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Facebook Renames to Meta

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Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#511

Post by wpietri »

brap wrote: post #125

The video they put out is extremely cringe. The whole “metaverse” thing is cringe. It makes me believe Zuckerberg is completely surrounded by yes-men who never challenge him and only tell him what he likes to hear. He is truly detached from us normal people and our human experience.

There's a concept I find really useful: Acquired Situational Narcissism. If somebody spends enough time in an environment where everything is about them, they can easily come to believe everything is about them.

Another thing I think is at play is people confusing luck with genius. Zuckerberg is clearly smart, but Facebook was also a right-time, right-place thing. As FaceMash and Facebook showed, he understood his audience because he was his audience. But now, nearly 20 years later, Zuckerberg-the-billionaire has very little in common with the audience he needs if he is going to make the metaverse happen.

I mean, I too read and like Snow Crash, so I get the emotional appeal. But a middle-aged guy's favorite dystopian novel from 30 years ago may not be a useful blueprint today.

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#512

Post by [deleted] »

brap wrote: post #454
filoleg wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that’s the exact same sentiment I remember reading about Zuck on HN around the time Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions happened. People were saying it was one of the dumbest business decisions, that Zuck is just desperate and without any brain trying to spend his FB money on acquisitions before FB inevitably dies of irrelevancy, etc. Look at today, and I think most people would agree that acquiring whats…

IG and WA were already wildly popular on a global scale when they were bought, though. People clearly wanted those. Is anyone on board with this “metaverse” thing outside of SV? To me this seems less like the IG and WA acquisitions, and more like the much hyped Facebook Phone and Facebook Home projects (RIP).

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#513

Post by vorpalhex »

swalsh wrote: post #206
vineyardmike wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why NFT? Why can't we just "import jpeg" instead of "link NFT"?

NFT's let you own digital assets. That means people can make a real living building them.

NFTs let you own a link to a digital asset... which isn't very useful for an infinitely reproducible asset. With a central entity (eg Meta) there's no need for distributed ownership.

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#514

Post by ben_w »

carbonguy wrote: post #304
daviding wrote: post #36

If there is going to be a metaverse, I'm not sure I want Facebook to own it. It's like a bad sci-fi pulp story. Given their investment and research, I wonder if they should open it all up (even if contradictory to short-term gains in ad revenue) so it has a chance to grow? Federate it a bit more than they are comfortable with, to at least give it a chance. I could see this flubbing out hard otherwise. I'm personally…

> If there is going to be a metaverse, I'm not sure I want Facebook to own it. It's like a bad sci-fi pulp story. I'm confident I don't want them to own it - or for it to be owned by a single party of any kind, for that matter. > Given their investment and research, I wonder if they should open it all up (even if contradictory to short-term gains in ad revenue) so it has a chance to grow? I mean, that would be nice f…

> How much would it cost to just send every one of them an Oculus headset for free?

About 0.6-1 trillion dollars, give or take.

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#515

Post by ljm »

md8z wrote: post #252
elmomle wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't the users, it's the platform and underlying philosophy of the business. They are factory-farming humans' attention; it's no wonder the result is dystopian.

I see this sentiment posted often on HN but I've seen no social media that didn't eventually become toxic or that didn't feed on human attention, this website included. What good is a platform if nobody pays attention to it? And if people are paying attention to it, how do you plan to prevent them from fighting, competing with each other over every little thing, and spreading misinformation?

HN has its own brand of toxicity and cynicism for sure, but the existence of HN doesn't depend on that. It doesn't need you to be angry to survive, it doesn't need to know about you as a person. If you like the content that surfaces on HN and you get on well in the community then you're good. HN doesn't give a shit if create an account to comment on one or two interesting posts and then never return.

HN can live without you.

FB, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc. etc. cannot survive without trying to actively engage you. They are working tirelessly to find ways to rope you back in.

They cannot live without you.

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#517

Post by JohnFen »

darthvoldemort wrote: post #201
nyt-maps wrote: post #19

My god, if you get it, you get it. They are going all in on metaverse / have decided that the future of oculus is the primary long term bet, not facebook itself. And they have the money to make it so. This is incredibly scary, and probably a good investment.

Maybe I'm too old, but I don't know a single person with Oculus, not even among my younger coworkers. I don't discount that it could be the next big thing, because wtf do I know, but it feels very niche to me, and certainly not something that can get the engagement like a phone can. And in terms of money, Facebook itself is a printing press, I wonder what the business model is for this? Selling games or experiences?…

That's my experience, too. I know a lot of people who are very into tech, across the entire age range. I don't know a single person who owns one of these. But I think they're mostly used by the hardcore gamer crowd, and I only know a couple of those (and neither have a VR headset).

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#518

Post by buitreVirtual »

coolspot wrote: post #264
czottmann wrote: post #29

Still a terrible, terrible organisation that's detrimental to societies and humankind as such.

Twitter is 100 times more toxic than FB, but somehow everyone is focused on FB. I guess someone powerful is annoyed.

Whataboutism is not a good defense for FB. All social media companies profiting from hate and addiction are evil.

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#519

Post by nazgulnarsil »

quartz wrote: post #3

https://meta.com is live as well. ...I can't tell if it's intentional that the page loads initially with the "facebook" brand in the uppper left and then quickly overwrites it with meta.

It disabled my fucking back button. What a perfect encapsulation of what they are about.

Re: Facebook Renames to Meta

#520

Post by micromacrofoot »

swalsh wrote: post #206
vineyardmike wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why NFT? Why can't we just "import jpeg" instead of "link NFT"?

NFT's let you own digital assets. That means people can make a real living building them.

Unlike now, where no one makes a living building anything digitally.

Sorry if your post was sarcasm, NFTs have hit some kind of milestone where I can't tell the difference between the jokes and sincere posts.

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