to drop their car into the world in real time and you'll be able to drive it around. And they're going to work with lots of content creators with different experiences to ensure their car is playable here and there,…

Roblox will be looked back upon as the MS-DOS of metaverses, yet people go gaga over any vehicle you can make. They (mostly kids) spend an absurd amount of hours just jumping from one place to another to prove they can without falling. They spend real money just to turn their hat a new color. Entire genres of games and activities exist basically to just move around, jump on a few things, see numbers get bigger, and see things change colors.

With all that, I truly think yes... people absolutely will drive a car in VR.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#119
I think the only BS is the way we.all talk about this stuff, same way the cloud is all hyped up.

AR and VR are great tech, when it gets good enough that it's a simple comfortable accessory to wear, and it incurs no strain on your eyes, it'll definitely find many uses.

And for sure we'll pursue the tech for better full body tracking, walking in-place, simulated touch, and all that, and if all that one day works similarly well, you can bet lots of people will start using it all too.

So now imagine you have this tech all figured out, what would the software look like? Obviously you're talking 3D UX, logically you'll start building virtual worlds to inhabit, eventually you'd want some things to if possible transfer from one app to another, and where all apps are virtual 3D spaces that might mean some of that stuff needs to transfer over.

It can even be simple things, if I can now whiteboard virtually, and use my own hand writing on the board, and now I'm in another app, and I'd like to pull up that whiteboard I did? This is equivalent to say Slack letting you send photos or files over.

I don't think any of this is far-fetched, it is just a matter of getting the tech to a point where it is easy, comfortable, convenient and all around pleasant to use.

Now calling it all a Metaverse, that's in the same league as calling a bunch of remote servers the Cloud.

And yes, the article is right, we all have this stuff already, but we have it in 2D, using 2D interfaces like flat monitors, stereo sound, physical keyboards and mouse. Now you're talking what if we had a surround 3D monitor? Surround 3D sound? Full body tracking with milimeter precision? You'd just take all we currently have and upgrade it to be full surround 3D as well. That's all it is.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#120
post #94

The Metaverse is definitely bullshit. It will fail for the same reason that Amazon never managed to beat Barnes & Noble, that the internet failed to become popular, and that nobody ever bought a PC. Just ridiculous.

Strange view of the world. Everything someone wants to succeed will succeed? You could come up with magnitudes more ideas that failed than succeeded, just because that's how the world works.

But I guess some rich assholes pushing it makes it more legitimate.

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