I mean stuff like Meta, crypto and all that obvious scam shit that rich people seem to be diving dick first into lately.
Zuck supposedly spent BILLIONS on Meta, and when you look at the result, yeah, it's clear that the money wasn't being spent on the actual product. So where did that money really go?
Or are billionaires just really that bad with money and ideas?
Something is sus about just how stupid with their money they've become. I mean, they were always stupid, but when you have that much money and power you have to be a special kind of inept to do what Zuck and Musk have been doing to their companies.
Zuckerberg went all in on VR because it's the natural platform upgrade to the manipulative echo chamber that Facebook currently is. The amount of data and manipulation that a proper social VR platform could enable is like evil supervillain type shit. And frankly, Meta pulling it off is not out of the question yet, but there's a number of hurdles in their way; The primary one being just how uncharismatic Zuckerberg is and his inability to make anything Meta release seem cool. But, VR is far from being at the peak of its adoption cycle and I wouldn't count Meta out just yet. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they buy VRChat or something.
I don't think there is a VR "adoption peak" to be honest (well not one worth mentioning)
VR is shit. It's fun for like 15 minutes in games (and only then for people used to video games) but that's about it. I doubt much people want to have meetings "in VR", or go to concerts "in VR". The only use case for VR right now given the state of the technology is probably linked to industrial visualization and the like
It's also something that seems to come back every twenty years or so; every time the people dreaming it up seem to think this time the tech has caught up to the dream; it still hasn't IMO
I disagree. I think VR is pretty rad, but because of the fucked up housing market, it's increasingly difficult to live in a space with enough room to accommodate a good VR setup.
Monitors and phones don't give people tummy aches. Yes, it's cool for giving you a real sense of space, but that starts to drop off once you hit the point where your first instinct is to see how the devs handle your head clipping through a wall.
It’s just antithetical to the way humans have evolved
This is what they should have done. That and put out a minimum spec occulus that's dirt cheap. The data harvesting and monetization can come later, if you don't have an installed user base nothing will happen.
they'd either have to nix user-uploaded avatars or face the legal battles it would bring -- either way, it undermines the point of buying it in the first place
Nah, allow users to freely upload their own avatars, just open a marketplace and let user's sell their custom avatars and/or custom assets for avatars, for a cut.
can't sell Kermit the frog, that's Disney
Fair, just that my larger point was to grab an installed user base and then e-shittyfy it, rather than build something shitty first. You can work out rights issues with Disney once you have the Kermit avatar user's, rather than having no user's at all
Yeah, and I think not having that is due to covid and the subsequent supply chain issues really throwing a wrench into their plans. Honestly, a lot of the issues I've been seeing I think can also be chalked up to neoliberal capitalism just shooting itself in the foot. Who knows what's happening behind the scenes with the US being so aggressive towards China. The Intelligence community is so deeply entrenched in social media orgs that I can only imagine the frustration of being a global corporation leashed by the world's rabid dog. Small favors that the US is kneecapping its allies, I guess.
Right, but also building an app with the plan to attract advertisers first before attracting users to advertise to was just a recipe for disaster from the get go. It's like the financialization of software programming- to the point where meta seems to have forgotten it's own history.
Oh, I think they have. I'd guess that most of the devs that turned facebook into the platform powerhouse of the 2010s are long gone. Replaced by kids with boot camp cert programs created to flood the IT labor market. 🦶🔫