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The metaverse is bullshit

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Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#191

Post by veltas »

Zanni wrote: post #176
dandotway wrote: post #71

Text is mightier than the Metaverse. Kids can do video calls with their smartphones but prefer texting. We could discuss Hacker News stories with video chat but we prefer text. News and politics junkies prefer reading text tweets on Twitter to watching talking news anchors. Once upon a time Amazon was a company that only sold books. Dried ink on dead trees. And in the early internet age this book seller outperformed…

Kids prefer messaging because it's asynchronous, not because they prefer text.

And because they can do it discretely, i.e. in class or bed.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#192

Post by ChainOfFools »

Jasper_ wrote: post #136
kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Second Life, you could create islands with their own rules, for example you could create a car racing game. Then when you enter the game, you can not fly around while you play the game. It really was very interesting, and amazing how many things people created in a very short time span.

You might not know this, but Second Life was not, uh, a wide success. And Second Life is the one we remember from that era. There are dozens of these metaverse things from the mid-90s through the 2000s, none of which achieved the notoriety anywhere near Second Life. Off the top of my head: Sony's SAPARi / Community Place (1994), ActiveWorlds.com (1995), There.com (1998), Habbo Hotel (2000), myCoke (2002), Google Live…

how come nobody is mentioning the inevitable cancer that kills every metaverse given enough time: griefers.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#193

Post by notafraudster »

lottin wrote: post #139
shafyy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the connection between NFTs and using real money to pay for Fortnite skins?

The connection is that both are instances of people paying real money for imaginary goods. I don't know how I feel about that, but intuitively it doesn't seem a smart thing to do.

But that's been a thing in videos for at least 30 years -- expansion packs shipped on disc for a long time -- and a common thing in almost the modern form since 2006 (Elder Scrolls Oblivion adds cosmetic-only horse armor to game for $2, online purchase only).

If you think NFTs add to that the ability to resell as a hedge against initial purchase price, then Valve added a player driven market to TF2 in 2012, the same year Blizzard added the real money auction house.

If you think NFTs add the ability to use content across games, Metal Gear Solid had features involving reading other game save files in 1998, Nintendo Amiibo launched in 2014, and Steam also allows for this via player inventories.

If you think NFTs add the ability to cash out for real money, that's been possible via external third party sites in TF2 since 2013, and analogously for real money gold sales in World of Warcraft since about 2004.

There are ways in which all of the examples above are not totally perfect and/or are more technically clunky than the vision of what this looks like in 5-10 years, but qualitatively more or less every feature of NFTs already exists in various forms over the last 20 years, in some cases all in the same product.

If the Segway was invented and the inventor cited Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov as influences, but had never heard of or wasn't willing to talk about scooters, vespas, skateboards, or cars, that'd be a huge red flag, even if you think that Segways add a bit of value.

So I think the parent's question is still pretty well taken -- what's the connection between the thing everyone's been willing to do for 20 years and the thing that's alleged to be new and different?

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#194

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Jasper_ wrote: post #74
modeless wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why the heck am I driving a car around? I can fly, can't I? By this logic nobody should play Gran Turismo because a Superman game exists. > You can't test legroom or the seat cushions, because your avatar doesn't don't have a body. So I don't see how you can realistically sell an actual real-world car, because isn't most of its function and design unnecessary in the metaverse? By this logic it's pointless to make a…

I'd say a sizable majority play Gran Turismo because it's a fun test of skill -- learning the controls of an intricate machine, the layout of the game's tracks, and achieving some form of mastery over it. And I'm also sure some people play it for the fantasy of doing car racing in a safe environment, which is a very dangerous, expensive, and inaccessible sport for a lot of people. So, perhaps I misread Tim Sweeney's…

>Tim Sweeney is basically saying "hey, look, this is the future, you can put your car in a video game" to Mercedes, who has already been doing this for years.

I think the idea is that the Metaverse will give you as close to the real experience of being in that specific car as possible, a video game won't do that because any car placed in a video game must be subservient to the goals and mechanics of the game.

The reason that giving you the real experience of being in a specific car is bullshit for marketing purposes is that you can see hardly anyone markets cars based on what it will actually be like to use them and of course because except for a few outliers using any specific car is the same as using pretty much every other car built in a similar time frame.

on edit: meaning every other car serving the same market segment of course.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#195

Post by input_sh »

emodendroket wrote: post #157
swiftcoder wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth does the NFT part add here? WoW can add unique, auctionable items at any time using their existing tech. It's already a centralised platform, so decentrilisation doesn't add much...

That's really my question with almost everything related to crypto, "what is decentralization actually adding here?" It's cool, I guess, but it's wasteful.

The only argument I've heard is the ability to transfer items between games, but that leads me to more questions than answers.

Why would an asset designed for one game make sense or look good or feel at home in a completely different one?

Why would companies make one of them and sell it for a million bucks instead of trying to convince more players to buy it in a shop for two bucks?

Is the mechanic of a weapon gonna adjust to the new game when you import it or stay the same? If it stays the same, it's gonna be exploit galore. If it changes, well then, what's the point? Gonna be the same AK-47 as everyone else's, but this tiny sticker on it that nobody's gonna pay attention to is unique!

Even if we pretend this is somehow a promising field, why even use NFTs and make each one a couple of pixels different instead of making a common one, selling it for like $50, buyers get a file in whichever format is agreed upon, and import them in the settings.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#196

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

This may be the best sentence I've read in roughly a decade:

"But Tim Sweeney and Mark Zuckerberg don't see themselves as pizza mob bosses."

Also reminded of Laurie Anderson:

"Heaven is exactly like where you are right now. But much, much better."

In the same way Capitalism is based on the Protestant Work Ethic (see: Max Weber) the Metaverse is based on a kind of evangelical eschatology, where the imperfections of the real world will be transcended by techno-utopianism.

Something is always being transcended in these fantasies. But unfortunately this turns into denial of reality and refusal to engage with it in an adult way.

"Let's all live in a shared delusion where the physical world doesn't matter."

t's almost literally la la land.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#198

Post by ikr678 »

didibus wrote: post #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 simila…

The tech quality developing is all well and good, but I dont see in these discussions much consideration to how much space you need clear for immersive VR. If Facebook want this to scale for private use, they need to solve for housing first.

I've played a few VR games at friends places, and unless they had the luxury of a spare room for it it's a pain in the ass to create space.

I dont see this taking off beyond the affluent first world for this reason, and even then, most first world countries have much smaller housing than the US - The average UK household is less than half the sqft of the US.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#200

Post by Ekaros »

Zanni wrote: post #176
dandotway wrote: post #71

Text is mightier than the Metaverse. Kids can do video calls with their smartphones but prefer texting. We could discuss Hacker News stories with video chat but we prefer text. News and politics junkies prefer reading text tweets on Twitter to watching talking news anchors. Once upon a time Amazon was a company that only sold books. Dried ink on dead trees. And in the early internet age this book seller outperformed…

Kids prefer messaging because it's asynchronous, not because they prefer text.

Now here is free startup idea: Instant messaging of vines or tiktoks. Just send videos of your messages to your friends or groups. Maybe even try to replace twitter... Probably 3 different apps really...
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