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I don't have a clue about VR stuff, and this is the first time I'm hearing about "Firefox Reality". Why do you need a special browser? What's different about this one?

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A web browser can browse to site that display VR content. A VR browser has to handle various aspects of this:

1. Displaying the VR content itself. Most can do this already but it's not always switched on by default. 2. Render the browser chrome - the UI around the VR content in a way that's sensible and usable in VR. 3. Handle transitioning from VR web contentto a non-VR content in a sensible way. (where does the browser Chrome live when the "web page" is covering 360 degrees in both directions? VR content can't be contained in a rectangular frame)

A parallelizable layout engine should make it a lot easier to get the kind of framerate needed for vr. Mozilla have used this as a test-case for Servo. I’ve previously criticized them for it as an extreme niche market and a diversion from mainstream use cases, but happy to swallow my words if it goes well.

I was indeed wondering about how niche this was. Are there any reliable usage statistics for, say, how many people currently use a VR browser daily?

(And to forestall the inevitable comment, I understand the potential of VR, and have since the 1990s VR wave. What I'm wondering about is actual sustained (that is, non-novelty) use.)

It's rather chicken and egg at the moment but if you believe in the web and you think VR is an important new medium it's important that the web doesn't get left out of the party.

Something has to be the connecting tissue of the multiverse and we'd better hope it's not Facebook or something equally proprietary.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but the theory that "VR is an important new medium" is exactly what I wanted empirical data to test. I was not asking about potential; I was asking about current sustained use.

Yeah. I was trying in a roundabout way to say "Current usage is probably low but this is why I think it's still an important strategic move". It's definitely about having faith in VR as a medium rather than "oh wow. Look how successful VR is already!" - because it isn't.

Thanks, but when I said I was trying to forestall the inevitable comment about potential, it was exactly that sort of faith-based reply I was hoping to avoid.

I'm finding it hard to imagine what kind of evidence would be of use in a scenario like this. Some kind of Gartner hand-wavey focus-group thing?

You don't have to imagine. I gave a clear example: DAU statistics for a VR browser. Or you could look at basically any successful technology, look at it on the way up, and ask what the early signs were that it was seeing significant use beyond novelty purchase. (That is in Moore's model getting out of the "innovator/techie" market segment and into pragmatic use.)

For literally my entire adult life people have been talking about VR as the coming big thing. I'm 100% over hearing about that, especially in response to very specific questions about actual use.

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