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Comment by taurath | Hacker News Reader

VRChat w positional audio is superior to just talking on the phone or thru a video conference I’d say

I was never arguing that VRChat/social apps are worse than other remote social experiences (phone call / video conference, etc.). My point is that it is very isolating and impossible to share the experience in any meaningful way with folks around you, or just be present at all while doing something in VR.

Like I can play Mario on my TV while sharing that experience with my kids or chatting with my wife about things, while still being around my family in a shared living space. VR just isn't cut out for that. I do use it for sim-racing (which is pretty much a perfect fit for VR headsets) which is anyway a situation where you need to be distraction free and kinda isolated from everyone else so it works well in those types of scenarios.

Counterpoint: The same argument is true of phones, and that has largely not stopped people from being regularly severely distracted by them even in social settings.

> My point is that it is very isolating and impossible to share the experience in any meaningful way with folks around you

There are an awfully large number of people who are currently literally isolated and unable to share any experiences with anyone.

Even sans pandemic, my family all lives several states away (drivable), and my extended family are all even further (flying distance). In person connnections are great, but it’s not like I can just pop over for dinner after work.

I haven’t gotten any of them to join me on the VR train, but as it grows I think that’s a big use case for it. You can hang out together with someone in a VR space in a way that video chat doesn’t capture.

For what it's worth, the VR meetup in my city is hosted on Zoom and not VR.

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