The metaverse is bullshit • Hacker News Board

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#701

Post by michaelmrose » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:02 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #693

michaelmrose wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name some works first conceived as books where the movie adaptation was superior? Reading for pleasure requires an individual with a greater degree of imagination and intelligence vs staring at a screen and often takes a much greater time investment and yet often offers a broader set of experiences because one needn't convince someone to invest 100s of millions animating fantastic scenes if one author sitting…

Blade Runner, Forrest Gump, The Shining are all in my opinion better than the book.

I liked the novel that inspired blade runner more but I've not read Forrest Gump or the shining so it might be worth reading these to compare thanks.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#702

Post by redisman » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:46 AM UTC

pram wrote: post #678

redisman wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand why would that be an asterisk. Anyway they have the multiplayer game with the biggest reach (Fortnite) and they develop the premier game engine Unreal. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be in a good position to make a play in this space.

Because it's infant level analysis, Epic doesn't have a unique competitive advantage because they have one popular game. I know a company that has a very popular game (Minecraft) and they develop the premier game API DirectX. They also have a pretty popular game console, AR glasses, a well known operating system, etc. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be in a good position to make a play in this space.

Sure, MS is also in a good position(?)

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#703

Post by TaXaZ » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #585

slightwinder wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Text is mightier than the Metaverse. "A Picture says more than a thousand words." > Kids can do video calls with their smartphones but prefer texting. Because text is asynchronous, and persistent. Text is a weak medium, but with specific strengths which can beat others in certain situation if they can played well. > We could discuss Hacker News stories with video chat but we prefer text. I guess you haven't discove…

>"A Picture says more than a thousand words." If I give you a thousand word essay, good luck crating an image that conveys the same information. I mean you could photograph the essay, but then we're back to text again.

Text is mightiest; but you should use "video" instead of "image". Video is the natural visual medium to convey an essay, not a still image.

Let's consider a philosophical essay as something highly abstract, then its video counterpart would be mostly audio (transcript of the essay). In other cases, e.g. a scientific report, video might be easier content to consume but producing a proper video for that take much more time than writing a 6-page text. The video as the visual medium counterpart has lot more complexity and not always worth it.

Consider a presentation: text+visual+audio, it's more capable to convey the essence of the material. So all these boils down to what is the perfect combination for a particular use case. From short to long image/video, from Instagram, TikTok to YouTube, each multimedia choice lead to different use cases.

And text is the mightiest not because that it necessarily convey better, but because it can:

1. produced/maintained/transferred with the least complexity than others, it's much more efficient representation in this regard.

2. It can represent with most rigorous detail (e.g. consider a math paper)

3. It has the easiest retrieval and mining

4. BUT It usually needs more effort to consume

It's always nice to choose the proper combination of text+visual+audio+interaction. AR/VR only add one ingredient (if you consider it a new one) to this whole toolbox we as humankind are building. It makes our communication much more complex, and much more powerful. However, at the end, the most basic one which is text will remain the mightiest. We may need to wait for some bizarre telepathy technology between brains to change the status quo.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#704

Post by scoopertrooper » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

Banana699 wrote: post #613

Jasper_ wrote: post #524

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That sounds incoherent. Why are we all drinking OJ/beer? Can we taste it? If so, I can't mention how this beer tastes to my random group of 20 worldwide strangers (that all understand English and American culture enough for me to gossip about US celebrities apparently?) without risking giving up the lie? Real Life In My Pocket? I already have Real Life Outside Of My Pocket, too. It's not a utopia yet, I don't see why…

>That sounds incoherent. Why so? the first 3 paragraphs are 2 examples of why a 1:1 reconstruction of our world on demand can be an amazing thing, the remaining is the statment 'All creation or innovation that the human brain does, or is ever capable off, is simply mixing and remixing its readings of the outside world. So mutable and cheap on-demand reconstructions of the outside world will be an immense boost to cre…

This reads like some sort of techno-utopian fever dream.

People don't want to be completely disconnected from physical reality. The world you described is vulgar to any real human person, honestly it sounds like a cross between Brave New World and The Matrix.

There would be no authenticity of experience in the world you imagine. It'd be people living out instagram fantasies continuously.

Society would eventually devolve into a decadent, fetalistic world marked by the boredom of playing a video game with god mode on, where humans would no longer be able to deal with hardship or conflict. Bored of travelling to places that don't exist, they'd try desperately to satiate their desire for authentic human interaction by sitting in virtual pubs chatting about the imagined escapades of pretend celebrities.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#705

Post by che_shirecat » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:40 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #401

cromka wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That we, "the old folks", just don't get it, limited by having passed our "exploratory" phase and well into "exploitation" phase (something I read here in HN the other day). And they may have a point: after all, "the old folks" 30 years ago were saying the same thing about the Internet, well into 2000s.

Oh come on. Usenet in the 1980s was full of people in their 30s, 40s, and beyond. Sure, some people didn't "get" the internet, but millions of demographically similar people were getting value out of it. That isn't happening, and won't happen, with this metaverse BS. And if it does, attentive people of all ages will see it coming many years in advance.

Saving this so I can come back and laugh in 10 years

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#706

Post by edwinyzh » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #395

dataexporter wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook did have a budding developer ecosystem back in late 2000s with game developers and app developers using Facebook's platform to build their businesses. While it did have tons of privacy issues and data leaks, they could have built it into a sustainable ecosystem instead of making endless changes forcing developers to leave their ecosystem.

Aw - I remember Cow Clicker. I wonder what happened to all that stuff.

I wonder that too, since I didn't watch closely nor use facebook frequently. IIRC there was a Russian company was hot since it has a bunch of popular games based on the FB platform.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#707

Post by parasubvert » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

emilsedgh wrote: post #642

parasubvert wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is optimistic. Oculus is winning the early rounds of the VR market war. Google in 1998 was just another search engine. Netflix mailed DVDs. Amazon grew from $150 to 600m revenue and had just started selling music and movies. Facebook non-ad revenue is $3b annually and growing. Oculus store and devices account for easily half or more of that number. Beat Saber on the Quest 2 alone has cracked $100m. Beat…

> The biggest drag on Oculus right now is the need for a Facebook account. Maybe within the tech circles and HN crowd. But outside these circles nobody even feels like something is off.

Well, what’s off is that kids are rejecting classic Facebook in favour of Snap, Tiktok or Instagram. Who wants to hang out with family members and aggrieved conservatives?

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#708

Post by parasubvert » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

enneff wrote: post #685

parasubvert wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is optimistic. Oculus is winning the early rounds of the VR market war. Google in 1998 was just another search engine. Netflix mailed DVDs. Amazon grew from $150 to 600m revenue and had just started selling music and movies. Facebook non-ad revenue is $3b annually and growing. Oculus store and devices account for easily half or more of that number. Beat Saber on the Quest 2 alone has cracked $100m. Beat…

Nobody cares about VR.

Get off my lawn!

Reminds me of when no one cared about native mobile (vs the Web), or before that, no one cared about GUIs (command line is where it’s at)

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#709

Post by parasubvert » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #662

parasubvert wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I think Facebook is really onto something, particularly if you see Oculus as the main tip of the spear. They’re playing a very long game. My high school and college friends and I are spread across the continent. The pandemic and a mix of Discord and Tabletop simulator brought us back together to do regular board gaming. This is effectively a VR environment without the headset. My 12 year old hangs out on VRchat o…

> The pandemic and a mix of Discord and Tabletop simulator brought us back together to do regular board gaming. This is effectively a VR environment without the headset. This is the central problem for VR. The internet offers many experiences that are essentially "VR without the headset", from the Tabletop simulator you mentioned to World of Warcraft. What does the headset really add? You're still looking at a screen…

The quest 2 is surprisingly good at swapping between reality mode (via cameras) and VR mode, when needed. Augmented reality will make this sort of switching more important.

ultimately, people choose VR for the immersion. It’s why problem build home theatres or still go to the theatre, or visit amusement parks, etc., when they’d rather stay home. The headsets are getting far more convenient and comfortable. Still early.

Re: The metaverse is bullshit

#710

Post by parasubvert » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

peterthehacker wrote: post #565

cromka wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That we, "the old folks", just don't get it, limited by having passed our "exploratory" phase and well into "exploitation" phase (something I read here in HN the other day). And they may have a point: after all, "the old folks" 30 years ago were saying the same thing about the Internet, well into 2000s.

> we, “the old folks,” just don’t get it Zuckerberg is 37 years old, so he’d probably be lumped into “the old folks” category. Why would he get it and not us? I’m, a decade younger than Mark, so idk if I’m young enough by your standards to get it, but my sister and her friends are in college and think this is all a joke. None of them are interested in putting on VR goggles, let alone joining the “metaverse.” None of…

If you’re looking at the consumer gaming and social media space, then you’d get it.

People underestimate Zuckerberg’s ability to see socio-technical far in the future at their peril. He was ridiculed for making a MySpace competitor, for getting rid of Facebook Apps, for the look & feel changes, the ridiculous prices paid for Instagram and WhatsApp… and he was right each time (for growing his business and his customer base).

Where he has been wrong is in putting Facebook at the centre of his empire, when it’s increasingly a legacy platform for family members, old people and maladjusted conservatives. Metaverse corrects this by making Facebook just one of several properties.