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The metaverse is bullshit

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Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#391

Post by yyyk »

noduerme wrote: post #98
Jasper_ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have two cars - a 1980 Datsun and a Fiat Spider. They're both a "test of skill". There's no reason it wouldn't be massively fun to play with lots of other cars on tracks or in all kinds of conditions in VR. "Fun test of skill" is the whole point. The original, like, Stephenson-ish "metaverse" was somewhere people fought with swords . This was getting directly at the idea that skill and challenge were more valuable…

>how would that not be a great way to sell a car?

Because there's no guarantee that the experience is in any way comparable to the actual driving. It's in the manufacturer's interest to do the opposite. If the controls weren't standardized the simulation might have still been useful to learn the controls, but they are.

Besides, when AI cars come along the criterias will change completely. From driving experience to cost and comfort. That could be virtualized... but there wouldn't be much point in it.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#392

Post by [deleted] »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #155
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…

The metaverse goes against consumer trends in web browsing. People want to consume their information on the go while doing other things, this is why mobile presently dominates the web. Who wants to context switch from reality into a virtual world just so they can see what the new Ford pickup looks like? Nobody, thats who. This whole concept reads to make like a Facebook exec went into a coma just as Second Life was t…

[deleted]

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#393

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Back in the 90s we had the "metaverse" in the form of MUDs and MOOs. And they were text. I spent a lot of time in MOOs (LambdaMOO et al and various others) as a participant and a programmer and an advocate of them and a contributor to new servers, etc. And they were glorious and compelling, but maybe too compelling for some people.

But they were buried by the web. They wouldn't have scaled out anyways, but we were working on that. But they were mostly lost in time.

Ego-capitalists like Zuckerberg want to pilfer from that history and make something they control. The interesting parts of the Internet have been buried by things like Facebook which has offered a dumbed-down walled-in Internet where your uncle can act out his own virtual reality fantasy of ranting about Obama at the thanksgiving table all year long to an imaginary bottomless audience. Sigh.

I personally won't let VR goggles into my house. I'd like my teenagers to grow up without them.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#395

Post by tim333 »

dataexporter wrote: post #381
emilsedgh wrote: post #305

Metaverse is not bullshit. It's a sign of desperation. Facebook has _nothing_ for the future. * Blue app is already on it's death bed. * Instagram is already seeing a massive decline in quality and engagement as its getting close to the end of its lifecycle. * They managed to survive Snapchat, but I think that made them think Instagram is too big to fail. Thus, they didn't go after TikTok. It was a mistake. * What's…

Facebook did have a budding developer ecosystem back in late 2000s with game developers and app developers using Facebook's platform to build their businesses. While it did have tons of privacy issues and data leaks, they could have built it into a sustainable ecosystem instead of making endless changes forcing developers to leave their ecosystem.

Aw - I remember Cow Clicker. I wonder what happened to all that stuff.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#396

Post by civilized »

I firmly believe the metaverse is NFT-tier bullshit, but we should collectively recognize that whatever it is probably won't be for us HNers. We already don't understand why anyone would use Facebook. It's hard for us to intuit the likely future of products that are made for people who are not like us.

I was walking around the park a couple days ago, nursing a bit of neck pain, and I realized what I personally want. I want a Google Glass type side screen where I can develop software and analyze data with my brain while walking around the park. If the brain thing isn't in the cards, I'll put on motion-sensing gloves and use a virtual keyboard/trackpad.

That seems a lot easier than a fully immersive metaverse. So metaverse guys, let me know when you've got that one.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#397

Post by tim333 »

Yajirobe wrote: post #368
dustingetz wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook also has nothing better to spend the cash on – $60bn cash reserves in 2020 and revs are $120bn/yr growing at 30% y/y, what do you even do with that?

What is the income though? How much of that $120bn/yr is left?

$40bn which is still an awful lot. I can see punting on a VR metaverse could make sense if the spend is only 25% of their profits.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#398

Post by dada78641 »

What really baffles me is how handwavey proponents of the Metaverse are being about the technical challenges, and I'm glad the article brings this up.

It's pretty much unfathomable that you could build a standard that would allow for the kind of seamless interoperability that's being promised. You'd either end up with an outrageously complicated standard that's completely impractical to make use of, or you force people into a very stringent set of artificial limitations. That's assuming you are capable of tackling the unknown technical challenge that lies ahead, which is entirely in uncharted territory since no one has ever been stupid enough to try this.

Someone was telling me earlier about how in the Metaverse you could, for example, get a character skin for Fortnite and then use that in Roblox too. When I hear that the alarm bells start ringing. Even if we assume that this just works, and all issues related to implementation magically don't exist, Roblox looks absolutely nothing like Fortnite and any skin carried over from there will look totally out of place.

Actually, what if you have an avatar from a more adult oriented game and use it in a kids' game like Roblox? Is there gonna be a standard for what's acceptable that we should assume every vendor will follow to the letter?

But no worry, I'm told, this Metaverse annoucement just means they're going to start researching these problems and working on them from an architecture and standards viewpoint, and so the answers will eventually present itself. So, basically, this amounts to a promise to commit resources to an R&D project of unknown scope and duration to ROI, with largely uncrystallized use cases and exclusively commercial entities as arbiter of how the standards will look and lots of investor cash, all just so we can do things we can basically already do better with conventional technology at a significantly lower CO2 expenditure.

It's really nothing more than a giant investor cash sink that's going to keep a lot of people busy for decades and then fizzle out. Years later people might ask why the hell we ever fell for this nonsense, but we didn't: this is just how capitalism works now.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#399

Post by tim333 »

shafyy wrote: post #17

As the article says, it doesn't make sense to have a virtual world that replicates the real world where there is only one "spacetime" entity, so to speak. The author is right, the metaverse is already here and it's called the internet. I disagree with the author that I can see a lot of value in improved social interactions and virtual workspaces in VR once the technology gets there. You can already see glimpses of it…

The metaverse singular seems an odd concept. There will be all sorts of virtual worlds where you can socialise with other real people through VR avatars as there already are such as Second Life, World of Warcraft, Fortnite and so on. Also I guess Minecraft?

Whether Meta will be able to dominate the scene if the way they do photo sharing I dunno. Their demo video doesn't enthuse me (https://youtu.be/SAL2JZxpoGY).

I guess they may be able to work the network thing - I put my photos in insta/fb because thats where my friends/family are. But will I go on Meta to chat to mum? Probably not. I think text messaging/phone are fine for that.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#400

Post by corin_ »

roenxi wrote: post #278
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 rea…

> 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... The experience of driving a real car is heavily influenced by the real world. Take those little flap things cars sometimes have to shield your eyes from the sun - the metaverse will first have to simulate an annoyance (possibly with harmful eye-melting ultraviolet light?) then let you mi…

If it's either a selling point of the car enough that the manufacturer wants to demonstrate it accurately, or if it's something enough people care about and want to see which car suits them better, then a third party could create a simulation tool that let's you quickly go through dozens of different sun positions, weather conditions etc. and see how your personalised body shape will be positioned in each car including being able to adjust the virtual seat position, sun flaps, etc. to compare how you'll be affected by light in a different range of cars... it could be a useful feature? Hell, maybe it even extends to being able to choose the perfect custom flap size and positioning, to either get it added into a new car sale, or ordered as an after-market minor swap to improve your driving experience.
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