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Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

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Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#91

Post by teacup50 »

kyleblarson wrote: post #54
jader201 wrote: post #9

> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. > If you actually understand [Facebook’s] vision of letting us be who we’re going to be, just like they wanted to let Instagram be who they are. The reason people don't get this -- or at least, why I don't get it -- and thus responded negatively, is because VR should have nothing to do with Facebook's vision, and Facebook -- or social gaming in general --…

It's easy to take the moral high ground when you don't have a three comma offer sitting on the table in front of you.

"Greed is good"?

That isn't an argument for the moral low ground. It wasn't like the alternative was "or you get nothing".

The alternative was "or you get to pursue the vision you built the company on and potentially have a few more commas in front of you".

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#92

Post by adestefan »

kyleblarson wrote: post #54
jader201 wrote: post #9

> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. > If you actually understand [Facebook’s] vision of letting us be who we’re going to be, just like they wanted to let Instagram be who they are. The reason people don't get this -- or at least, why I don't get it -- and thus responded negatively, is because VR should have nothing to do with Facebook's vision, and Facebook -- or social gaming in general --…

It's easy to take the moral high ground when you don't have a three comma offer sitting on the table in front of you.

I'd sell out in a heart beat. However, I also wouldn't be shocked at the outrage.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#93

Post by intslack »

danabramov wrote: post #63
lawl wrote: post #11

Yeah well, I don't buy this. However, I think Oculus could easily kill any doubts over that aquisition by promising to release an open source driver. Because that would mean that even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttions, there's still the option to build an alternative open source universe using the open source driver. Personally I think that would restore my faith in the Rift.

>even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttons Why do a lot of people keep repeating this? Does Google create self-driving cars to show ads on the windshields? I just don't get it. What on the earth makes you think Facebook bought Oculus to show ads and like buttons inside your games? If, if VR becomes the Next Big Thing, will the like buttons “from the old Facebook“ matter as much, or wil…

http://www.google.com/patents/US8630897

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#94

Post by potatolicious »

wiremine wrote: post #75
jader201 wrote: post #9

> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. > If you actually understand [Facebook’s] vision of letting us be who we’re going to be, just like they wanted to let Instagram be who they are. The reason people don't get this -- or at least, why I don't get it -- and thus responded negatively, is because VR should have nothing to do with Facebook's vision, and Facebook -- or social gaming in general --…

> The reason people don't get this -- or at least, why I don't get it -- and thus responded negatively, is because VR should have nothing to do with Facebook's vision, and Facebook -- or social gaming in general -- should have nothing to do with Oculus' vision. Honest question: why shouldn't VR be in Facebook's vision? _Someone_ is going to create a Google Hangouts-style product that incorporates VR. I'm not excited…

There are IMO two angles to this that I identify with (to different degrees):

1 - People wanted Oculus to be a driving force in gaming, and based on recent post-acquisition statement it looks like the company is much more interested in the Metaverse than they are in gaming.

This is certainly a more ambitious goal and a harder problem overall to tackle than gaming, but a lot of Oculus fans don't give two hoots about the Metaverse and just want to fly airplanes, shoot monsters, explore dungeons, or what have you.

There is (IMO a justifiable) fear that the company is going to abandon, or at least scale back, their efforts in promoting Oculus for gaming, in favor of its own goals creating the Metaverse. Like you said, Google Hangouts in VR.

2 - People are excited that the Metaverse a la Snow Crash is actually going to happen, but do not believe Facebook to the be right people to bring this about. The reasoning for this varies, but mostly comes down to privacy protections, prevalence of advertising, and Facebook's seemingly infinite capacity for nickel and diming their users.

In this case people understand perfectly well why VR would be part of Facebook's vision - it just scares the bejeezus out of them.

The perceived bad move for VR in general is that Oculus is going to become a Facebook product, rather than a well-supported, well-evangelized platform on which a whole VR ecosystem can be built (i.e., the original vision). The chief fear is that eventually people are going to by the Oculus purely to access Facebook Presents the Metaverse instead of to access a wide ecosystem of VR products.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#95

Post by evan_ »

Geee wrote: post #82
danabramov wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously believe this? Then there will be competitors without ads.

You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. These services (and companies) operate around the idea of giving away free candy and locking everyone in with network effects. This is what will happen to VR as well under Facebook's control.

Maybe it's harder to be #1 without being free but there are many video sites competing with YouTube that do pretty well. Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc- they're not FREE but they're still very popular. There's no reason to believe that Facebook's VR network will be the only one.

Also, none of the products you listed had first mover advantage. They're all excellent examples of things that upset a formerly dominant major player.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#96

Post by fizzbar »

danabramov wrote: post #78
venomsnake wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Zuckeberg is in charge. I just don't think he could thing of anything interesting. FB was just a landgrab. The product has a/ stagnated b/ gone worse depending on why you ask.

Have you seen Paper?

aka Flipboard by Facebook?

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#97

Post by sirkneeland »

adestefan wrote: post #92
kyleblarson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to take the moral high ground when you don't have a three comma offer sitting on the table in front of you.

I'd sell out in a heart beat. However, I also wouldn't be shocked at the outrage.

Same. And I also would go do an interview claiming that I was.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#98

Post by danabramov »

lawl wrote: post #79
danabramov wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttons Why do a lot of people keep repeating this? Does Google create self-driving cars to show ads on the windshields? I just don't get it. What on the earth makes you think Facebook bought Oculus to show ads and like buttons inside your games? If, if VR becomes the Next Big Thing, will the like buttons “from the old Facebook“ matter as much, or wil…

> What on the earth makes you think Facebook bought Oculus to show ads Zuckerberg himself [0]. Quote: > so that this becomes a network where people can be communicating and buying things and virtual goods, and there might be advertising in the world "might" is good enough for me in that case, because it means it's clearly an option. I'm not really fond of the idea that the Rift is becoming a VR Habbo Hotel. [0] https…

He's not saying “stick it in your games”, is he? He is talking different kinds of applications. Also, I wouldn't mind ads on the streets in a game city because I'm sort of used to them in the real world. Ads actually look better in a 3D world than on web pages.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#99

Post by encoderer »

bane wrote: post #74
danabramov wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttons Why do a lot of people keep repeating this? Does Google create self-driving cars to show ads on the windshields? I just don't get it. What on the earth makes you think Facebook bought Oculus to show ads and like buttons inside your games? If, if VR becomes the Next Big Thing, will the like buttons “from the old Facebook“ matter as much, or wil…

> Does Google create self-driving cars to show ads on the windshields? What do you think people will be doing on the boring non-interactive self-driven commute? The same thing they do on long bus or train rides. Surf the internet. That's always been Google's goal. The intersection of people with cars and people with internet connected smartphones is huge . Get people's eyes off the road and onto a Google product is t…

Is it? Because I don't buy that. You're trying to apply a consumer product strategy like this was a business decision. This is clearly a pet interest from Brin or Page or both. And besides, it seems far more lucrative to monetize the tech itself. If we sold 5 million self driving cars a year (just a fraction of the total domestic market) and Google sold the whole rig to automakers at $5k, that's $25bn in sales. Worldwide the market for cars is 10x that so it's $25bn w/ room to grow.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#100

Post by fizzbar »

danabramov wrote: post #66
daenz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's because nobody understands what FB is going to do with it. I've been thinking about this Facebook acquisition for a little while, and in my mind, the only play that makes sense for Facebook is to become the login gateway to Oculus games. For many Windows games, there's Windows Live...a social-ish, login service that you literally have to register and sign in with in order to play the game. You cannot o…

Seriously? The only reason to own a VR problem is to stick in “sign in via some website that used to be popular in the old web“ button? What would it give them anyway? Drive up Facebook usage on the old web? I don't understand why most people think Facebook is so dumb in this thread.

I don't think FB is dumb, but I do fear that they are highly amoral with respect to personal privacy... And a VR screen glued to your face is getting pretty damn personal. I feel uneasy about a guy who calls his users "dumb fucks" for trusting him to be in charge of that.
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