Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

simulavr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 478 posts

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#151

Post by gpm »

hulitu wrote: post #117
Bloedcoin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Google still provides android, Google maps, Gmail for free. World changing at it's time still helping people around the globe. Their research blog is fantastic and shows what they value. Google Io focus on people and security and trust. Google is much further away from evil than plenty of other companies. Did they kill stadia? Yes. Did actually anyone care? No. Because stadia didn't matter anyway.

> Google still provides android, Google maps, Gmail for free. I paid for the phone and they are still collecting my data. For me this is not free.

> I paid for the phone and they are still collecting my data.

You paid for the phone, not for the google services.

You're free to use non-google services on android. Moreover open street map, and numerous other email clients, exist - it's even a practical choice.

> For me this is not free.

No comment on this portion

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#152

Post by georgewsinger »

benreesman wrote: post #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 fo…

I agree, and just want to reiterate what was written in the article: we genuinely feel no animosity towards Meta and its gaming headsets. We don't even feel animosity that they have leveraged their economies of scale to provide them very cheaply to consumers (something we aren't able to do yet[1]). We just disagree with their product vision, and are pursuing our own. We also think subpoenaing us for this case seems unreasonable.

[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/why-is-the-simula-one-so-expensive...

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#153

Post by Ajedi32 »

HillRat wrote: post #137
Ajedi32 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Fac…

What would you have had them do instead? Again:

> naturally, one of the primary (only?) things Meta can do to demonstrate this is to subpoena...well...its competition...to demand documents which might help them in court

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#154

Post by whateveracct »

nailer wrote: post #143

Off topic but their product seems awesome - VR computers specifically designed for coding, including displaying small text, running Linux, etc. Beats working from a coding laptop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x293SiEdv4M&t=25s

It really is - and on the topic of "competition"..

Meta is not a competitor to Simula and honestly never will be because they will never give you Freedom to run Linux and hack to your heart's content.

But Simula is a competitor to Meta in that their existence gives people like me a serious (non-toy) VR headset they'd actually buy. So the reason Meta has competition from Simula is because they're terrible from a consumer-privacy and -respect perspective.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#155

Post by time_to_smile »

trasz wrote: post #140
sophrocyne wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Parent also conveniently states:

> Whether those individuals are held accountable or not is irrelevant

This is actually a perfect example of the point I was making. "I want the benefits of participating in an ethical system but don't want the consequences".

This is why people claim that corporations behave like sociopaths.

A bear (from my example), isn't a sociopath, because it doesn't expect moral behavior from you, nor does it expect to benefit from moral behavior applied to it. A bear is perfectly amoral. A bear may cause you harm, and you may harm a bear, you might feel bad you had to kill a bear, but the bear will not be concerned either way with your ethical system, it simply wants to eat and live.

A sociopath on the other hand takes advantage of moral asymmetry, expecting you to treat it like a person when you interact with it (for example showing mercy for its trespasses), but wanting to be free to act like a bear in regards to serving its own ends.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#156

Post by ehnto »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #62
Raed667 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark wants to be able to sell apps and ads on his end-to-end controlled platform, that is it. He missed the boat on browsers and smartphones, so he is aiming for total monopoly of what he believes is the next-big-thing™.

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!

It's a very different experience to how we currently consume media, and I am not really sure it has mass appeal even with some kind of perfect execution. I am prepared to be totally wrong mind you.

It's an incredible tool and way to engage with virtual worlds, but the question we should be asking isn't "Is VR technology good enough" which I think people get stuck on. Really the question is "Does everyone want to be in a virtual world regularly?" and my intuition having spent a good amount of time in VR is that the answer to that is actually no.

I love video games, so much so that I even try to make them. I spend many hours playing in virtual worlds, but I very, very rarely want to use VR. I'm the perfect candidate for the technology, and it's honestly mindblowing when I do use it, but it's just not a casual experience. Even if we had the perfect, unobtrusive and lightweight technology, you are still choosing to disconnect from your current environment and spend time fully engaged with a different world in a way that games and TV don't. That can be really exhausting.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#157

Post by benreesman »

georgewsinger wrote: post #152
benreesman wrote: post #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 fo…

I agree, and just want to reiterate what was written in the article: we genuinely feel no animosity towards Meta and its gaming headsets. We don't even feel animosity that they have leveraged their economies of scale to provide them very cheaply to consumers (something we aren't able to do yet[1]). We just disagree with their product vision, and are pursuing our own. We also think subpoenaing us for this case seems u…

I suspect that with all such things, that a hacker's opinion on the relevant law is probably `/r/ConfidentlyIncorrect`.

I have no opinion on the substantial legal matters at question. It's been my observation that the ranking folks at Meta in the VR world are as ethical as fiduciary obligation permits, but YMMV.

I thank you for your reply and hope that you agree that a substantial legal matter which will inevitably be resolved by people competent to do so shouldn't become a political football in a small but influential forum of people who on average know as little about IP law as I do :)

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#158

Post by danielmarkbruce »

I'm not a lawyer but: you can get all this stuff done in an hour. It's not an exercise in creating new material. You pull all the documents you already have on stuff like this, and anything you don't have you can say you don't have.

When you appear and are asked, give a short, high level but honest description of the industry - it's pretty simple really - "it's early stages, there are a number of players, Meta is the big dog as it currently stands."

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#159

Post by crmd »

M4v3R wrote: post #124
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #119

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.

When I read the pompous first sentence of a US subpoena “COMMANDING” the recipient to do something, I like to think of it as a direct order from Vigo the Carpathian[0]

[0] https://gfycat.com/forthrightredfurseal

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#160

Post by Kiro »

benreesman wrote: post #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 fo…

I think you're giving HN too much credit. Threads involving certain topics (e.g. big tech) are completely overrun with snark and hate that I don't see much of the relentless curiosity you're talking about.
Post reply on HN