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Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

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Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#111

Post by cma »

hervature wrote: post #76
frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. What people want is an escape from reality. "Just like" Ready Player One or anything from a wide choice of science fiction novels. The problem is that these systems require a fundamental disconnect from reality. Not only do w…

> but the obstruction of physical world signals is basically non-existent. If it were, then we wouldn't have people in chronic pain.

The key one, the vestibular system, is overridable non-invasively:

Galvanic vestibular stimulation https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_vestibular_stimulati...

Vision and sound covered too, though vision can get better with more res and variable focus. Sound can get better with 3d scanning for custom HRTF's matched to the user's ear shape and body (sound reflecting off shoulders etc.).

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#113

Post by havblue »

oldstrangers wrote: post #58
frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

Facebook was always doomed for failure, just like every social platform that came before it. The pivot should've happened years ago with a focus on Instagram and content creation (their shot at streaming was at least in the right direction). At this point, Facebook has simply waited entirely too long, and the likelihood of any pivot working for a company of their size is basically nonexistent.

It's hard to post to a platform when you know whatever you say that's controversial, or even whatever you say that becomes controversial, will follow you the rest of your life.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#114

Post by tempsy »

bornfreddy wrote: post #98
tempsy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean hard to leave a job where you’re getting paid hundreds of millions.

Does that still matter the second year and after that? In other words, is there a difference between having 100m and 200m? I would assume you can afford pretty much the same things with both of the amounts... (no first-hand experience)

sure it does

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#115

Post by chaostheory »

frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

I feel that you need to actually try out the Quest 2 before you pan it.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#116

Post by nickdothutton »

frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

Augmented reality will beat virtual reality.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#117

Post by justapassenger »

loceng wrote: post #101
throwaway3907 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta reported revenue of $27.9 billion in Q1 2022. They will continue making billions from ads for decades even if the metaverse play goes nowhere. But if you believe that VR/AR is going to eventually go mainstream then Meta is positioned to be a player in that market, even if it’s just a 2nd or 3rd place player that’s potentially billions in additional revenue.

Ads are the past.

Ads have been around for as long as we had economic activity as humans.

They’re past as much as selling is past.

Now, is their ads business strong enough to survive in more privacy aware world? That’s a different story.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#118

Post by haunter »

hervature wrote: post #76
frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. What people want is an escape from reality. "Just like" Ready Player One or anything from a wide choice of science fiction novels. The problem is that these systems require a fundamental disconnect from reality. Not only do w…

>What people want is an escape from reality.

I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. Like it's on mobile? That's all? Peak WoW _was_ a social network something Zuck is dreaming about (and that's while you also have to pay a monthly sub). I've read around and some people say that the difference people can _create content_ in Metaverse but... sandbox MMOs are also a thing for a long time (or just look at Minecraft/Roblox/Fortnite). Or the whole point just to attach your persona to your real name + Meta can monetize everything? But that still just sounds like some F2P korean MMO or a japanese gacha game.

Maybe there is more to that but to me at least 1, the Metaverse sounds more like a "vision" than an actual product (yet VR Chat already exist too if the main selling point is AR/VR) 2, if it's an actual product then it's an MMO reimagined for non-gaming "normal" people

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#119

Post by echelon »

hervature wrote: post #76
frisco wrote: post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. What people want is an escape from reality. "Just like" Ready Player One or anything from a wide choice of science fiction novels. The problem is that these systems require a fundamental disconnect from reality. Not only do w…

You need to check out "Metaverse Twitter". You're missing out on a lot of fascinating developments.

The field is in its "90's internet phase" right now. The tech is still immature, but is rapidly growing in capability and ambition.

Just like most people in the 90's had no idea how "internet" would be used, I think our ability to conceive of VR/AR/XR/metaverse is similarly myopic.

I would give it a 10-15 year timeline before it fully eats the world. But now is the time to build.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#120

Post by jmyeet »

Facebook has a view of the world on two axes: medium and audience. Audience here means if it's 1 to 1 (eg DMing) or 1 to 1,000,000 (eg Twitter). Format is seen as a progression: text -> audio -> video -> VR -> AR.

I personally am skeptical that VR will ever be anything other than a niche and there are lots of reasons for this. Most notably after 10-15 years it's still yet to find that "killer app".

My interpretation of this situation is that Facebook is directionless but this began years ago.

This was most evident when Facebook decided to try and moderate objective truth online in response to the misinformation that really went mainstream in the 2016 election and since only ballooned further. It's a noble-sounding goal but a thankless one that you will never succeed in. People will disagree on what it's true. Additionally, Facebook's DNA is to optimize for interactions and nothing generates interactions better than misinformation, hate and preaching to the choir.

The next misstep was to merge the online messaging platforms, probably to challenge the supremacy of iMessage. Nobody was happy about this. People don't actually want interoperability between FB Messenger, WhatsApp and IG Messaging.

Beyond this IG lost its streamlined production direction in service of propping up other products.

The Metaverse is just the latest iteration of an idea wildly hoping to find a product market fit. Many of us have read Snow Crash and VR is a common theme in sci-fi but I think it's just not going mainstream for a long time if ever.

So we can only read the tea leaves here about why Sandberg left. Chris Cox famously left (and later came back) and used words that seemed to indicate he wasn't energized about the company's direction (when that direction was fighting misinformation).

Sandberg obviously has generational wealth at this point so doesn't need to work. Is this departure a judgement on the direction of the Metaverse? It's really hard to say. But Sandberg is widely respected so this isn't a good outcome. It's even more interesting that she won't be replaced. I do wonder what the organizational impacts of this are.

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