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Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

vrfinal.com

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Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#71

Post by save_ferris »

jlarocco wrote: post #63
save_ferris wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially related: newly-created Facebook accounts are a whole lot harder to keep up these days if you’re just using them for a single purpose, like following events. I created an account last year to get more socially involved in my community but I didn’t want to post any personal information and my account kept getting disabled unless I added pictures and filled out certain sections of my profile. Not sure if it…

I'm 100% in agreement that a Facebook account shouldn't be required to use an Oculus. But to continue on your tangent, I'm curious what people expect Facebook to do if they don't collect some amount of identifying information. On one hand they have a huge problem with bots, fake likes, and misinformation accounts, and on the other hand people complain about and avoid the steps they take to prevent those accounts. So,…

Simple. In my perfect world, Facebook events would be publicly searchable without an account. I wouldn't need to go through the hassle of setting up the account and they wouldn't need to go through the hassle of making sure I was legit or not. But the walled garden's value is predicated on keeping everyone in the silo and not able to access data publicly.

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#72

Post by NeutronStar »

polyomino wrote: post #70
colordrops wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vertical integration already existed before they decided to force people to log in. You could already log in using your Facebook account. I just don't want to be forced to do so.

Don't buy one?

They are retroactively forcing people to do so.

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#73

Post by m463 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #22

The problem with antitrust enforcement w/ Big Tech will be users actually want vertical integration in a lot of contexts. And this vertical integration aligns consumers with the large tech companies in a way that hasn't been true with previous antitrust cases. Yes we could have more open standards, but the cartesian product of every integration eventually doesn't scale. What Microsoft did with Windows in this regard…

I worked at a company many years ago and one of my coworkers used to work at microsoft.

we were talking about some technical thing and I said - Yeah, microsoft broke but they don't know what every company is doing and you get a young programmer in there and he just has to get somethign done...

My friend said - don't be naive. microsoft has meetings... How can we own this? and they devise strategies.

I think the strategy is seamless integration for us AND screwed up standards that make it hard for others to seamlessly integrate. Maybe it's a proprietary standard, maybe it's a "security" certificate, maybe it's a "quality gate", maybe it's dark patterns, maybe it's a hard login requirement (that's harder with GDPR).

You should read the halloween documents.

The end result is -- you the customer will get fewer, more expensive, less private choices in the end.

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#74

Post by bmarquez »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #54

If you enable wifi during Win10 installation (haven't tested otherwise), it requires you to provide a valid Microsoft account (Outlook, Skype, ...) to install Windows. I don't see how this is different from OP. Windows even tells you it supports local logins, but to put in a valid Skype account first or whatever so you can complete the installation before opting into a local logic. I shouldn't need to give my Skype o…

I can confirm this, I recently (within the last month) had to reinstall Windows 10 and was forced to create an account.

But I was able to bypass by putting obviously fake credentials (like admin@outlook.com or something similar) and only when it didn't work got the option to create a local account.

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#76

Post by [deleted] »

polyomino wrote: post #68
sova wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Na it's about deviation of flow of attention AFTER the product has already been acquired and UNNECESSARY to the core function of the product.

I think the core function of a product should be up to the people making it, not congress.

[deleted]

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#77

Post by millstone »

ericflo wrote: post #59
millstone wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the difference between a smart TV and a dumb TV. They have different guts but the market is the same. Major titles like Beat Saber or Half Life Alyx can be played on either standalone or tethered headsets. Facebook offers both under the Oculus brand and positions them together: https://www.oculus.com/compare/

Rift S is discontinued, their marketing materials notwitstanding. Half Life Alyx can only be played by a standalone headset if you let a computer run the all the graphics and game logic, similar to how an iPad can be used as a second monitor for Apple devices. It's really quite different from smart/dumb TV.

It's the same. The market is VR gaming. People who want to play VR games choose what headset to buy. Simple as that.

The TV/iPad comparison doesn't work. It's very common to have both a TV and an iPad, but I have yet to meet anyone who has both tethered and untethered VR headsets, and thinks of them as distinct.

The VR market is small and may differentiate in time, like how "mobile" has grown so it's common to have a phone and tablet and laptop. Bringing down the antitrust hammer today seems so premature.

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#78

Post by coding123 »

millstone wrote: post #42
r3drock wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle I would say you are right, but it is actually a far greater hassle to make (or keep) a facebook account than some generic account.

Have you actually had problems making/keeping a Facebook account? I have several throwaways which continue to work fine.

I have created accounts that got immediately locked the same day. I have also had accounts that got locked about 2 months in.

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#79

Post by taneq »

tenryuu wrote: post #50
ianmobbs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an extent, yes https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxinsiders/comments/cj5b0a/what_h...

I skimmed this, but this goes over getting banned from Xbox Live, the network service, not a system that prevents you from using the console

It also covers your ability to use the console itself. It seems reasonably fair.

tl;dr The banned account can still play games in offline mode but can't re-download them since this is done through the XBox Live service. Other users of that XBox can do everything as normal including play and re-download games that were installed by the banned account.

Re: Report may suggest that login requirement for Oculus Quest 2 is anticompetitive

#80

Post by p1necone »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #6

The Xbox requires that you have a Microsoft account, right? This seems like an inconvenience but I have a hard time understanding why it’s worth Congress’s time. Isn’t the world full of products that have to be registered by making an account in some system or another? I guess I could understand if somebody didn’t have internet access and wants to use Oculus, but they wouldn’t be able to download any games either eve…

The difference is that a Microsoft account is just a username and password used to log in to various Microsoft owned services - there's little baggage attached to it otherwise.

In comparison a Facebook account is directly tied to a specific Facebook (the company) owned service - Facebook (the application). You can't just create a Facebook login, you have to also create a (public by default) Facebook profile, probably use your real name and photo to avoid it being banned etc.

Facebook could fix this by letting you create a Facebook (the company) account which is just a username and password, and maybe an email for account recovery reasons. This account would then be used for logging in to all of Facebooks services, Facebook (the application) and Oculus included, while not actually requiring you to ever create a Facebook (the application) profile unless you wanted to.

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