Facebook on Monday announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the "metaverse", a virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant sees as the future.
As far as I can tell, the current problem with VR worlds is that the traditional adoption path for giant platforms like this includes making them accessible to poor kids in the imperial core, who near universally do not have VR headsets. Google Glass is still around, but is catered to industrial use cases, which tells you a lot about the price point for a headset that’s comfortable for extended periods of time.
That's the thing though. People don't want it. Closing yourself off inside headphones and a headset as well as however other many peripherals you need to make it better is not what people want. It's fun for full immersion single player games (in the sense that you have nobody else in the room with you) and absolutely nothing else.
The very concept of the technology ignores the fact that people live in family households with other people. That 2 parents and some kids are supposed to all have one of these and all close themselves off from one another in VR.
It ignores the material reality of what most people's home lives are actually like.
They've taken their ideological individualism and gone so far into it they've become divorced from reality and do not realise this shit will never ever work with current households.
I don't think this shit is viable, but it's bigtime doom fuel.
As far as I can tell, the current problem with VR worlds is that the traditional adoption path for giant platforms like this includes making them accessible to poor kids in the imperial core, who near universally do not have VR headsets. Google Glass is still around, but is catered to industrial use cases, which tells you a lot about the price point for a headset that’s comfortable for extended periods of time.
FB's current VR headset costs what a used phone costs, and everyone has phones.
All they have to do at this point is start forcing people into it.
That's the thing though. People don't want it. Closing yourself off inside headphones and a headset as well as however other many peripherals you need to make it better is not what people want. It's fun for full immersion single player games (in the sense that you have nobody else in the room with you) and absolutely nothing else.
The very concept of the technology ignores the fact that people live in family households with other people. That 2 parents and some kids are supposed to all have one of these and all close themselves off from one another in VR.
It ignores the material reality of what most people's home lives are actually like.
They've taken their ideological individualism and gone so far into it they've become divorced from reality and do not realise this shit will never ever work with current households.