Cool, so your existing Oculus device is guaranteed to be an expensive brick 2 years from now if you value privacy in any way.
Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
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Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#112I -just- decoupled Facebook from my Oculus account in preparation for deleting Facebook. I guess in two years I make a throw-away account, or better yet, move to Valve's current offering. I'm super done with this company.
Good move, Valve are gamers at heart while Facebook is out to get your data and make as much money possible from it.
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#113People will bitch and complain, but at the end of the day, there’s no better device for untethered VR that you can take and setup anywhere.
That just means there is no device for untethered VR. I think this is more likely to just limit VR adoption more than anything else.
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#114How much longer until we need to login to use create-react-app
That would be difficult to enforce, since React is open-source. It'd take ten seconds for someone to fork it.
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#115I recently gave a seminar about how to use Oculus devices in combination with Unity at university. Oculus produces great devices, but man is the software a convoluted nightmare. A (very patient) student of mine tried to install the oculsu software on a current thinkpad for 4 days in a row. It always failed for various reasons. She used a current Windows 10 and her computer definitly has the specs. She even reinstalle…
What are viable alternatives?
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#116A very brief history of Facebook's involvement with Oculus and how this has shaped up, just from quickly searching HN previous posts:
- (2014) Facebook acquires Oculus: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237
- (2016) Oculus's privacy policy sparks concern: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410809
Oculus responds to privacy concerns about user tracking (https://uploadvr.com/facebook-oculus-privacy/) saying
> Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future.
- (2019) If logged into Facebook, Oculus data may be used for ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21770752
From their official statement:
> If you choose not to log into Facebook on Oculus, we won’t share data with Facebook to allow third parties to target advertisements to you based on your use of the Oculus Platform.
- (2020): Facebook accounts are now required.
None of this is particularly surprising, lots of people (even in the press) were calling out how this was going to evolve. But it's still interesting to look back 6 years and see what the initial reactions were and what people were most concerned about.
The takeaways:
- data silos are always temporary
- companies think on a larger timeline than just 2 years in advance
- this kind of thing nearly always gets executed as a slow boil. Facebook didn't buy Oculus and immediately require an account and start advertising to users. But I don't believe for one second that Mark wasn't thinking it at the time.
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#117People will bitch and complain, but at the end of the day, there’s no better device for untethered VR that you can take and setup anywhere.
> untethered
Tethered to Zuckerberg.
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#118When will Carmack jump ships and go to join Valve?
It seems he will not if this article from 2018 is to be believed. But he is also a Gamer and a reasonable guy, so he might have a change heart.
Link: https://uploadvr.com/john-carmack-i-intend-to-stay-at-facebo...
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#119Why do I need to log in to my display device?
Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
#120No Facebook, and therefore no oculus needed..