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byDan Posluns ( 794424 ) writes:
Multiple billions of dollars, more than the GDP of some countries, spent in under a decade on a vision of the future that never even passed a basic smell test. Back in 2020 or so I was working on video game teams and we were seeing a big brain-drain to Facebook, with them basically waving huge wads of cash to poach our people to build their metaverse. I don't think any of the people that left were drinking the Kool Aid (at least not the ones I knew of), but it was a good way to make money fast working on cool tech, even if the customers for it only ever existed in Zuckerberg's imagination.
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byfuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) writes:
The exceptionally weird thing about the 'metaverse' hype was how big it managed to get despite existing tech actively suggesting that it would not be all that exciting
The lesson of video games; all the way back to the multi-user dungeons, is absolutely that there's interest and money in multi-user simulated environments; but also that the field is dominated by task specific implementations. There's not 'the metaverse' where you walk over to the WWII section if you want to play Call of Duty; and over to the fantasy section if you want to play World of Warcraft; and over to your employer's gimmicky virtual office building if you need to teleconference. And this isn't just some imperfect temporary thing: the various implementations actively prioritize different things; including choices where the options are mutually exclusive, in order to be the right thing for the job. There are 'generic' virtual worlds(eg. Second Life); but those tend to pay a pretty heavy cost vs. the specialized ones in order to be generic, and are kind of niche. Second Life is a perfectly viable business if you can keep your operations costs under control; but the idea that it's suddenly going to have the GDP of western europe because 'metaverse' is...dubious.
Then there's the close competition from things that are, technically, not 'metaverse' as Neal Stephenson and Hiro Protagonist would have it; but are definitely potential substitutes: video games you play with monitors, teleconferencing you do with webcams, stuff you do on the go on cellphones. Obviously there are some things that would be better, or more immersive, or whatever with VR googles; but predicting hypergrowth when the market is already saturated with stuff that is maybe 80% as good is nuts.
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byflyingfsck ( 986395 ) writes:
The Metaverse idea looked like MS Bob reincarnated. I cannot fathom how anyone could think that it would work.
byevil_aaronm ( 671521 ) writes:
Ok, I've seen this bandied about a few times: What the heck is the "metaverse"? I use FB, that's it. (And that's bad enough, but that's another post.) Is there something to Meta more than FB? Is it worth anyone's time, or is it just more schlock?
byDan Posluns ( 794424 ) writes:
If you ask 3 different CEOs this question you're liable to get 4 different answers.
From the Facebook/Meta perspective, it appears to means a virtual world with virtual avatars that you would use for everything from corporate meetings to social games to who knows what else. But it's also AR glasses. Or something.
byTwistedGreen ( 80055 ) writes:
It was an online chatroom service called Meta Horizon. You could access it with a Meta Quest device, and wander around some empty virtual worlds or play some minigames while talking to random people. That's about it.
byThud457 ( 234763 ) writes:
This bad news makes Lt. Dan sad.
bytoxonix ( 1793960 ) writes:
We had this in 1994. I used one of the first VRML browsers in around 1999. My friend was working on it before he came to the game company we worked for. It was fun to fly around in VRML land running into random users with bad network connections. We had the metaverse already. It wasn't cool then for the same reasons it isn't cool now. VR is not really that great if it doesn't interface directly with your brain. VR goggles are good for telepresence - drone pilots or robot operators. I'm sure there's a market
byDan Posluns ( 794424 ) writes:
I'm sure a lot of useful science was done and (maybe less-useful) tech was invented, but at what opportunity cost? The bigger picture here is that one dude with extraordinary wealth and power made a massive bet on an obscenely stupid vision of the future. I'm not saying we shouldn't have visionaries in our society, but it's a fairly novel thing that they must drag the livelihoods of so many employees and so much of our economy with them.
byLocke2005 ( 849178 ) writes:
Actually, yes. A lot of the research Meta has done for VR controllers has spin-off benefits in telepresence, or as Meta calls it, Teleoperation. Also spin-off benefits in training robots. Remember, Reality Labs is primarily a research division, as well as being Meta's devices division. Meta, Amazon, and Google are all leaning more heavily into devices now. Apparently that's where the money is. And when I think of devices, I think of... sexbots!
byTwistedGreen ( 80055 ) writes:
They do have some really nice technology. The hand tracking specifically is very impressive; you can interact with everything without a controller. Great for stationary games like darts. But they're really struggling to find a killer app.
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