Zuckerberg wants to be the hero of the metaverse because Facebook is boring

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-metaverse-mark-zuckerberg/620538/

by samizdis • 5 years ago

60 108 5 years ago

fspacef• 5 years ago

Quite a well written article, that might prove to be prescient. The authors point that the entire Valley needs a “big new idea” to rally around rings true. He also snides Facebook well that they are really not the best suited company to create an enjoyable online place. However I am not willing to be against Mark Zuckerburg. 2022 is going to be an interesting for sure.

guscost• 5 years ago

Maybe they’re just expecting to get trust busted and turned into a utility, like AT&T?

lotsofpulp3• 5 years ago

I wish ATT was a utility. Maybe then, the payments for my mobile phone would not have gone towards purchasing a dying business like DirecTV, or Time Warner Media, or funded racist television channels radicalizing my countrymen. Imagine all that funding going towards rolling out fiber to the home and making mobile networks better.

someonewhocar3s• 5 years ago

To be 'meta' rather than 'social' is an improvement.

Zuckerberg presents sometimes as suddenly widly ambitious, whilst so far maintaining the wide eyed - nobody knows who I'm supposed to be. God of personals sharing? Master of your wall of little notes?

This may prequel taking a more active stance in what Facebook means, and how it (supposedly) relates.

nicoburns9• 5 years ago

For me these kind of ridiculous projects from both Facebook and Google are the prime evidence that we ought to be taxing these companies more.

They're essentially circumventing market mechanisms (which would require a whole lot more people than just Zuckerberg to think that such a project was a good idea) and wasting a bunch of resources because they've been overcompensated for their other successful projects.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF• 5 years ago

I wish it was harder for these megacorps to just buy every single rising competitor as soon as possible. Because honestly I doubt they would be able to survive or be as successful without that whole routine.

The market can't self regulate if only very few megacorps have an iron grip on it and can stamp out any threat immediately.

krageon• 5 years ago

This is the market self-regulating. If you don't like what happens (I do agree), then you dislike the concept. Which makes sense, because the whole "might makes right" approach of such philosophies only serves to enable bullying and callous behaviour. Essentially the issues we see today.

Factorium• 5 years ago

Correct. Force them to divest Instagram and Whatsapp, and prevent them from acquiring any more companies. Problem solved.

lotsofpulp3• 5 years ago

because they've been overcompensated

How is this determined? Are market mechanisms not working in stock trading either? Seems like they are delivering decent profit numbers for their investors, compared to other companies.

nicoburns9• 5 years ago

Seems like they are delivering decent profit numbers for their investor

This is IMO completely the wrong benchmark. Are they delivering value to society? Yes some, but IMO not nearly in proportion to the amount of wealth they've accrued. Your free to make your own judgement about that, but if you agree then you also agree that market mechanisms are not working in this case.

ipaddr• 5 years ago

There are many reasons not to like this but circumventing market mechanisms doesn't register. You want Mark to have to have to report to a bunch of investors so they can vet his ideas before he is allowed to proceed. If this was investor funded couldn't Mark fund this himself?

Should we have prevented Amazon from investing into AWS? The meta universe seems like the next social platform and it's related to the facebook mission of connecting people virtually.

nicoburns9• 5 years ago

Should we have prevented Amazon from investing into AWS?

It's not about preventing it outright. It's about constrain resources to bias towards the invested-in company actually being profitable to allow other companies to compete with them on a level playing field.

If this was investor funded couldn't Mark fund this himself?

If Facebook didn't make as much money then Mark wouldn't have as much money to invest. Which IMO would be a good thing as it would mean that wealth would be more distributed which would likely lead to it being used more wisely due to the wisdom of the crowd. Mark could probably still launch such a project (and I have no problem with that), just not with "hiring 10,000 staff in Europe for an unproven project" level of resources (which I do have a problem with).

dageshi2• 5 years ago

Perhaps you could tell us which business ideas and scientific theories will be correct so none of us have to waste any money on ridiculous projects?

nicoburns9• 5 years ago

The idea is to distribute resources so that we get more experiments. Many of them will be ridiculous projects, but some of them most likely won't be. We don't get that when all the resources are concentrated in a single project like this.

wrnr• 5 years ago

I was never a fan of facebook (the website), but i'm sort of glad they are doing this metaverse thing. Computer graphics remains one of the most exiting fields in computer science, even good old geometry is having a comeback, and we could use the funding. It's not that any other big institutions believes there is anything of value here. It may be trickle down innovation, but at least facebook created react, I'm not one of them, but a lot of people not at facebook make a good living with that. What is the last time EY, PWC, Capgemini, BCG, McKinsey, Deloitte did anything for the common man. Sure they employ together millions of engineers, and that is something, but they bill over a trilion dollars for writing reports and keeping some old linux box running [1]. Talking about resources squandered and misdirected talent, it's not something you read about in the news very often.

[1]https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190507005765/en/Man...

syrrim• 5 years ago

They're essentially circumventing market mechanisms

That's the point. Market mechanisms will only fund things that will obviously succeed in a short time. A market cannot innovate or be creative. A single person, with a proven track record of being ahead of the curve, can.

and wasting a bunch of resources

The tremendous excess of resources we enjoy today comes from allowing a large number of people to explore ideas without first proving that does ideas were guaranteed successes. Not only can we easily afford to waste resources, we can't afford not to.

nicoburns9• 5 years ago

The tremendous excess of resources we enjoy today comes from allowing a large number of people to explore ideas without first proving that does ideas were guaranteed successes.

Yes, that is why I believe we should distribute resources so that as large as possible a number of people continue to have that opportunity, rather than concentrating so many resources in one man's project.

dkarp5• 5 years ago

This is a really good comment.

I think this sort of research done by large corporations is a big reason for the US's success. Just look at Xerox's PARC[0] where so much was incubated that couldn't have been if Xerox just focused on short term profit seeking.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company)

dnautics• 5 years ago

Market mechanisms will only fund things that will obviously succeed in a short time.

Glynn research institute.

For that matter celera, which arguably shows that the market will fund things that will obviously NOT work in a short period of time; anyone with half a brain could have told you that they were unlikely to be able to 'patent half the genome' but it's like greed and not understanding the narrative dominated.

JohnPrine2• 5 years ago

Yeah, that money should go to the government instead! Because the government never wastes resources right?

Aunche• 5 years ago

I'd agree with you if Congress wasn't the biggest offender of wasting resources. At least you can sell Facebook shares or sue Zuckerberg if you feel like he's wasting your money. A Senator gets reelected when they waste money because they waste it in their home state.

neither_color• 5 years ago

it may be true, as David Karpf wrote in Wired, that historically, “metaverse” technologies like VR have been “the rich white kid of technology”—continually failing and yet being granted opportunity after opportunity to succeed. Same, to a lesser extent, with AR, which Google famously tried to make happen with its Glass and was laughed out of the room 10 years ago. Snapchat’s glasses barely made a blip, and the dustbin of technology past is littered with failed VR headsets.

One thing the author is leaving out is that Oculus headsets ARE successful and the industry is iterating quite nicely. Quest 2 does NOT have a competitor with its feature set at its price point, I wish it did because Id buy it in a heartbeat; but it doesnt. You can argue that its not ubiquitous enough yet but it is growing, the headsets are getting more comfortable and coming out with more features. Since I got the quest new features have been continuously released through software updates, including a bump from 90hz to 120hz refresh rate, and native desktop PCVR wireless streaming that made tethering obsolete. I can play AAA titles like Flight Simulator 2020 and Half Life Alyx wirelessly, do some moderately intense cardio with boxing and fitness apps, and work comfortably for an hour or two with giant virtual desktop screens. It's certainly not a stagnant field, just not mainstream yet.

endisneigh5• 5 years ago

Quest 2 isn't successful the way Meta wants it to be. There's been like what, 2 million units sold? Facebook has nearly 2 billion MAU. 2 million is nothing.

Let's compare to other electronics that are arguably "mainstream":

Nintendo Wii - 101 million

Nintendo DS - 154 million

Sony PS4 - 116 million

Apple iPhone 12 - 100 million

Apple AirPods - over 100 million in 2021

josefresco• 5 years ago

Comparing hardware, with a fixed cost of about $300 to a free online service isn't exactly a valid comparison.

$600 million from 2 million customers (not including $ spent on games). How much money does FB make from 2 million FB users?

TigeriusKirk3• 5 years ago

I believe Quest 2 has passed 5 million units.

Damogran62• 5 years ago

I’ve played with wireless to my PC with a Quest 1 and dedicated WiFi interface, and it was good-not-great…what’s your GPU and network setup?

mbreese• 5 years ago

I don't know if the Quest 1 really had the hardware to support wifi game streaming. I thought it really required a cable to tether to a PC.

I have a Quest 1, but don't have a PC to have ever tested tethering... so I've only used it to play games on the device itself.

0des• 5 years ago

off-topic: Why does 'white' increasingly get used as a pejorative?

metalliqaz• 5 years ago

because its woke. racism and sexism are so hot right now </mugatu>

The real problem is class. Always has been.

jjoonathan2• 5 years ago

Racism.

civilized2• 5 years ago

Because some journalists, who tend to be white people from affluent backgrounds, like to continuously perform racial self-loathing to signal that they are not the "wrong kind" of affluent white person.

Actually, that's more of a side benefit. The real reason they do it is because they enjoy racial stereotyping (cf. Avenue Q's "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"). White-bashing is a safe outlet for that urge. If it were still socially acceptable to stereotype Asians as soulless, interchangeable technicians, they'd do that too.

White-bashing is also the socially sanctioned way to signal that you're racially conscious. This qualifies you for elite white people jobs like the Harvard admissions committee, where it's important that everyone have the mindset needed to limit the representation of the racial groups considered undesirable.

(Note that Harvard does not consider white a racial or ethnic group; only non-whites are racial/ethnic. You can see this from their yearly report of admissions by race, where whites are not mentioned and the racial percentages mysteriously add up to only about 55%: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics)

Jnr2• 5 years ago

VR is a very small niche market, and even though I am a regular PC gamer, I don't see myself buying into VR any time soon. I have played multiple games, including HL Alyx in VR on different headsets and after about an hour I just want to take that thing off and do something else. It is not exciting or very engaging. It could be used as a tool for training or something like that, but I don't see it becoming mainstream, at least not in the state it is in currently.

Who knows, maybe at some point some big company comes around with a fresh look at it and manages to make this thing cool, but I doubt it will be Facebook/Meta.

hdjjhhvvhga2• 5 years ago

Who knows, maybe at some point some big company comes around with a fresh look at it and manages to make this thing cool

I doubt it will eliminate the inherent problems, even if they make the headset very light. It is still something that you will want to take off your head after some time. Heck, even my headphones (that are very comfortable!) make me uneasy after on hour or so. Plus many people experience slight dizziness that is probably tolerable but not exactly a nice thing to have for entertaining.

What they can do is to make a series of continues improvements, not just to hardware but also software - Beat Saber is absolutely amazing, and they are some other nice games, but it still feels like far below expectations.

civilized2• 5 years ago

Dumb question: what's so hard about putting a screen inside a head-shaped box and connecting it to wi-fi?

Is it the shape of the screen?

Qu3tzal• 5 years ago

1) the screens are really close to your eyes, which is an issue for your eyes to focus on 2) the screens need a high field of view 3) the headset need to provide 6D pose feedback to the computer 4) battery

fxtentacle• 5 years ago

mostly latency. If the user rotates their head and you need more than a few ms to update the screen, they will feel sick / dizzy / headache.

dreamcompiler2• 5 years ago

Resolution. VR screens don't yet have small enough pixels to use them for typical tasks like word processing, spreadsheets, and code development. It's hard to cram 4000 horizontal pixels into a 1" wide screen.

ladyattis• 5 years ago

I don't see VR getting to the point of being a mainstream product for gamers as it doesn't add a significant novelty that can be enjoyed easily. Like early radio was a hobby interest but once vacuum tube technology made audio amplification a reality more people (even those who weren't technically inclined) were able to enjoy radio programming and thus the audience exploded. VR needs to be as easy as closing your eyes and going to sleep to enjoy properly in my opinion. And that sort of interface is probably a century away at best.

cm2012• 5 years ago

Wow, 1000s of words and completely missed the point.

Facebook largely relies on 3rd parties to run their business. Without Apple and Google phone access, they are dead in the water.

If they made a fundamentally killer new physical device, they would own it end to end and remove a whole risk category from their business. That's why Mark is investing $10b a year in VR R&D.

endisneigh5• 5 years ago

Even if they had a new killer device, unless it's as a small as a phone and has cellular functionality it will compete with phones for space in a pocket, bag or purse. Either way, it will be destroyed by the intense phone competition.

Look at the Gameboy/DS/3DS/PSP/Vita. By far the most popular set of non-phone handheld devices in existence. Obliterated by phones.

Together all of Nintendo's and Sony's handhelds have probably sold over a billion, several orders of magnitude more than all VR devices combined and in 2 generations they were wiped out.

The only way Meta can win here is if there's some sort of neural link that completely surpasses phones. I don't bet on it.

after_care2• 5 years ago

It doesn’t really matter where the user uses the Oculus, it matters how much users use the oculus. It can find success outside of the pocket.

Look at cable TV advertising.

aikinai2• 5 years ago

Obliterated by phones.

Nintendo Switch has sold 90 million units, right up there with other best selling gaming systems.

I don’t disagree with your main point, but your example wasn’t accurate.

karmakaze• 5 years ago

That's not how I read the situation. I could see this as being more like how mobile phones are exceeding desktop/laptop computers in usage. Sure a phone is small, but a lightweight pair of hands-free glasses can be even more convenient with a larger than hand-sized display.

It's only hard to believe now because the tech is in about the PalmPilot phase.

DisjointedHunt2• 5 years ago

I see this as a huge declaration of war.

Apple has been pushing in this area silently for years now with their industry leading LiDAR miniaturization and AR kit being used by many devs to actually ship augmented experiences.

While , here we have the CEO of Facebook coming out with an “Imagine . . “ line on half baked hardware and badly rendered experiences in a live stream.

I’m going to love watching Apple take a sledgehammer to these pipe dreams

lalos• 5 years ago

It also felt to me like vaporware, just a bunch of promises and no product or no real announcement. Apple on the other side is just quiet and opens up once it has something to sell. Then again FB is an ad company so this is what they know best, marketing.

DisjointedHunt2• 5 years ago

Hahah, precisely. "Imagine, you put on your headset and are in your home space" . . i cringed so hard.

I've been very critical of Apple on here, but i take my hat off to their dedication in shipping technology that no other company comes close to be able to ship. Globally, at consistent quality.

Outside of the US, buying an Xbox sucks, buying any hardware from Google or Facebook is a gamble (I tried, portal and Chromecast from official stores for relatives) and Apple is the only company that seems to delight.

I hated the keynote from Facebook yesterday, i can't believe they had the arrogance to think anyone outside of their offices would give a fuck about their fantasies and that there was ZERO substance.

malikNF• 5 years ago

I was a bit surprised why they used zukerburg to make the announcement in the first place. Fb is seen as a very creepy company. The amount of memes calling zukerburg a creep and the amount of jokes I have seen in the past few hours is astounding.

If fb did meta as a separate company/project and not directly linked to zukerburg and maybe had fb as a partner company they would have made this whole thing feel less silly and less creepy.

samizdis• 5 years ago

I am not really sure whether there is any way, given Facebook's corporate structure and investor/shareholder voice/power, that Zuckerburg could be overruled. The final decision, I think, is entirely his - albeit that he was probably advised by the top people around him.

Given that, then this seems to me that his passion for this is strong enough to overcome any reservations he or anyone around him might have. He's not dumb, and he surely knows what's what re current PR and image problems etc, so this looks (to me) like an expression of belief in what his vision is for the future.

MrPatan• 5 years ago

the amount of jokes I have seen

Mark hasn't seen them.

TigeriusKirk3• 5 years ago

Steve Jobs laid a trap for tech ceo egos with his presentations. He was very good at it, and other tech ceos want to imagine they're good at it too. They aren't, not even his handpicked successor.

They'd all be better served by turning it over to professionals, but they have to do it themselves.

The thing that puzzled me about the Meta presentation was that Zuckerburg could hire the best hair and makeup people in the world to at least help him look less creepy, but he doesn't. There's really no excuse for that. The look hurts his goals, but he sticks with it.

pupppet• 5 years ago

Mark wants to make it clear this is his universe. He read Ready Player One and decided playing a virtual god would be fun.

spywaregorilla2• 5 years ago

I don't think the tech is ready for a metaverse. It's hard to capture the attention of youth. The device hardware is somewhat high, it's not something you can carry in your pocket or use on the go. The software is gimmicky. It requires physical space. Although it can be used in a network it's not easy to do it with other people physically present, and is thus somewhat antisocial in a way.

I'm also constantly amused that nobody mentions that one thing that snow crash explicitly identified as the key for the technology to take off. High fidelity facial capture. The book made a big deal about this. I think it was an astute thing. I don't think VR chat meets the bar.

someperson• 5 years ago

On "high fidelity facial capture", are you familiar with Facebook's impressive codec avatar research?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvqQDTpGZ4c

spywaregorilla2• 5 years ago

That's nice. Can you use it?

xor992• 5 years ago

This comes just a few weeks after fb were shown not to be able to implement door access badges to their own buildings in a safe and secure way. Why would I ever trust a company like fb with hardware in my home/interacting with devices?

xor992• 5 years ago

Downvoted but if it was a smaller startup trying to do something related to hardware they would be shorted to hell & back + would be the running joke of the year. "X is trying to sell secure VR headsets but they can't even work a security pass on their own building" and so on. See thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28750894

Lamad1232• 5 years ago

Zuckerspy wants to follow your ass in all verses!

08982• 5 years ago

Question for greybeards – would something like LambdaMOO nowadays be described as a metaverse?

cbtacy• 5 years ago

Ahhh.... LambdaMOO! You're taking me back.

I'd say no. It doesn't include the spatial computing aspects. You can say it was a precursor to the metaverse, but by the earliest definitions (Snowcrash et al), the metaverse has to be a replacement for the reality around you which encompasses all your senses.

08982• 5 years ago

Thanks. To challenge that a little, MUDS certainly felt pretty real. Somebody wrote a book about a rape in LambdaMOO. [My Tiny Life.] I'm still confused about what's a metaverse and what's something like Second Life.

Lamad1232• 5 years ago

Omnizuck will hunt you down in other universes

jjoonathan2• 5 years ago

I wonder who will win. The big players all have special strengths, but which one will wind up being most important?

* Google -- interior navigation

* Facebook -- face recognition, posts

* Apple -- style and cool factor

That said, the obnoxious complaining attitude of the article reeeally grates on my ears. Lots of companies are trying very hard -- on their own dime -- to make this happen, knowing that most of them will almost certainly fail, and this guy wants to whine about it? What an ass.

Technology clunks until it doesn't. That's just how progress works. The same article could have been written about any of the last big technologies before they were mature: personal computers, the internet, smart phones, social networks. Nobody knows if or when AR will click, and the only thing to do is keep trying.

Also, he could have done without making it a race thing.

skellera• 5 years ago

Apple has the best consumer hardware design in the industry. If one of the big tech companies are going to crack the hardware issues (arguably the most important part), it’s going to probably be Apple. It’s a game of who can make the smallest form factor with the best performance without looking like shit. Pretty sure Apple is in the best position to win that. The software for all the other stuff you mentioned will follow the winner of the hardware.

But yeah, the article is pretty weak. People keep trying because AR/VR is going to be massive if the hardware is solved. Being the gateway to a person’s entire world (AR) or the next major media and productivity tools (VR) will make you one of the most powerful companies in the world.

after_care2• 5 years ago

It’s always been a race. Look at Windows phone to see what happens when you come late.

aikinai2• 5 years ago

I don’t think GP is referring to the “race” to VR, but the fact that the article tried to insult VR by calling it a white person.

lostmsu2• 5 years ago

Are Google and Apple real players in VR? I thought it was FB via Oculus and Microsoft.

DemiGuru• 5 years ago

MZ is attempting to ensure higher engagement with the users. Currently FB engagement is relegated to said user's spare time. The goal is to ensure that while on FB or in the metaverse if you will. The user is fully immersed and can "exist" there without any middle people. Squeezing out maximum engagement. FB's version of "The Matrix" with almost everything it implies.

mensetmanusman2• 5 years ago

We Americans sometimes forget we are 3% off the world. FB is so huge, and the hand wringing by a small community in America might not be a big deal in the scheme of things.

malwrar• 5 years ago

I guess we’ll see if zuckerberg can lure enough people into his next digital fiefdom for it to have staying power.

Hardware control seems to be the big money move, especially as advertising is looking less like a money firehose as governments start to catch on to how dangerous it is. A theory I’ve been entertaining is that he’s chosen to execute now in response to Apple & Google’s centralized control over hardware, which was directly and explicitly used to attack facebook’s sole means of funding itself.

If this metaverse bullshit catches on, zuck will have unaccountable control over his users eyeballs, software distribution and competition, and who knows maybe even the industry standard 30% tax. Here’s hoping the antitrust crowd is watching closely. I wonder if that’s why they’re investing mostly in the EU for their workforce vs the US (EU very much wants to be a tech rival to the US after all).

SadWebDeveloper2• 5 years ago

Everytime someone mentions VR, i got reminded of the same scene of hbo silicon valley sitcom on why VR tech won't work unless there is a significant breakthrough: It needs a 1000 usd dollars rig to run smoothly plus the VR equipment.

What facebook is doing is preparing for the inevitable... they are going to break his company for monopoly reasons, therefore he needs zuckerberg to be seen as the CEO of something else, kinda what google does with alphabet were the founders basically run alphabet and have someone else run google in case they need a someone to put the blame on why "google shows first the image of trump when searching for idiot".

dkarp5• 5 years ago

Except Oculus Quest 2 is $299.00, runs smoothly and requires no rig at all

SadWebDeveloper2• 5 years ago

299 for the basic module without battery packs that raises the costo to 400 and at reatail prices for the USA, outside the USA is hitting the 400 usd without the battery packs... it's still a really expensive device, the "metaverse" is going to be for the rich kids.

dreamcompiler2• 5 years ago

It's hard for me to imagine FB succeeding at this. Yes they might be able to build out the technology, but as John Carmack implied yesterday [0], the two killer apps for shared reality are "Adult Entertainment"--which FB will never do--and business meetings.

What business is going to let Facebook be the intermediary of its private internal communications? It would be hard to imagine even if FB was a relatively trusted company, but at the moment FB ranks somewhere between used car dealers and payday loan companies on the public trust scale.

The good news about this announcement is it gives other -- more competent and trustworthy -- companies permission to begin to work on a real metaverse.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29032872

zahma• 5 years ago

I don't doubt that virtual reality or some combination of virtual and augmented will arise, but I just don't see this strategy as a viable short-term escape. I'm also uninterested in the future virtual reality that Meta seeks when the price that Facebook and Instagram have cost us right now.

I credit the vision even if it repulses me. It's natural to imagine immersive content or at least digital overlays. That's a big vision and long term. The thing is, as an escape-hatch, it is too long-term. I don't expect to see any of these kinds of technologies dominating social spaces or commercial spaces for years to come. They're wonky, niche, and incoherent. It's also too unrealistic to awe critics enough to divert the public's attention away from Facebook/Meta's missteps.

I'm sure the tech's viability and popularity will change with the state of the art and with generational shifts and preferences. For now, I'm eagerly awaiting for Facebook/Meta to answer for the cesspools they've allowed to fester and the intrusions on basic privacy.

bad_username• 5 years ago

As much as I hate facebook, I do not think this media war against it is organic.

Zuckerberg wants to be the hero of the metaverse because Facebook is boring

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