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

Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

johncoogan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 133 posts

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#121

Post by adolph »

rastapasta42 wrote: post #100
adolph wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you haven't seen it yet, you might appreciate this slide deck about how organizations are like slime mold. Slide 57 main image "0.60=0.95^10", text "And thanks to that non-linearity, even a small decline in individual likelihood [of success] leads to a much lower overall decline in the likelihood of success." https://komoroske.com/slime-mold/

I disagree that slime-ball force is inescapable. I think our industry has a huge "boulder" - we often work on useless software that is far too removed from real world applications, which causes us to lose our passion. When you have 50 engineers maintaining a boring piece of crap software which can be maintained by 5 engineers, you will start noticing the productivity going down. Engineers who used to be very producti…

> I disagree that slime-ball force is inescapable.

Please do go through the deck. At about 152 the author talks about a way through organizational headwinds. Also, the thesis is that an organization's ability to mutate and respond in a balance between collective and cellular methods is similar to a slime mold in a positive way (slide 149).

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#122

Post by grumple »

annexrichmond wrote: post #60
cletus wrote: post #44

Facebook thinks about social networks in two dimensions: 1. Audience size (eg 2. Format (eg text, images, video, VR, AR). You can go through the exercise of placing every social network on this grid and there are gaps. Implied in this is a progression in formats and we've certainly had that from text to images to video. In this framework, the acquisition of Oculus makes more sense. I personally question the premise t…

Yeah one thing that’s puzzling to me about FB’s bet is that Oculus should be a litmus test for the consumer interest in this stuff and afaict it hasn’t really took off. If Oculus isn’t particularly realizing huge growth, why would the Metaverse?

Totally agree. Maybe they see numbers we don't, and maybe the limited availability of the physical platform indicates higher demand. I'm a big fan of the Oculus hardware and software. Just not the link to Facebook accounts that is soon to be required for older accounts. But my friends? Even the gamers couldn't care less about VR. You need a large space for it. Most of the games are pretty niche. You can't play anything close to cutting edge games. It's not really useable for work purposes, due mostly to not having a great keyboard interface and lack of third party investment in work-oriented applications.

That and there's been effectively 0 progress on these points in the past few years. There's still potential, but I'm less optimistic about VR generally and Oculus in particular.

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#124

Post by CodeGlitch »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #10

Gross. If anything, the more I have become ensconced in the internet the more I have begun to appreciate the physical world. My mental health must be wired to require actual trees, sunshine, birds, walks in the neighborhood.... Like a library, I want my internet to be there when I want it, but I don't want to live in it.

Technology works best when it gets out of your way so you can do the thing you require. Smart phones are the best example of this as they are small enough to fit in a pocket out of the way when not needed, and smart enough to deliver the data you need almost instantly. A TV is (usually) out of the way mounted on a wall, and you interact with it using a small handheld device. It is instant-on/off, requires no setup to use every day.

Smart glasses, VR headsets, etc are the exact opposite. No one likes putting a VR headset on, keeping the kit charged and dealing with all the cables. If a VR headset where a pair of glasses without cables then maybe...but we don't have the technology for that yet. Perhaps that's where Zuck will be putting all of his billions.

Once you're inside the "metaverse" and want to shop for new shoes (real) are you going to have to fly/walk to a virtual shop? With my smartphone I can do that in under 10 seconds.

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#125

Post by angryasian »

missedthecue wrote: post #115
littlestymaar wrote: post #3

Because Facebook is now a social network used mostly by people from 40 to 70. They aren't trendy anymore, and most of the Facebook-related press headlines in the past 5 years have been about privacy or advertisement scandals. They are in desperate need for some good PR if they want to restore their brand name.

You say that it like it's a bad thing. It's relatively easy to become the latest fad among the teenagers. It's hard to become a sticky product loved by all the people who have disposable incomes. The people with disposable incomes are the 40 to 70 year olds. Facebook being a social network mostly used by 40 to 70 somethings is a big credit to them, not a negative.

thats not how FB makes money. They make money from ads and the younger demographic is where the most ad spend is done today. Not saying they can't make money, but it just not what most advertisers want.

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#126

Post by angryasian »

michaelt wrote: post #73
zabzonk wrote: post #6

Isn't this simply Second Life writ somewhat larger?

The fact a broad idea has been tried before without success doesn't mean it can't be successful. There were smartphones before the iPhone - like the Nokia Communicator, Compaq iPaq and Palm Treo. They were a niche product - not the market-defining success the iPhone was.

Blackberry was incredibly successful. I don't know why people always leave it out of the conversation.

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#127

Post by ilaksh »

ngokevin wrote: post #59
ilaksh wrote: post #2

Check out this system for (open) declarative multiplayer VR https://github.com/networked-aframe/networked-aframe

Nice to see this as the first comment. Not working in VR currently. But as one of the creators of A-Frame and formerly was in YC doing a VR + Metaverse attempt, AMA.

Yes but notice how there is no follow-on and no one else mentions WebVR or WebXR. This community is consistently disappointing in its technical judgement. Other places online are often even worse. But its surprising considering the background of most people on here.

People are sheep. When they see A-Frame or WebXR being touted by their friends, they will acknowledge it and try to build off of it. But more likely is they will let Facebook use their dominant position and takeover. Then they will claim there was never any alternative they could have built off of.

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#128

Post by gigama »

I don't think Facebook's version of a metaverse will succeed simply because only a fool would strap an eye-ball-tracking ad delivery system to their face that is owned and controlled by Zuckerberg and his addictive algorithms. Kinda reminds me of an "Alien" egg detecting a warm body nearby...

Plus Zuck's polyanna vision of his metaverse just sounds like an attempt to pivot away from all the troubles he and his platform have caused. Like car salesman trying to keep you in your seat with promises of new and better.

To be up front, I do have a FB account (for name squatting) but never login or use it (starve the beast). Better things to do with my time and attention.

I did try a friend's Occulus awhile back and it was cool to geo-travel to 360 environments, play light sabers, etc. I can see some potential for certain applications. But after an hour of immersion it left me feeling weird, disoriented. Probably due to my proprioception being severely messed with.

The metaverse has potential idea but only if it's Halliday's vision and not coporately co-opted by the likes Sorrento. Or put in real-world terms, if it's Tim Berners-Lee's vision and not Zuckerberg's.

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#129

Post by bobthebuilders »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #113
SavantIdiot wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google, Apple, Airbnb, Stripe, none became the giants they are because they spent billions on a grand vision. Google set out to catalog the entire internet on day one. If that's not a grand vision that they spent billions on, what is? AirBNB set out to disrupt the entire vacation rental market. Stripe set out to disrupt the entire POS payment market. Apple is the only one who fits your narrative: they set out to ma…

> Not sure what you are smoking, but can I have some? Why would you feel this is necessary? (edit: I see you edited it away, but I still feel like it’s worth calling out.)

Stop making words up that the author did not say

Re: Why Facebook is spending billions on the metaverse

#130

Post by mustacheemperor »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #10

Gross. If anything, the more I have become ensconced in the internet the more I have begun to appreciate the physical world. My mental health must be wired to require actual trees, sunshine, birds, walks in the neighborhood.... Like a library, I want my internet to be there when I want it, but I don't want to live in it.

I've seen this take a lot in communities like HN recently, and often alongside remarks about "realizing what's valuable as I grow older." Is this a genuine recognition of a bridge too far for technological mass adoption, or just the typical resistance to new technologies people often exhibit as they get older?

I assume many of us grew up with parents skeptical about the utility of the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, or whatever the latest technology was during our own childhood. Did those older folks really know what was better just because of their amount of experience? My perception is colored from remembering my own parents' grave concern about "kids being glued to screens all the time" but the instant knee-jerk skepticism to the metaverse from many seems to rhyme to me, like how folks couldn't wrap their heads around how Roblox was worth anything at IPO. It seems like every generation thinks the 'healthy' amount of computer is whatever they grew up with - a dedicated room at the office, a dedicated device in the house, a personal device with limited access, etc.

Post reply on HN