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A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

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Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#111

Post by CamperBob2 »

irrational wrote: post #102
b112 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it completely implausible that a huge amount of people would. But people already do. Email, Facebook, twitter, messaging, slack, all of it, is by no means real, human interaction. It is a step away from that. Some even say that this type of interaction is so fake, so filled with disinformation, and algorithmic monkeying, that it is toxic poison . Yet people will be with friends at a restaurant, or hanging out,…

None of those things you mentioned are an immersive virtual world, at least not by how I understand that concept.

Jaron Lanier made an incisive point many years ago. Someone asked him what virtual reality was. "Virtual reality is where you are when you're on the telephone."

I'd extend that to, "Virtual reality is where you are when you're not present in the here-and-now." That encompasses all forms of media, entertainment, and communication with people who aren't in the room with you. The idea that it has anything to do with goggles, 3D graphics, avatars, or Facebook is something some people made up.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#112

Post by irrational »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #111
irrational wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those things you mentioned are an immersive virtual world, at least not by how I understand that concept.

Jaron Lanier made an incisive point many years ago. Someone asked him what virtual reality was. "Virtual reality is where you are when you're on the telephone." I'd extend that to, "Virtual reality is where you are when you're not present in the here-and-now." That encompasses all forms of media, entertainment, and communication with people who aren't in the room with you. The idea that it has anything to do with gog…

I don’t think Lanier is right, regardless, virtual reality and immersive virtual world still sound like two different things.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#114

Post by dboreham »

nine_k wrote: post #80
fyrn_ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They own the mobile platforms because they blazed the trail as you put it. That was the prize they were competing for, Meta was late with the HTC First / Facebook phone, and so they lost. Of course they would have liked to own their own little mobile fiefdom, they are incredibly valuable platforms

I honestly don't think there is a room for a third commercial mobile platform, after Apple started the smartphone market, and Google caught up soon enough after. Even strong and entrenched players like Palm, Nokia (with Tizen) and even BlackBerry could not hold. In 2007, Facebook was way, way less mighty, and by 2012, it was late. Speaking of Windows Phone: it had great hardware and good, innovative software. It's Mi…

Apple didn't start the smartphone market. There were smartphones for many years prior to the iPhone.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#115

Post by neel8986 »

jjeaff wrote: post #31
neel8986 wrote: post #12

Meta is still a 600B company and large credit goes to Zukerberg. His insight into jumping to mobile at the very beginning, making critical acquisitions, relentlessly going to new geographies, investment in AI all played off. Every major company made mistake including Google ( Google Plus ), Microsoft ( Windows phone ) and apple ( entire 90s ). A company making mistake just means they are still taking risks and not sa…

It's easy to look like a visionary leader when people will rewrite history for you. Facebook was famously late to mobile and almost missed the boat. Luckily, they had the resources to plow into catching up around 2012.

I am talking about jumping to create a family of mobile apps that dominate the data day to day usage of mobile. They lost their chance of owning a mobile OS which they are suffering till now

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#116

Post by fuzzybiscuit »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #104
kibwen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to "outsource all of your thinking to experts" to understand that data is not the plural of anecdote. I, too, know people who met their future spouse online. However, after meeting online, they invariably meet in person before getting married, and then live together after getting married. Even the most plugged-in exemplars of the metaverse can't escape from the desire to interact outside of it.

recurring reminder - the original quote is "the plural of anecdote is data" http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...

that was an excellent read and dispelled the attempt to recast the phrases negation.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#117

Post by grumbel »

julianeon wrote: post #108
quantumwoke wrote: post #5

For me the big turning point at Meta was the acquisition of Oculus. At the time, it was great, forward-thinking and gave everyone a lot of hope for the future of Meta and even society if you believed the hype. This peaked at about 2020 when the opportunity for VR and remote work became real and necessary due to an unprecedented pandemic. However, we all know the rest; hyperfocus on VR to the detriment of the rest of…

Every time I see these numbers about how much Meta is losing per year on VR - 6 billion, 10 billion, etc. - I look up the valuation of Roblox. Answer: about 20 billion. They should’ve just acquired Roblox - for the price of WhatsApp! - and gotten unquestioned ownership of the leading young gamer audience, and a fully functioning “Metaverse” (if you want call it that), in one fell swoop. It sounds like they’ve already…

The issue with that is that Meta doesn't really want a younger audience. Quest2 is already extremely popular with kids, but Meta's "age 13" requirement for accounts doesn't allow many of them on their platform. Their Horizon Worlds "Metaverse" even had an age 18 limit for the last few years (seems to have been lifted in the US just days ago, still present in most other countries).

Killing the Oculus name was another bad choice here. They were on their way to become the new "Nintendo". People started to refer to everything VR gaming related as "Oculus", but Facebook wanted VR to be about Metaverse, not gaming, so Oculus got killed.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#118

Post by nix0n »

tensor wrote: post #109
nine_k wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't think there is a room for a third commercial mobile platform, after Apple started the smartphone market, and Google caught up soon enough after. Even strong and entrenched players like Palm, Nokia (with Tizen) and even BlackBerry could not hold. In 2007, Facebook was way, way less mighty, and by 2012, it was late. Speaking of Windows Phone: it had great hardware and good, innovative software. It's Mi…

Was it really Microsoft that killed Windows phone? Or was it simply just too late. By the time it was really available I'm not sure there was actually a chance for a third platform to survive.

If it's the delay that killed it, that's really still an unforced error.

They had Windows CE in the 90s, and Windows Mobile in the 2000s.

They were in a good place to be able to release a smartphone in time.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#119

Post by nine_k »

tensor wrote: post #109
nine_k wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't think there is a room for a third commercial mobile platform, after Apple started the smartphone market, and Google caught up soon enough after. Even strong and entrenched players like Palm, Nokia (with Tizen) and even BlackBerry could not hold. In 2007, Facebook was way, way less mighty, and by 2012, it was late. Speaking of Windows Phone: it had great hardware and good, innovative software. It's Mi…

Was it really Microsoft that killed Windows phone? Or was it simply just too late. By the time it was really available I'm not sure there was actually a chance for a third platform to survive.

Windows Phone had enough ardent and faithful followers even after it was officially discontinued.

I'd say that it's the moving too slowly and not focussing on getting some key apps working on WinMobile did not let the platform win some mobile.

Re: A morale crisis after multiple Meta layoffs

#120

Post by redsid »

simpleton view as a non-tech person - investors/traders are well known to buy high / sell low and I think that holds true for businesses.

I suspect VR needs more AI in it for story telling and experience as suspect most of the VR work is more akin to 90's expert systems. Open worlds needs standards for open explorations and standards may be the key for all the current LLMs and next generation models to show up in VR.

Assuming FB has been successful in leveraging the inhouse pytorch expertise over these years and hopefully has not lost it's people in their zealous cost cutting when forced to de-prioritize VR. If that is the case, then we have seen that many times over and over - deep pockets and patience wins most of the trades

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