31–40 of 198 posts
Damn... I just planned to buy a new quest...
This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…
Meta essentially made a sequel to Second Life. I've always been blown away by the fact that they didn't more fully pursue VR gaming. I think they could have found a more enthusiastic audience.
Not only because of hardware costs, but not everybody can play them for extended periods of time and 'the youth' are increasingly preferring to look at social media over playing games.
Genuine question - was it the product or the implementation that led this to not pan out? Maybe both?
No one wants to wear a PC on their faces. The few who did wanted that for games but Zuck wanted a social VR platform, not a third-rate gaming console. Games couldn't even bring in the numbers needed to pivot anyone to social so they're giving up.
This has yet to be determined! Because no VR headset so far has actually been a proper PC. You can't develop on them. You can't just install whatever TF you want. You have to use their app store and getting developer mode enabled doesn't even give you root on the device.
A more accurate statement would be, "No one wants to wear a locked-down, extremely limited-use phone on their faces."
When the Steam Frame comes out, then we'll see how much of a difference having full control over your VR hardware can make. It runs SteamOS and you can install whatever you want. It's a complete Linux distro! An actual PC on your face.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It reminds me of Google Plus. I think you could make parallels to how heavily some of the tech companies were pushing ML?
Yes! And now Meta is chasing that too and failing. It's not clear to me what advantage developing its own LLMs affords Meta. Google and the other platform companies, I get it, but it's not like Meta is using what's unique about their social data to train something interesting.
This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…
Speaking of Apple, and honesty asking: how are their VR devices going? Looks like they released a spec'ed up version with the M5 processor end of 2025 but, what's their future? There was some (artificial?) hype in the beginning, are people actually using it? What's the SV landscape?
Rumors of future products are never super-reliable, but point to their ambitions being downscaled at best. Really, everyone expects them to pivot to smart glasses, because that's what they clearly wanted to make all along, and there's probably a market for smart glasses in a way there isn't for... whatever the AVP was supposed to be.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It reminds me of Google Plus. I think you could make parallels to how heavily some of the tech companies were pushing ML?
Yes! And now Meta is chasing that too and failing. It's not clear to me what advantage developing its own LLMs affords Meta. Google and the other platform companies, I get it, but it's not like Meta is using what's unique about their social data to train something interesting.
The immersive 3d stuff is "wizbang neat" to Zuckerberg and investors and gamers. But actually most "regular people" I know don't actually like being "in" such environments. Some people get dizzy and sick. Some people don't like dissociating from the "real" world like that, even for simple 3d games. Some people are visually disabled. Or just don't enjoy the modality.
But more than anything, no matter what, it's always awkward in its immersion and people's imaginations will always be far richer than the uncanny and limited simulated "3d" world that a computer can deliver. Even if you had 99% fidelity, it'll still be a poor simulacrum that often leaves you feeling poorer.
I think Zuckerberg completely misread what his own customer base / world audience wanted because of his own generational biases growing up with technical "lawnmower man" fantasies and fiction, and a misplaced philosophical bias where he believes transcendent, progressive technology leading inevitably in this direction. Because that's what the 1990s and early 2000s was pushing in gaming and other tech. Having billions of dollars at his disposal, and brought up to want and see this future, he saw it as both inevitable and something that he could be pushing the forefront of.
Yes people want to connect with other people in online social spaces. And I think they're probably very excited to do so in a manner which models the thing/place/object aspect of the "real world" rather than the glorified magazine / bulletin board which is Facebook. Especially if they can create and author and extend that world from within.
But I don't think they want to strap facehuggers to their face and do that in simulated three dimensions. And I don't think it's necessary to do the latter to get the former.
(But I'm biased, I've been trying to rebuild the magic I found in LambdaMOO in various forms ... for the last 30 years... https://timbran.org/moor.html )
This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…
Meta essentially made a sequel to Second Life. I've always been blown away by the fact that they didn't more fully pursue VR gaming. I think they could have found a more enthusiastic audience.
I feel like the main possible benefits that these digital spaces bring, for consumers, are kinda the opposite of things that any Big Corporate Entity would ever want to be involved in.
This one should be studied in management schools. I'm not sure I have ever witnessed such a comprehensive industrial failure in the software world. There were some discussions about Facebook's ability to pull it off, but not that long ago, many still saw the "metaverse" vision as inevitable; a clear trajectory for the future of the internet. And the failure isn't Zuckerberg's alone. Microsoft, Apple, and a good many…
• The metaverse was never inevitable: Horizon Worlds peaked at 300k MAUs, cratered below 1k DAUs, and is now shutting down. Meta burned $73B building ghost towns; the real survivors (Beat Saber: $255M revenue, VRChat: 150k+ concurrent) succeeded by giving users embodied activities and emotional hooks, not empty virtual offices.
• Hardware wasn’t the problem: Quest 3 is cheap, comfortable, and capable. The comprehensive crash happened because giants chased AAA ports and productivity tools while ignoring what actually retains users: presence + community + meaning.
• Management-school case study, updated: The $70B lesson isn’t “VR died.” It’s that corporate metaverse bets failed exactly where indies and niches thrived.
Full breakdown of what works (and why the giants missed it) here: https://linernotesxr.substack.com/p/what-works-in-vr-lessons...