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SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

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Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#131
post #27

This is not Meta demanding to see some privilege information that exists in Simula's drawers, but rather commandeering the entire competing organization to do market research for Meta. It is clever and evil, and nothing anybody says after this will make me think that Meta is not anti-competitive nor that they have an once of ethics. As a consumer, I doubt I will ever again consider their VR products; I rather give my…

> nor that they have an once of ethics It still find it odd that people think large corporations actively engage in ethics in any other capacity than for PR and manipulating public opinion. I have never in my life seen anything other than the smallest of private companies make a decision based on "ethical" reasons where there was a competing financial reason. Can you recall, over your entire career, where a product d…

> Can you recall, over your entire career, where a product decision was made for ethical (rather than purely PR or legal) reasons?

Yes, because I made them.

As a nation built on capitalism, it is those who are able to influence the decisions of corporations that bear the burden and responsibility of the decisions made by those corporations. Whether those individuals are held accountable or not is irrelevant to the fact that ethics certainly ought to be considered for any individual involved who believes themselves to be "acting ethically".

I've worked hard in my career to get a seat at the table where those decisions are made because I recognize that is a place where good can be done, at scale.

We should hold ourselves, and capitalism, to higher standards. And for those of us who are leaders, whether that is a small start-up or a major conglomerate, we are responsible for creating an environment where ethical decisions can be made.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#132
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a subpoena from a legal team, NOT a court. You are free to write “we don’t know” for much of the questions or even write “too burdensome to answer”. Such subpoenas have little teeth. Hire a lawyer for a few hours to confirm what I say since I’m some random internet guy.

From the article: We've also been commanded to drop everything we're doing and go tesify on these matters _in person_, thousands of miles away from us, by the stated deadline :| So it's not just a matter of writing "we don't know". They have to produce a lot of material and then travel 1000's of miles to show up in the court in person.

These specific people are being compelled to do that or the company is being compelled to show up in person? Those are wildly different demands. I find it hard to believe that specific productive employees of the company are being compelled to show up in court rather just some hired legal representatives of the company.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#133
Maybe I've just been on a too-long coding stretch, but speaking for myself, it's just really unsavory to read so much "red/blue"-style sloganism around the big tech companies. Obviously I'm biased because I worked for one, and so I saw up close the process that produces the decisions that seem to routinely generate comment threads with people comparing Google/FB/MSFT/etc. to e.g. "Satan".

It's just not that simple folks: and a hallmark of why this forum is great is that we tackle "not that simple" with a relentless curiosity rather than 1-bit generalizations.

I routinely whack these megacorps for their shady dealings. But this "Marg bar Āmrikā" shit is an unflattering look for such a thoughtful community and it ignores that huge parts of this community are a direct personal object of very nasty remarks made "in general" on a fairly daily basis.

People are quite pleased to enjoy the corporate funding of all the open-source projects that wouldn't exist without the megacorps: try saying something bad about Kubernetes if you don't believe me.

It's not a 1-bit thing, and Hacker News is Hacker News because when people (and I've been that guy) throw rocks, we demand better.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#134
post #70

If this is actually how US's justice system works it is even more bonkers than I thought. Could someone versed in this legal system explain, please? Is is any accused that can demand documents/data/free research from vaguely related third parties, or only large companies? Enquiring minds want to know!

If one is accused of antitrust practices (as Meta is by the FTC), your defense is to show that there's actually competition. It's not that Meta that wants the documents for corporate espionage (or whatever), but that they want to prove that SimulaVR is competing just fine in the market that contains Meta. This is explained in the article, which many here clearly didn't read past the headline. This is roughly the same…

But by doing this, they are inadvertently showing that a company like SimulaVR cannot compete in this space, as the small team in charge of actually doing some work now has to devote its time to take care of this.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still skeptical that it is The Next Big Thing. I wonder if Zuckerberg suspects it might not be as well but, hey, Hail Mary!

My bet would be more on AR than VR, and maybe it's not the next big thing but the big thing after the next one. But that's fine for Meta. Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp might all be running out of growth, but they are all big enough that Meta can afford to invest in something that will only pay off in a decade or two, as long as the payoff is big enough. Gaming-VR headsets are just a good way to get the technology…

You can argue that Meta is at the very head of the pack with AR.

See this demo of Quest Pro pass-through AR: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/xvzxj2/new_footage_...

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#137
post #27

This is not Meta demanding to see some privilege information that exists in Simula's drawers, but rather commandeering the entire competing organization to do market research for Meta. It is clever and evil, and nothing anybody says after this will make me think that Meta is not anti-competitive nor that they have an once of ethics. As a consumer, I doubt I will ever again consider their VR products; I rather give my…

Eyeroll . Meta did nothing wrong here. This isn't them going after their competition; they're the defendant in this lawsuit. As the article says: > In fairness to Meta: the FTC is the one who initiated this fight, leaving them with the burden of demonstrating it isn't behaving "anti-competitively". So naturally, one of the primary (only?) things Meta can do to demonstrate this is to subpoena...well...its competition.…

Facebook is very much the aggressor -- in response to the FTC suit, their immediate response was to try and use the courts to strong-arm hundreds of competitors into giving up massive troves of highly sensitive commercial secrets without any kind of formal protection, such as limiting document review to FB's outside counsel. It's ridiculous, it's abusive, it's overbroad, and it's transparently an effort to burden Facebook's competitors while snowing the FTC with massive amounts of paper.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#138
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there are plenty of instances of companies that have gone under when a big parent company decides to incorporate your business as a 'feature' in part of their big monster product. I'm not saying it's going to definitely happen and the company is doomed or anything, it's certainly possible that SimulaVR will come out on top for productivity devices (or peacefully coexist as an alternative alongside Meta's offering…

Of course anything Meta does is a bit worrisome. I just don't think we're in the same niche-- IMO Meta is fundamentally built on data collection, and VR is just a side effect. Unless Meta decides to abandon that, I think we'll have a niche.

This is similar to saying "Facebook is fundamentally built on data collection, and social networking is just a side effect." Technically true, but not much consolation for all the social networks that didn't go all in on advertising and perished.

Wish you the best of luck either way, this is an exciting area and more competition is great. They definitely are competition though.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#139
post #70

If this is actually how US's justice system works it is even more bonkers than I thought. Could someone versed in this legal system explain, please? Is is any accused that can demand documents/data/free research from vaguely related third parties, or only large companies? Enquiring minds want to know!

If one is accused of antitrust practices (as Meta is by the FTC), your defense is to show that there's actually competition. It's not that Meta that wants the documents for corporate espionage (or whatever), but that they want to prove that SimulaVR is competing just fine in the market that contains Meta. This is explained in the article, which many here clearly didn't read past the headline. This is roughly the same…

What happens if SimulaVR tells these lawyers to pound sand? I cannot imagine if I ran a small buisness and I was the victim of this how I would afford it.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nor that they have an once of ethics It still find it odd that people think large corporations actively engage in ethics in any other capacity than for PR and manipulating public opinion. I have never in my life seen anything other than the smallest of private companies make a decision based on "ethical" reasons where there was a competing financial reason. Can you recall, over your entire career, where a product d…

> Can you recall, over your entire career, where a product decision was made for ethical (rather than purely PR or legal) reasons? Yes, because I made them. As a nation built on capitalism, it is those who are able to influence the decisions of corporations that bear the burden and responsibility of the decisions made by those corporations. Whether those individuals are held accountable or not is irrelevant to the fa…

>it is those who are able to influence the decisions of corporations that bear the burden and responsibility

This is an interesting idea, and I agree that it would be great if it were true, but it’s not, and I don’t think it’s ever been. Those who make decisions for corporations don’t bear any burden; everyone else does.

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