The metaverse is bullshit • Hacker News Board

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#411

Post by danaris » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:13 PM UTC

wruza wrote: post #171

This thread feels like 1860's consilium on what future will look like 500 years later. The shape of the metaverse will be formed by a new generation, not by older guys (and not by fortnite addicts who play by the rules of the former) who know nothing better than drive a fancy “car” on the “road”, as if roads or a concept of physical movement or the euclidean rule would still be there for common use and not for museum…

> The shape of the metaverse will be formed by a new generation

Even this begs the question.

Why do people take it as a given that there will be a "metaverse"?

I mean, personally, I think that a genuinely interoperable, decentralized VR/AR infrastructure would be pretty neat—I have no idea if it would solve any specific real-world problems, but "decentralized and interoperable" is a world better than the systems we've got in the current internet.

But...that's just the thing. Where's the incentive to make it genuinely interoperable and decentralized, especially for a company like Facebook? They want things to be under their control, so they can mine them for data and sell ads on them.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#412

Post by civilized » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

wokwokwok wrote: post #43

the good news is that the metaverse and the tech industry's very expensive obsession with trying to make it a reality will be a schadenfreude generator the likes of which we've never seen before The tech landscape is littered with failed attempts, but we have here two very technically successful companies, Epic and Facebook, both trying to re-imagine the internet as something different. I'm not sure I'd write them of…

Substitute "blood tests" for "internet" here and you've got what a lot of people said about Theranos in 2014.

Big wigs with lots of money can't be wrong!

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#413

Post by smallerfish » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

Jasper_ wrote: 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,…

Back in the early 90s (late 80s?) Ford published a lame video game promoting (I think) the Mustang. It had a minimal feature walkthrough (now featuring 6 speakers!), terrible graphics, and a very limited driving simulator that was about as exciting as watching paint dry. The Metaverse version would no doubt look a lot better, but it'd be no more real than Ford's early attempt. Maybe as adware it'd be functional at selling some units, but only with people who were already invested enough in Ford to be able to engage with their ad.

I'm also reminded of the US military's funding of FPS games like America's Army (and at least involvement in Call of Duty) as recruiting tools.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#414

Post by theelous3 » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

spacelamb wrote: post #402

bsenftner wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine being Zuck? Super rich for basically creating the global gossip exchange and fraud factory, and he knows this, he knows Facebook is a clusterfuck of misinformation chaos. And he probably knows he is surrounded by yes people... I wonder if he knows he is in a nightmare.

I don't think it's a nightmare because he has choice and a fair amount of power. He could quietly retire comfortably if he wanted to, but instead he's making the play to reorient his company around a virtual-reality space. That sounds like a motivated person, versus someone trapped and going through the motions.

It's not always so obvious when you are trapped. How can we say he is acting truly freely, versus digging deeper?

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#415

Post by ianai » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:19 PM UTC

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…

“News and politics junkies prefer reading text tweets on Twitter to watching talking news anchors.”

I’m not sold on this. Twitter is more of a mechanism for group totalitarianism than productive conversation.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#416

Post by mox111 » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

I think that a lot of the cynicism about this space comes from theorisers who have not yet tried VR for themselves and experienced viscerally + emotionally for themselves, the fact that it is a total game-changer for work and play.

The thing with this space is, enough smart people are sufficiently excited by this new media and working on realising its potential, that it will inevitably end up producing value that can’t be ignored.

Large swathes of smart people who see unrealised possibilities will always win out against individuals who only see impossibilities.

Whenever I see a failure to appreciate the potential of new media, I’m reminded of this conversation between Jeremy Paxman (British journalist) and David Bowie when they were talking about the internet back in the 90s. https://youtu.be/LaHcOs7mhfU?t=297

“The internet… it’s just a tool though isn’t it” ?

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#417

Post by sundvor » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #115

Jasper_ wrote: 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) valua…

Caveat, I haven't really read up in depth on their renaming to a html tag element. So: I don't know about all of that, but on this topic of virtual cars and such I've got a bit of knowledge.

I've already paid a lot of money for a number of high quality car models I can drive quite accurately on high quality race track scans with lots of other people in iRacing.

These are works of love, and I greatly appreciate that the interest in iRacing has boomed as much as it has since I joined the Papyrus guys' latest offering in 2008.

Heck, soon I'll even be able to connect a real BMW M4 racing wheel to my sim setup, adding more $$$$s yet also more realism to a setup already deep my the investment path; I just don't see the use case for "having cars" in or whatever if it's only going to be window dressing; I mean, what's the point, unless we enter the fidelity of e.g. iRacing. So I can't see "meta" competing with them at all unless they either buy it (and they wouldn't; it's far too hardcore) or a competitor.

I can see the value of motorsport companies investing in esports, however, as the newest generation of F1 drivers have their roots in that and e.g. karts - which enables a connection to the fanbase hitherto impossible. Would they find value in giving lots of money to MetaFace instead? Time will tell; it'll be interesting to see what eventuates from all of this. First impressions are pretty much Candy Crush in VR - with all the spam you could possibly tolerate, and then some. (No thanks.)

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#418

Post by lordloki » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

mox111 wrote: post #416

I think that a lot of the cynicism about this space comes from theorisers who have not yet tried VR for themselves and experienced viscerally + emotionally for themselves, the fact that it is a total game-changer for work and play. The thing with this space is, enough smart people are sufficiently excited by this new media and working on realising its potential, that it will inevitably end up producing value that can…

Even the 13-25 year old males who are excited about this will tire of VR quickly. VR is comparable to 3-D movies and televisions, exciting the first few times you try it but once the novelty fades you just don't care enough about it.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#419

Post by ruffrey » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:39 PM UTC

> John Carmack called metaverse development as it exists today "a honeypot trap for architecture astronauts," aka "programmers or designers who want to only look at things from the very highest levels."

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#420

Post by mox111 » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

lordloki wrote: post #418

mox111 wrote: post #416

I think that a lot of the cynicism about this space comes from theorisers who have not yet tried VR for themselves and experienced viscerally + emotionally for themselves, the fact that it is a total game-changer for work and play. The thing with this space is, enough smart people are sufficiently excited by this new media and working on realising its potential, that it will inevitably end up producing value that can…

Even the 13-25 year old males who are excited about this will tire of VR quickly. VR is comparable to 3-D movies and televisions, exciting the first few times you try it but once the novelty fades you just don't care enough about it.

Sounds like you're speaking from experience here, so it's not for me to tell you you're wrong to feel that way.

But from my POV, we've started using VR for work meetings/social gatherings (we're a remote company, myself in Spain, the majority in SF), and we've been able to achieve a level of rapport with each-other that's just not possible via a webcam.

We will definitely continue to use it.