The Meta Glasses backlash is changing how (or if) people use them

https://www.engadget.com/2212604/the-meta-glasses-backlash-is-changing-how-or-if-people-use-them/

by gnabgib • 10 days ago

18 13 10 days ago

Many of these services, which use simple tools like drills and dental probes to disable the recording light, have been advertised on Meta's own platforms. There are also dozens of videos on YouTube offering DIY tutorials.

This right here is why these stupid camera-on-face products are non-starters outside of very niche applications. They're never going to the next iPhone because people will assume you're secretly recording and there's a non-zero chance someone is going (rightfully) get freaked out and suddenly make it a very serious problem for you. Like did these product people ever talk to the average parent from the midwest and ask what kinds of violence they'd gleefully mete out on someone they believed to be covertly recording their children?

It's a scenario that makes these things unthinkable for public use.

Beyond this, everyone already has an excellent camera on their phone and there just isn't a need to have a face camera on all the time.

These products seem like a very easy IQ test for product managers and investors and yet huge market cap companies are failing it.

digitaltrees3• 10 days ago

Since when did zuck care about how users feel. They intentionally cause anxiety and depression in teens because it made engagement go up. They want the glasses in the world for ambient data collection.

cwillu• 10 days ago

The thought is that he should care because it affects our willingness to tolerate him and his.

MengerSponge3• 10 days ago

I'm curious what those conversations in Meta sound like:

A> People are calling our omnipresent surveillance technology "Pervert glasses"

B> Are the people who wear them perverts?

A> Most probably aren't.

johnnyanmac2• 9 days ago

I'll admit, I thought some 15 years of constant surveillance would get people desensitized to the idea of always being recorded, so there was a non-zero chance that proper smart glasses could succeed where Google Glass failed.

But I guess time is a circle and personal surveillance is much easier to rebel against than the government. Or perhaps the places desensitized (older folk who don't understand the tech, but are a louder votwe) aren't the same as the audience targeted for these glasses (youth, starting in tech hubs).

Not that I care about making these things succeed, but it seems japan might be a good example on how to enforce consent. Cameras are required to have a loud, unmutable shutter. Perhaps such regulations could have a mandatory red light?

beloch• 10 days ago

For those who grew up post-iPhone: wearable computing was a huge, dorky trend in the 90's and early 2000's. Well, not exactly huge, but hugely dorky. Some people came to class/work/etc. absolutely strapped with a plethora of PDA's, camera's, etc.. It was actually pretty amusing and a lot of people had a great deal of fun embracing the dork energy. Then smart-phones came along, did everything a fairly ambitious wearable computing rig could, and fit in your pocket to boot.

There's a critical difference between this early embrace of what cell-phones would soon do and the wearable glasses being produced by Google and Meta: consent.

If a 90's dork had a camera in a quick-draw harness, you'd know they were taking pictures because they had to point the camera and press a button. You didn't have to worry that some of the most amoral and ruthlessly invasive companies on the planet were getting a live-feed from that camera, nor did you have to worry about what they were going to use it for. You didn't have to simply trust that they haven't disabled the recording light, nor did you have to deal with that light coming on suddenly without your permission. Back in the 90's, you could also safely assume that you just weren't interesting enough to spy on. Thanks to AI, every conversation will soon be (or already is) worth spying on, even just for the relatively minor application of ad tailoring.

Meta glasses are not just a new, dorky fad that people will find amusing and soon learn to ignore. They're going to piss reasonable people off.

steve-atx-7600• 10 days ago

Won’t it soon be hard to tell if glasses are smart or not? At least for outdoor use sunglasses in black? I block meta so I have only seen third party pictures online.

technion• 10 days ago

Making them "fashionable" seems to be a selling point, as seen woth the last advertising positioning largely to the woman's fashion industry. They are definitely aiming to not look like nerdy tech.

MengerSponge3• 9 days ago

They learned from Scoble's glasshole picture https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jwherrman/yes-you-can-w...

MengerSponge3• 9 days ago

It's already hard to tell, because chunky sunglasses don't change in volume much when you add electronics and optics. You kind of have to know what you're looking for to clock even these: https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/electronics/RW7002ray-ban%20meta...

The Meta Glasses backlash is changing how (or if) people use them

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