Hacker News Reader

Comment by eightysixfour | Hacker News Reader

Quite a few horror stories on the forums/reddit of people having their facebook account banned for "no reason" which then locks them out of their Quest and all of their purchases. It can still be used with the link cable to a computer, but is otherwise basically bricked.

Buying one if you don't have a facebook account is even worse, you have to create one which they inevitably decide is a bot and then ban it.

View on HN

The funny thing is Oculus reps (now deleted) telling people to create a separate Facebook account for Oculus, and those accounts getting permanently banned with no recourse because it's against Facebook's ToS to have multiple accounts.

Creating fresh accounts for devices requiring them should be standard practice, and companies not allowing this boycotted.

When you buy an Android phone, Google gives you a "free" account if you chose to create one (no phone number verification needed).

EDIT: Or not, apparently. Might only work with some whitelisted manufacturers. Boycott Google too I guess.

This has not been my experience for either of my last two Android phones, Google would not create an account without verifying a phone number. Their support forum recommended using a land line or borrowing a friend's phone.

That's sad to hear. The situation with smartphones is magnitudes worse than VR headsets. First, VR headsets have competitive consumer-respecting alternatives (Valve Index), second, they are for now purely an entertainment device, while smartphones are semi-required to competitively function in modern society. I'm surprised no government has yet tried to address the harmful smartphone OS duopoly, the only worthwhile initiatives are from unbacked Open-Source hackers.

You can skip the Google account entirely on Android and everything still works more or less (more than a few nag screens, probably worth rooting if you go this direction).

You can't use the Play Store though, right? So no app installs unless you sideload from some other source?

At that point you could probably sideload one of the alternative app stores and be all set, unless FDroid like hooks into google services for things

There are alternative app stores and actually, the ones I've tried have worked pretty well. There is a way to get play store working but you'd be violating ToS technically.

I think that used to be the case, but I recently got an Android TV (I know it's not _exactly_ the same thing) and had no option but to log in.

Of course, creating a new account for just one device was a pain too, as Google required some verification steps which included an SMS message.

Was this the new official Google TV (which is NOT actually Android TV though likely based off of it) or a 3rd party product?

The Google TV Chromecast is an Android OS just confirm which is why Stadia doesn't work on it yet. Although you can sideload the Stadia mobile app.

> Buying one if you don't have a facebook account is even worse, you have to create one which they inevitably decide is a bot and then ban it.

Twitter does a similar thing: they'll lock your account and demand your real phone number before you can get access again. Luckily it really was a throwaway-account in my case that I created for a random mobile game, but it's still a horrible practice - same with Microsoft's email service, which also may lock you out one day until you enter and verify your phone number.

Both of your examples have recourse, and do not brick expensive hardware. The Oculus/FB example is much worse.

> It can still be used with the link cable to a computer

Can it? Doesn’t Oculus Link only work via the Oculus desktop application, which also requires sign-in?

Yeah I have to have the desktop app running and am initially thrust into it before I can launch steamvR

I haven't had it happen to me, just recalled that others mentioned using it that way. I may very well be mistaken though.

I'm going non-Oculus tethered for my next VR headset, I have no interest in all of this getting attached to Facebook.

My past experience with this sort of thing from the other side of the fence makes me fully expect most of the people complaining the loudest about being banned for "no reason" were probably actually banned because they harassed someone or said something super racist.

Sure, but they still paid for a physical product. If I actually own something in the truest sense of the word then a company shouldn't get to have any say over my continued use of the device, games etc regardless of what entirely abhorrent positions I might hold. That's the perks of being a private citizen.

IMO we need strong regulation against this type of interference passed the sphere of the original transaction. Large COs are trying to make us all renters. Fuck that.

While I'm pretty pro-corporate this is the ticket issue that grinds my gears.

That’s likely. But is it your opinion that, e.g. Toyota is within its rights to brick your car if you post, e.g. Holocaust denial posts on their owners forums?

That behavior is abhorrent, but this seems like a weird extrajudicial punishment vector.

I’m all for private corps policing their network, but bricking your devices seems like a whole other thing.

The device isn't blocked, only the facebook account. They can still sell the device.

No, that's the point. You can't use the Occulus if your Facebook account is banned.

But any money spent on apps for that device is lost.

You cannot sell those apps. You cannot use those apps on competitor devices.

Actually this is not true, you should familiarize yourself with this particular scenario. Reviewers and game developers have had their devices bricked for creating new accounts to use on them. This was especially bad during the election period as FB was pretty much banning all new accounts then.

It also included people who had deleted their account previously and created a new account solely in order to use the device.

I've had my Facebook account for > 10 years, but use it sparingly. It was locked for "suspicious activity" the exact moment I linked my Oculus account to my Facebook account. It gave me two options to unlock it: link my Facebook account with a google account, or send in some pictures of a government ID for verification. I don't believe that the act of linking two, required, accounts on the first day the device was publicly available, before my first experience with VR, is somehow racist or objectionable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com