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Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
381–390 of 619 posts
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#382I hadn't seen this before today, but NY Times claims that around a year ago (after the Jan 6th insurrection), Zuckerberg and Sandberg started to go their separate ways. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/business/mark-zuckerberg-... "The pair continued their twice-weekly meetings, but Mr. Zuckerberg took over more of the areas once under her purview. He made the final call on issues surrounding Mr. Trump’s spread of…
Sandberg has shown herself to be a true champion of moderation. One of her fine achievements at Facebook was to mobilize a team of enterprising Facebook employees to suppress allegations of harassment made against her then boyfriend, Bobby Kotick, from the news.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the thirty year anniversary of the Newton, a complete failure as a product. When it failed people said that people would never carry around computers, there was no need. They were bulky, a huge hassle and didn't do anything better than paper. All of this was true. Yet I don't think it is a coincidence that the iPhone came from the same company. I don't like Facebook as a product. But I like that Meta is trying t…
Yes but FB has never created a successful hardware product, that was not the case for Apple when it made (and failed) with the Newton.
That's true. So maybe they will fail. Should they give up?
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I strongly disagree. I would be shocked if VR/metaverse does not massively grow within the next 10 years. I think the headsets alone will continue to get massively better which will convert most of humanity, just like how much better iPhones got since the first one. In fact, I would bet anything on the foregoing, as I have near total confidence in that aspect. It’s much harder to figure out which companies will…
All the parts and pieces to make the iPhone were available in the 2000s. I’m not so sure about VR. It’s a huge power hog. Either the battery life would be limited or you’d need to carry around a backpack to keep it running or it would stay at your desk with more wires in your head than a William Gibson protagonist. I could see some limited use cases for VR, like training and education. But as a replacement of the wor…
To be clear, I don't think most people will live in VR for all of their waking life (although some will).
But I do think VR has the potential to be "huge" like cellphones, in the way that nearly every kid in the world has a headset, and spends hours of time in there each day. I think it can eat up a ton of time currently spent on movies, TV, video games, socializing in places like Minecraft or Roblox, concerts, sports games, etc. The average person spends way too much time watching TV for example, but if every kid in the world wants to spend 2 hours per day in VR instead of watching TV, that will be an enormous TAM notwithstanding that people won't want to literally live in VR with all day battery life. Although there will always be outliers, and I think there will be many people that will easily choose to spend 8 hours + per day in VR.
And even currently, the Quest 2 provides hours of battery life without wires, which will only continue to improve.
How old are you by the way? Today phones last nearly all day, but people used to carry around multiple phones for their batteries and swap them out. IF they are at home, they could do the same with VR until the battery life improves.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. What people want is an escape from reality. "Just like" Ready Player One or anything from a wide choice of science fiction novels. The problem is that these systems require a fundamental disconnect from reality. Not only do w…
You need to check out "Metaverse Twitter". You're missing out on a lot of fascinating developments. The field is in its "90's internet phase" right now. The tech is still immature, but is rapidly growing in capability and ambition. Just like most people in the 90's had no idea how "internet" would be used, I think our ability to conceive of VR/AR/XR/metaverse is similarly myopic. I would give it a 10-15 year timeline…
The fact that "Metaverse Twitter" is a thing, implying that even the people most religiously devoted to the metaverse are still using Twitter rather than a 3D metaverse space tells me all I need to know. It smacks of the old skeumorphism craze: why bother "migrating" to a virtual rendition of an obsolete part of meatspace when you could just use the novel solution for interaction that already works great in meatspace, and would be unchanged in the metaverse?
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#386I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…
Facebook dominated in part because people would endlessly scroll during class, at the bus stop, waiting on line, etc. VR and the Metaverse require a much bigger commitment by comparison. You can't casually use them. Heck, you can't really even eat or drink while a VR headset is strapped to your face.
VR is just a stepping stone. AR glasses can't be far behind, and they're even more convenient than phones. Really the end game here has to be star trek style holodeck or matrix style dream state, at which point the company effectively controls your entire life.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed that FB hasn’t actually proven they can build something from scratch that reaches critical mass. They would’ve have been long doomed had they not bought Instagram. Every other popular app eg Oculus and Whatsapp was also acquired.
They also copied the timeline feature from Twitter. Before that, people had a wall and you could go there and read what they wrote and poke them ... remember poking? They do seem rather good at buying good product companies or copying ideas, which could serve them well in the metaverse-space (ugh...), once it's established.
No, they bought FriendFeed for that.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everybody realizes it's wrong. The issue is not a lack of understanding. The issue is the lack of an alternative. People will not pay a penny for the vast majority of the internet, whether they be social networks or just plain websites. They won't donate either or do "micro transactions", not at the scale in which ads currently deliver revenue. So for the vast majority of the internet, no ads = no money. And it ends…
I was recently taken aback by how much some of the online major destinations make per site load with ads. It is over $.04 USD. People visit hundreds of pages per day. What consumer will pay over $10 daily to access content that is free with ads?
> What consumer will pay over $10 daily to access content that is free with ads?
I have a similar question to "what customer will still load ads". And the answer is probably anyone still using Google Chrome after they upgrade the manifest version to v4 and finally kill adblocking.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell from the material Meta has released, they have an incredibly ambitious vision for the metaverse. Essentially, I believe they want to create glasses that you wear, that allow you to see other people in your space, wherever they are. So you could have a conversation with three friends in your living room, as if they were there, while they could be on different continents, making physical location i…
One thing I don't get is why there is a such high regard of visual input. I mean, we can speak to our friends since the telephone age, and we can see them on screen too since maybe the 90s. Is there a huge demand to actually see them IN THE SAME ROOM ? I really don't think so. But maybe future generations have different ideas. I think VR can make a lot of difference in training (e.g. medical training) but it's not co…
Maybe it is a cultural thing.
Zoom mediates almost all meetings at my company. We went full-remote in 2020, and are now heavily international.
Screen sharing is heavily used, but nobody uses cameras except for presentations.
Even aside from our work norms, I have a strong preference for voice-only realtime comms. Video just doesn't add value to me.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel compelled to say that your second sentence is probably the funniest thing I've ever read on HN. It resonates very strongly with my belief that VR/Metaverse will continue to under deliver. What people want is an escape from reality. "Just like" Ready Player One or anything from a wide choice of science fiction novels. The problem is that these systems require a fundamental disconnect from reality. Not only do w…
>What people want is an escape from reality. I still don't understand what's the difference between MMOs and Metaverse. Like it's on mobile? That's all? Peak WoW _was_ a social network something Zuck is dreaming about (and that's while you also have to pay a monthly sub). I've read around and some people say that the difference people can _create content_ in Metaverse but... sandbox MMOs are also a thing for a long t…
This is my response every time someone mentions metaverse as a new idea. Metaverses are awesome. I play one every time I play a video game, especially WoW back in the day. I don’t need some crap strapped to my face. A tv or monitor and the human sensory system works just fine. When I played Elden Ring recently for 300+ hours I was in that world, just as deeply as someone with annoying crap strapped to their head.
It’s just easier to get gullible investors to invest in your metaverse VR idea due to Gartner hype cycle rules, which are currently at Peak of Inflated Expectations.
> “the metaverse” can include virtual reality—characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you're not playing—as well as augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds.