Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will turn into a ‘metaverse’
theverge.com
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First was Facebook Spaces. Opened 2017, closed 2019. This was a VR world. Not a very good one. It was mostly a 3D approach to a desktop.[1] You could hand other people flat pictures. Sharing! Total flop.
Second was Facebook Horizon. Opened 2020, still running, but not getting much attention. It's a 3D cartoon level VR world. Works OK, not very interesting or pretty. Big emphasis on "safety", which means no sex. Avatars have no legs; nothing below the waistline. Plus there's a panic button which puts you in a "personal safe zone", where you're in a bubble until Security gets there to rescue you from whomever is annoying you. While it's still running, Facebook doesn't mention Horizon any more.
Zuckerberg's vision is probably more like that video I've linked before, "Hypereality". The real world, with overlays from augmented reality. Overlays of more ads.
[1] https://youtu.be/_kGRpSd4vnc
In 2017, we had only had mainstream non-beta VR headset hardware in the marketplace since 2016 (original consumer Rift, HTC Vive), lets not forget the 20 years of PDA hardware/software attempts we lived through before the mainstream smartphone designs we all use appeared in 2007. I expect a very similar arc will be followed for VR/AR, especially as the interaction model is so different from screen based.
I'm happy to see some development out "in the open", and wouldn't be so quick to criticize small project flops; VR/AR needs to begin somewhere. Zuck isn't trying to pretend VR/AR is ready for primetime either yet, he's made it clear he wants to be in a very strong position when/if the market does heavily move to VR/AR hardware, which he obviously believes strongly it will over time.
Facebook is smart to be in there doing experiments and failing though. That's table stakes for having a shot at winning the competition.
Not really. I tried Jaron Lainer's original VR rig back in the 1980s. The Autodesk system from the 1980s. The W Industries system ... the HTC Vibe. The Microsoft HoloLens. There's been progress, but usability really hasn't improved all that much.
You can shoot at people. That works fine. You can sort of use swords. Everything else, not so much. That's why Beat Saber is still the most successful VR game.
Some Autodesk people once thought that VR would make it easier to use CAD, because selection in 3D with a mouse is such a pain. Didn't work out, and 3D selection with a mouse got much better.
If anybody gets this right, it might be NVidia Omniverse. That's an attempt to do for 3D what shared text editors do for text documents.
If someone gets the right metaphor going there, I think it could work great, but the naive solution of 1:N direct scaling the position of your hand to a co-ordinate in space isn't it. I imagine it'll be something like direct correlation to get 'in the neighbourhood' and then an easy modal toggle to a 'precision' mode, where you move something in small increments along just 1 or 2 dimensions, using a comfortable binary gesture.
Or maybe AI will get really good at guessing what alignment the user wants.
Right. The Autodesk people figured that out by 1990. It's like trying to draw while wearing mittens. And they had fingered gloves as input devices. During the 1990s, there were many attempts at tactile interfaces. None of them ever caught on. My favorite was the levitated metal ball. It rested over a shallow bowl, and offered all 6 degrees of freedom, plus it could resist your movement and push back.
VR is good for looking at 3D models, but not for working on them.
I want 3D emacs.
Their world building tools are kind of interesting, and surely were difficult to implement, but lack any real purpose or traction.
All in all, I'm surprised more by how basic and bad Horizon is than I am by how good it is. Its been in development for a long time, and by now, I expected a lot more.
Try vrland.io instead, it's a web-based social 3D/VR platform that runs everywhere with a browser which includes WebXR.
Link: https://vrland.io/lobby
I get that it's not for everyone, but sign me up.
We need to fix our current internet before allowing it to permeate our lives any deeper.
Adblockers may not work so well in the future, when everything's a binary blob of Web Assembly.
But, really, the problem is the vulture capitalists who can't conceive of building anything, only exploiting everything.
> [2] https://youtu.be/Uf_9J_EdzZw
That video is kind of amazing. It's all people of color, until one white guy shows up and immediately gets blocked.
Also, all their safety team can do is make a recording and submit a report for further review? That seems stupid and pointless.
- the lady in blue, she looks like a white person after having sun in the beach
- the guy with purple tshirt, he looks readhead, so white
- the guy with white hat and black hoodie looks south American
- the guy with glasses and red jacket, looks black
- the ladies with white tshirt, look white
- the lady with glasses and brown tshirt, looks white
- the guy with grey hat and orange hoodie looks white
We are talking about cartoons, so we're really talking about symbols and coding. You're taking too much of a leap by inferring that much about the underlying concept from the use of symbols. You might have a point, but you need different support.
What? I better tell some friends they aren't European.
> I can go to any time--in the past. I don't want to go to the future and find out what happens to white people because we're gonna pay hard for this shit, you got to know that. We're not going to just fall from number one to two. They're gonna hold us down and fuck us in the ass forever. And we totally deserve it. But for now, wheeeeeeee!
Source: https://genius.com/Louis-ck-on-being-white-annotated
Second Life, which has been at this a while, has a reasonably workable solution - a rather strong notion of individual property rights. By default, anyone can enter anyone else's property. The property owner can change that. They can block everybody from entering. They can block individuals. They can eject people already there. They can set time limits. They can create groups and only allow members of that group in. They can charge to get in. They can delegate those powers to a program of their own. All those options are in use.
So, for most land in Second Life, Linden Lab doesn't have to get involved. Linden Lab itself owns land, but it's mostly roads, water, and open space. Almost all the places where people congregate are privately owned. Club owners routinely eject people, and are not required to justify their decisions to anyone. There are more complaints about "I was ejected from ..." than "I was harassed at ..." To which the Linden Lab stock answer is "we don't get involved in resident to resident disputes".
There's still some trouble at Linden Lab's own "safe hubs", which are probably the worst places in Second Life. Linden Lab does not police those much. So they're jerk magnets. This is mostly a problem for new users who haven't figured out not to hang out there much.
There's a paid "governance" team, of about six people. They do sometimes ban people for griefing. Most of what they do is deal with real estate complaints - "There's a 60 meter tall rotating, floating, glowing FOR RENT sign at REGION/X/Y/Z, which violates ad policy", or "There's a big tree at REGION/X/Y/Z which goes over the edge of private property onto a public road and has a solid branch too low for trucks." (You can usually build stuff only on your own property, but it can stick out over the edge. The owner of the parcel encroached upon can remove the object if they want, but that's not automatic, because a bit of encroachment makes the shared landscaping look better. It really works like real life as much as possible.) Governance has public meetings, and it's like going to your local board of zoning appeals.
This rather low-key approach works well in practice, and it doesn't require an army of "moderators".
I mention all this because almost nobody making "metaverse" noises seems to get this. Of course, Decentraland has only 200-300 concurrent users, so they don't have the scale to get these scaling problems. The worlds that are divided into little disconnected rooms don't have neighbor problems. Roblox has a huge moderator staff, but their target demographic is aged around 13. If you can't solve this problem, your biggest labor cost is your paid goon squad.
This is the biggest mistake a lot of VR developers made and are still making. People want to look cool in VR. They don't want to look like flying blobs (unless that's their actual chosen aesthetic). This affects their platform and purchase choices to a degree that many don't seem to fully comprehend.
Link to the platform: https://vrland.io/lobby
Link to our Discord: https://discord.gg/cNfG834
Love the blunt and honest feedback. The platform comes alive in VR btw, but understand if you don’t have a headset. You can start building using the editor tool and share your room with others to view it in a social manner.
If there’s any features you’d think would make this more like a proper metaverse, please let me know.
I think interoperability is what would really make a metaverse experience, so I'm pretty doubtful any single company could do it, even with Facebook's resources. I think the web itself is the closest thing to a metaverse we have, but it's still far away in terms of actual experience. I think that it's become universal because of the interoperability and common standards that mean it doesn't matter what software or hardware is used to create, interact with, or consume content, so it's a level playing field without one organisation controlling it, and so people are free to go nuts making stuff, without threat of losing it or losing access.
I don't know why the no legs thing seems so incredibly frightening to me. It's like a really bad "uncanny valley" feeling - everyone walking around, chatting normally, but seeming to not realize they've all been sawed in half.
A trillion dollar company with the temerity to endure will eventually succeed.
Facebook is absolutely one of the best-positioned companies to be able to become a long-term market leader in these areas and has been investing heavily into R&D in all related categories. Although some of us dislike many ways the company operates, this still does seem like a very well thought-out and aggressive long-term mission that is worthy of being pursued, and I'm pretty excited to continue to see innovation in the more difficult areas like AI and VR here.
Sure, it's worthy of being pursued, but Facebook doing it means that the end result is likely to be dystopian, not something that leads to a better future.
I despise Facebook, but I wholeheartedly agree here: this is an incredibly well-thought-out move from a company that has money to burn.
Investing in "metaverse" is just ticking a sub-category box after they've already ticked off "VR" with their Oculus acquisition. It's doubtful that all the money they have to burn on this boondoggle will actually go anywhere.
I think it's a dangerous line of thinking as the power these company wields absolutely corrupts their governance. Sure they give us cool toys, and they have the marketing budget to make sure know it, but real talk: we need restrictions on their ability to dominate every area instead of cheerleading the horizontal economies of scale that erode our privacy, kneecap the next generation of startups, and consolidate power in ever smaller group of global corporate oligarchs.
This isn't what I've seen. FAANG, and all large corporations, have many layers of bureaucracy that are required for approval of projects. "New" and "innovative" are "different" and "not well understood" by definition. As the bureaucracy get crusty, and more risk adverse, the ability to get these "unknowns" approves becomes harder and harder. Instead, you see buyouts of small companies, who didn't have that layer of bureaucracy to dig through, as the larger source of innovation. Going forward in time, like Intel, these small and innovative acquisitions get integrated and destroyed by that overwhelming bureaucracy, before they can even be fruitful.
Unfortunately this will work indefinitely until governments realize that it is not good for the health of the economy.
Honest discussion about Facebook on tech-centric forums is nearly impossible these days. Facebook and Zuckerberg are favorite villains in the tech discourse in 2021. I don't agree with everything Facebook has done, but the vitriol directed at Facebook has become so disconnected from reality that it's getting hard to take it seriously.
> this still does seem like a very well thought-out and aggressive long-term mission that is worthy of being pursued,
I agree. Once you get past the anti-Facebook hyperbole, it's interesting to read about where they're headed next. They have a lot of excellent engineers and a lot of revenue, so I'll be keeping an eye on where they invest their R&D spend.
As seen with Google, just having excellent engineers and revenue are insufficient to building lasting products, much less fulfilling an aggressive long-term mission.
Novi is the team at facebook that works on Diem and the novi wallet.
Agree with your point - to a limit. Some of facebook experiements flopped but not all. Also, unlike Google, fb mostly marketed them as experiements.
Replying mostly for sharing purposes since not all of these products' histories are common knowledge. Not to one-up anyone...
> Libra Government Blocking. Seemed interesting, especially in a crypto world. Unclear if world needs more crypto projects. Some economists suggested the "basket of currency" approach at scale would just be an arbitrage opportunity for someone to drain the bank-of-facebook. I'm guessing this project existed partially as a vanity project or honeypot for hiring.
> Portal? Still sold, still developed (uses alexa and amzn develops alexa-for-portal work still), still used. IMO it was good tech no one trusted (understandably).
> Or Building 8 in general IIRC they have build a few internal products for fb and probably a lot of learning that goes into oculus/portal/etc.
> M I think this was never GA and only a test trial? Would've been cool but again, because fb it couldn't be trusted.
> Parse? Open sourced and available, but obviously mostly unused. FB doesn't really have a b2b sales team for this sort of product so it wasn't sustainable since it was not really invest-more-effort quality. I think it was a huge missed opportunity for fb to enter the data center race against aws/gcs/azure. If fb built a benign cash cow, maybe they'd taper down their scummy social network ambitions. Or at least the value extraction. AWS cash seems to fund cool amzn loss leaders (alexa, etc). I think the same thing applies to wit.ai and other AI products they buy - if they could commercialize them into an "AWS for AI" product suite maybe they'd find a new profit center. They have world class ML work already, so seems a good place to do this.
> Wirehog I never heard of this one so i googled it [1]. Apparently it was a legal risk to continue at the time (ha!). Very similar to napster. Makes sense that a startup business (< 2 yo) would kill a controversial product. Ironic now that they seem to be above caring about legal risks.
Fair enough. Though I'd argue that with these big internet companies, the line between actual product and perpetually in beta experiment is blurred, more often by Google than others.
> IMO it was good tech no one trusted (understandably).
And as a consequence, the adoption of Portal seems pretty negligible.
> I think it was a huge missed opportunity for fb to enter the data center race against aws/gcs/azure. If fb built a benign cash cow, maybe they'd taper down their scummy social network ambitions. Or at least the value extraction. AWS cash seems to fund cool amzn loss leaders (alexa, etc). I think the same thing applies to wit.ai and other AI products they buy - if they could commercialize them into an "AWS for AI" product suite maybe they'd find a new profit center.
Very intriguing point that provides useful thought for both a what-if (Facebook didn't kill Parse) and potential future opportunities- if only Facebook cared for them.
> Makes sense that a startup business (< 2 yo) would kill a controversial product.
Yeah, I just threw it in to get a full category range and historical range of different products killed by Facebook. I also edited in Facebook Home as well to touch upon smartphone software.
My main point is that it's all well and good for a corporate behemoth like FB to make the claim that they're getting into a new speculative field, but it's natural to be skeptical given how many of their experiments or (attempts at) products don't stick around. So as exciting as this sounds like, I give it as much credence as, say, IBM saying that Watson is going to revolutionize and transform healthcare through artificial intelligence.
It also goes in line with my cousin comment in another subthread about how Facebook's history is littered with retired replications of existing products. I didn't even mention Facebook cloud gaming (Facebook Gaming - admittedly still in progress), video streaming (Facebook Live), Clubhouse (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27580014), even HQ Trivia (Confetti). So that makes one wonder- does Zuckerberg really care about the metaverse idea, or is he just getting into it because Apple supposedly is?
It has completely poisoned discussion on a number of virtual reality communities, since Facebook owns Oculus and the Quest 2 is very commercially successful. The /r/virtualreality community has become incredible negative, tribal, and toxic over the last couple years, mostly revolving around conspiratorial speculation about the future of the oculus platform as owned by Facebook. Almost any discussion about any topic is guaranteed to have at least a couple comments somehow relating it back to why Facebook is evil and "destroying VR."
They have not done anything to meaningfully address the very real issues their platform has, and are forging ahead regardless to become even more ubiquitous. The negativity is very understandable.
I'm not knowledgeable or qualified to judge the facts, but for the sake of discussion, probably not. No more than the thing people always bring up about IBM punch cards and the holocaust.
That doesn't make the negativity understandable.
I'm not sure what more can be said without triggering an accusation of "whataboutism". To be clear, I think equating any context or comparison of anything with whataboutism is a flagrant misuse of the word, but it does seem to be a popular way to have the last word.
Also, AT&T isn't constantly spamming me with disinformation and bad memes, nor do I have the impression that they're tracking my every move across the internet.
While knowing nothing about AT&T's CEO, I'm pretty sure that s/he doesn't sit atop a weird corporate governance structure where the CEO holds a majority of the voting shares and is thus a dictator-for-life.
I agree, and I'm sure it may even end up as a great/fun experience, but I'm just concerned about what's likely to come along with it. There was a recent article linked on HN titled "even if you're paying, you're still the product", and that's pretty much how I see this going.
Facebook lost all good will years ago. It's not about the product quality, but the monetization strategies and what those entail.
>Facebook is absolutely one of the best-positioned companies to be able to become a long-term market leader in these areas
I think the reason for the negativity is possibly because maybe a company that's managed to create a massive platform where reality is massively distorted and manipulated algorithmically to maximize ad revenue and engangement, whatever the quality or lack thereof, should not be a leader in trying to make the internet 'real life' or whatever you want to call having ar/vr avatars that will allow you to participate in the new virtual corporate consumer world.
IMO Facebook creating the metaverse is like Xerox creating the GUI. Most likely the things that made Facebook successfully in social media will not make them as successful in VR/AR and they’ll either pivot hard or (more likely) lose their market leader position.
(I’m holding FB stock until their AR offering is announced, and possibly for a few years afterwards but I’m doubtful I’ll have their stock in 15 years.)
This might explain their fixation with VR.
They are proposing to further mold and control society. To me, that sounds a lot like some kind of dystopian future and not something I would enjoy being part of. It may sound nice and all butterflies and flowers, but I don't think it would be prudent to just ignore their track record and say "o, it will probably be fine".
No its not, and Mark knows it: "Critically, no one company will run the metaverse"
Its not in Facebook interest to have competitors and they will act accordingly. My guess is Facebook will first try to buyout the 'metaverse', then it will try to 'emulate but different', and then they will switch to being an over-engineered data hosting provider.
Whenever some form of immersive "universe" under corporate control is described in fiction, it tends to be a fairly dystopian tale. Every so many years VR is going to "finally be here" ... and then it never materializes. Add to that the head of the corporation in question is a hop, skip and a jump away from near Bond-villain status.
It would be remarkable if the gut reaction of most people were not negative. Which makes your surprise at the negative remarks remarkable.
The end goal would be primarily to have this digital world leak over to the real one as much as possible, having untold profound influences on human life
The negativity is because it will be awful if they succeed.
Imagine logging in to your job via this metaverse or some small country using it for voting in 50-100 years, or not being able to take part in conversations because you are not logged in to your ar.
Imagine the data collection and potential for manipulation and censorship in the distant future
Without naming Apple specifically, Zuck managed to communicate an intense fear that Facebook would be locked out of Apple's upcoming AR platform.
Is the 'metaverse' inevitable? Or is it merely sci-fi wishful thinking?
If 'interoperability' and 'decentralization' means that you can't avoid targeted advertising, I'll pass.
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/22588022/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-c...
Anything but an open and radically-decentralized interoperable set of standards and you're Running On Someone's Specific Hardware. That means that they and the country (or other municipal structures) might have opinions on what you can run on their hardware, and thus the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse will be invoked at the start.
As you slide toward less interoperability and more corporate/government control, you're going toward the Johnny Mnemonic territory (maybe without the cyberdolphin). You'll have to hack your way around the place, and that means that the ordinary folks are left out. They might not have the smarts, the hardware, the wetware, and so on.
Further levels of control and you're into Second Life -- one platform, one company, but perhaps some local rules/anarchy. And if you're still thinking of the children, the Metaverse eventually looks like Club Penguin. You can finally rest assured that the concept is functionally dead when we are all sending each other only various emojis of unrealistic skin tones.
So, the question then becomes, does anything in the Facebook/Zuckerberg history suggest where on that spectrum we will land?
As a side note, I believe that pretty much any version of this Metaverse means targeted ads. On the controlled side, the people running the hardware will want money, and that means ads. On the uncontrolled ads, randos will want money, and that means that they'll do whatever they can to sniff your activity and monitor you, and then send you ads.
Almost everyone has read or heard of Ready Player One (2011), which contains extensive descriptions of its own corporate dystopic metaverse, albeit one that I find insufferably cliche and unoriginal.
Metaverse descriptions are descended from the first cyberspace descriptions in Neuromancer (1984) which is a beautiful book worth a read.
There's a performance problem. The open Web only works because we have enough compute power to tie up multiprocessor computers with a few gigaflops per CPU and gigabytes of RAM to display 2D text with a few pictures on the screen. A good 3D game world pushes the limits of what current hardware can do. The level of inefficiency associated with Javascript/HTML/CSS won't work for an interesting 3D world. It was tried. See X3D.
We can sure hope.
So as a reaction for Apple becoming “the” gatekeeper for a metaverse platform, Facebook is now doubling down on becoming “the” metaverse platform. Whatever that means.
I wonder whether Facebook is going to try to accomplish this using their existing social networks, or do some acquisitions in the space.
Zuck and Apple both recognize this and are both working on it.
The winner will be similar to an iPhone level win in terms of shift, it’s hard to know how close viable hardware is though.
Even Roblox and Minecraft support VR now
This year I purchased a Quest2 after reading through the feature list and I was honestly really impressed. Oculus managed to create a truly viable mass market capable rendition of a VR headset. Unfortunately Facebook itself is kind of the biggest enemy when it comes to their own product. From what I’ve seen as a general response and my personal experience also is that people would like a VR headset to experience VR stuff; games, videos, the likes. Facebook would like you to strap a Facebook machine to your face and watch ads, hyper-targeted to you with as much highly personal information used to target as possible. And that’s where the disconnect seems to be. Because Oculus is clearly capable of making VR happen as a viable platform - the question really is: will Facebook let them?
It was pretty clear to me that had Blizzard a bit more vision they might have been able to pull this trick off with World of Warcraft but at this point I think that too is off the table.
One of the more interesting things I've learned over the course of my career is that the ability of an organization to "change" is tightly governed by the ability of its leadership to "see". Truly the most fascinating part of my time at IBM after it had acquired Blekko was seeing a company from the inside that actively at war with itself between the folks who wanted to modernize it and the "old guard" who wanted to keep the status quo.
As an executive it is important to understand that in order for change to happen, all of your leadership has to see their own role in the new vision and how they will be successful, otherwise they will treat it as a threat and work against it, both actively and passively.
Given how Zuckerberg has handled the disinformation problems at Facebook (essentially by throwing other executives under the bus rather than take ownership) it seems unlikely they would be able to pull of such a transformation. Mostly because the other executives would be sabotaging efforts for fear they would be thrown out.
Opensimulator (the open source version of second life server) already exists, it is decentralized, self-hosted, and a few thousands of people re already living in it : https://opensimworld.com/
What's wrong with it? Is it not ok to express that I feel a phenomenon is sad? Did I need to go into more detail about how the phenomenon arose? Is criticism of capitalism or our societal systems unacceptable?
What does "sad" mean in this context?
Why is it sad? Surely the people who built it and use it think its cool. As others said "late stage capitalism" is a very opinionated and loaded phrase.
Your comment is very negative, without inviting room for critique or feedback. It does not open a discussion, just judgement and derision.
As for why SL is sad, is because it offers a shallow alternative to RL for people for whom RL is either unaccessible due to economic conditions (hence the late-stage capitalism thing) or for those who just want to escape it altogether (but replace it with a frankly shittier version, as opposed to some completely different fantasy world where you can do stuff you couldn't do in RL such as the aforementioned WoW). Not to mention that vast swathes of the userbase are creepy perverts, but perhaps it is for the best that they've chosen to confine themselves there. Hence, the sum total of this is quite sad imo. In the early stages when it was a fun and novel type of thing and alternatives for similar things were much less widespread, my points don't apply as much, but in 2021, they absolutely do.
People see things like this and think, "Troll", hence the flagging. I did not flag or downvote in this case, as I came across it hours after it already occurred.
I'll believe in this "unprecedented interoperability" when you're not constantly trying to get me to pay a ransom to have my posts shown to people who have said they wanna follow me, either.
Ahhh, being out of touch
TikTok is what the kids are using now - and they're valued at about half of what FB is valued at, so unlikely that FB will be able to buy them.
Maybe FB will buy whatever replaces TikTok.
It's unlikely that the government would permit such a sale.
I love TikTok though, and not only do I feel like it "got me" after only a few hours of use without hearting anything or having any friends that use it. I've learnt about a lot of local events, restaurants and days out - in a way that seems way more organic than Instagram paid influencers.
Honestly, their algorithm has been great for me, in a way that only really Spotify has rivalled.
That’s the point, tiktok is 9gag, instagram is snapchat/facebook/twitter
Just like how Gen Z realized much faster than millennials that the economy and their future is hogwash, they would learn the consequences of agreeing to an Oracle license agreement much faster than their older peers.
More accurately, it's a potential national security threat, but not yet an actualized one.
If they're allowed to. There's a lot more antitrust scrutiny now than when they bought Instagram.
So good thing Snapchat didnt sell to Zuck
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...
And not:
Still cheaper than daycare!
I also feel like there is some confusion between the "metaverse" concept and spatial computing in general. In the article he describes working and collaborating in the metaverse, but you have other companies also claiming they are building a metaverse around gaming (Fortnite, Roblox). I think just like we have a clear separation between work and entertainment applications, there should be a clear distinction here too.
I could imagine there being a spatial computing layer (like the web) that facilitates both, but I think calling it the "metaverse" is confusing given the mixed usage of the concept. I'm not sure Facebook is the company that would build something as an open protocol layer, given their track record with building walled gardens.
I do agree with him that these possibilities are entirely dependent on better smaller hardware, that isn't a cumbersome headset. Entertainment seems like a no-brainer, given some success in the VR space with early hardware. The experience would have to be more efficient and productive than desktop and mobile computing to be adopted in the workplace.
Therefore, it becomes the "only" Internet.
They even have cases of piracy movies being shared/available within theses sites.
Where Zuckerberg goes of the rails for me is: " I think it’s about being engaged more naturally."
If he truly believe that, he should start by fixing Facebooks algorithms. There is nothing natural about the way people interact with Facebook anymore. Initially it was keeping up with friends, family old work buddies and so on. As Facebook tweaked the snot out out of their algorithms to keep people "engaged", everything natural went right out the window.
Facebook should built whatever they believe will keep them relevant, just to lie about the motives or use deceptive language to make it sound like something it's ostensibly not.
Also, Second Life did it first in 2006.
Zuck wasn't wrong when he said this, I just don't think the change he had in mind was giving a platform to anti-vax conspiracy theorists and helping Russian troll farms influence U.S. elections. That is one way to change the world though.
Therefore, I make sure people I care about know how to reach me outside Facebook so that it really does not matter if I log in to Facebook. In other words, I no longer need it even to reach people.
I am disappoint, HN ;)
To enter the Facebook metaverse, you need to abandon whatever preconceptions you had about humanity, ignore all social and political problems around you, and trascend all previously established limits of ignorance, arrogance and technological naivete past the gates of cyberhell. Oh, and you need love ads because, oh boy, are you getting some.
Except defined by Facebook, so not really anything like W3C.
Maybe its just indifference, but given facebook's history it feels intentional.
Say what you want about MS and Google, but they left a lot of money and opportunity on the table for others.
Facebook... notsomuch.
Which works fine when you start with a first mover platform. But doesn't work nearly as well when trying to grow a platform from nothing.
Here's hoping the effort crashes into the ground.
We'll see if they're smart enough to outflank Antitrust 2.0, or if they make the same mistakes as Big Railroad / Oil -- assuming they're more powerful than government and/or believing their own PR about how they're not a monopoly.
A week or so ago I unfriended every one of my 'friends' on Facebook, many there since 2007. I'm now just squatting my own identity for the handful of community and sports clubs that use Facebook as a bulletin board. These people are 'acquaintances', I know most of them by sight, but don't see what they're having for breakfast or when their baby does something amazing. So, basically neighbours in a village.
I realised I did not want to be the reason people were using Facebook, posting their curated/fictional 'best self'. Basically, friends don't encourage friends to use Facebook[1].
Write that email if you expect someone to read it, write a blog post if you don't. But I'm over being party to mining other people's attention spans and identity for personal gratification and someone else's profit.
[1] Or any other parasocial medium in my opinion.
I gave up my Facebook account about a decade ago. Not for this reasons (although I very much agree with it), but because I realized that I wasn't using it. Friends and family would try to communicate with me over it, and they wouldn't get a response because I wasn't looking.
A lot of them thought I was ignoring them, so I figured it was better to not have a presence there at all, to eliminate any possible misunderstanding.
This is how I feel about email. I’m not sure it’s possible to function in modern society without an email address though.
I didn't bother reaching out to correct this at all. I think I value the ability to keep people who think their time is best spent staring into nightmare rectangles and pretty much just gossiping their way into hell experience out of my life, and the people who aren't into that as much in.
I saw a little tiny glimpse of this when an organization I'm in wanted to use Facebook to schedule events and communicate. There were perhaps 30 of us in the group and myself and one other person spoke up and said we weren't on Facebook, so we would either need to be emailed the events or simply not participate. The head of the org decided it was easier just to send everyone an email. So two stubborn people out of 30 changed the way an organization decided to interact with it's members.
“WE WILL EFFECTIVELY TRANSITION FROM PEOPLE SEEING US AS PRIMARILY BEING A SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY TO BEING A METAVERSE COMPANY”
But, Facebook already transitioned to being an advertising company.
The social media aspect became a funnel to direct members towards advertising, changes to Facebook are not about the social aspect, they're about eyeballs on ads and more page views, which are actually distractions away from the social network roots of Facebook.
Mark goes on about building an economy within this metaverse:
"And this is something that I hope eventually millions of people will be working in and creating content for — whether it’s experiences, or spaces, or virtual goods, or virtual clothing, or doing work helping to curate and introduce people to spaces and keep it safe. I just think this is going to be a huge economy and frankly, I think that that needs to exist. This needs to be a rising tide that lifts a lot of boats. We can’t just think about this as a product that we’re building."
I'm obviously very cynical, but this feels like Facebook's app store play: 30% please creators. In addition to the advertising dollars.
What I hope comes out of this is an advancement of the technology for building a "metaverse" and that open source alternatives can keep up, or at least nip at the heels constantly.
* Not sure how he feels about it, but I get the impression he's there for the pay cheque to work on more interesting side projects like AI.
It's pretty expensive for something you could be thrown out of at any moment, and it's a lot of money to give to Facebook.
> Please don’t create a second Facebook account
> Avoid creating a second Facebook account
How is it a metaverse if there’s only one canonical environment hosted at Facebook.com?
Of course, this could just be a difference in cinematic/storytelling approach. The director's upcoming feature also deals with these themes. Interestingly, in neither case is a VR/AR headset seemingly the preferred means of access... The advantage is that you don't look like a complete doofus like in RP1 when you maneuver in real life using VR headsets/haptic accessories.
What is driving him? Anyone knows him from younger years?
Most similar people(on a smaller scale) i know are money driven even though they have enough.
But at this level? Makes you wonder what his final goal is?
Megalomania. His 2017 "manifesto" made that rather clear to me. In it, he came off as trying to sound like the president of the world.
I think that was also the year he spent time traveling the US states "to meet real folk".
Not sure where I want him for him to make the least damage to society. Maybe on the first manned rocket to Mars?
There was also:
Zuckerberg on why the social network is becoming ‘a metaverse company’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27921327 - July 2021 (15 comments)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
It's my startup's take on what the metaverse should look like - entirely web-based, so it works everywhere. It's a 3D/VR social platform where you can upload photos, videos, and even 3D models into rooms. Complete customizability plus easily configurable avatars.
Link to our Discord: https://discord.gg/cNfG834
Normal person: What does that mean?
Marketing droid: "The metaverse does not have a specific definition"
https://www.oculus.com/facebook-horizon/
I know the article mentions that it goes “beyond AR and VR”, but all that means is that Facebook will have flat pancake screen versions of their meta verse apps
I work with their ads and manage facebook pages all day. I have little faith in them to do what is right.
> Mr Zuckerberg has made such comments before, hypothesizing that humans should “be teleporting, not transporting ourselves” into various environments through virtual and mixed reality environments.
"You will live in a pod and you will be happy with VR"
To me the "metaverse" is always there at least since the introduction of affordable personal computer in the late 70s. In the 80s you already got a "metaverse" with the computer at center surrounded by BBS/FTP/etc.
__________
Ive pitched metaverse style training systems to the department of education for example. There is a lot of really good progress to be had in the space.
If done right, a good metaverse will be the next WoW. Thats billions of dollars. Im not surprised facebook is doing this, Im surprised they all didnt start their own metaverse programs much sooner...
The race is on, may the best win.
You can't do reality with just sight and sound. I suspect a 100 years from now people will look at us talking about the metaverse and virtual reality with any kind of headset as ridiculous as the old videos of people flapping wings attempting to fly. It just doesn't work.
Facebook should make something they themselves want. I want an iPod not a VR concert.
[1] https://marketplace.secondlife.com/products/search?utf8=%E2%...
[2] https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GD-Flag-Pole-280-in-1-W...
Before you dismiss Facebook’s hardware effort, you should actually try the Oculus Quest 2. At $299 for a full, standalone VR system; imo it even beats some PCVR VR headsets on more than just price.
I had completely forgot that Facebook had a VR headset. When I said they didn't know how the built hardware I was thinking of their attempt to build an Android phone.
lol, rofl. Delete account ... oh I can't. rofl etc
Who matters besides the shareholders? /s
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/oculus-gives-all-its-employe...
That said, I couldn't follow the logic of that; how exactly is it that Ben and Jerry's deciding not to sell ice cream in the occupied palestinian territories a "new type of terrorism" against Israel? (esp. as the B&J factory is apparently in Israel).
These labels have existing very negative meanings that they would both like to court with their own behavior and accuse others of thoughtlessly.
I feel like that singular statement is like watching an entire country jump the shark and that we ought to stop taking their phone calls. They have absolutely nothing we need and they don't require our help to survive anymore.
And people complain about russian interference...
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2006-12-20-second-life-millionaire-...
And reading through the companies on several of the main fidelity index funds, there’s too many fissile fuel and tobacco companies for my taste.
Their products are sad, narcissistic, and vain.
I hope everything Zuck touches crumbles after the political manipulation he let happen.
I plan on throwing a party!
Every time Facebook has a press conference to the tune of "what if we were even more immersive" it strikes me as incredibly tone deaf given how many problems they engender already just with a regular web app.
The enemy of your enemy is your friend. (Bitcoiner, here)
Won’t be a part of this metaverse and I’m very happy about that.
Facebook is welcome to become whatever Zuckerverse it can be.
But they do not seem to have the play-well-with-others ability to encompass multiple different universes of possibility. They will remain distinctly within their own singular sphere, best I can tell.
He seems to be saying they're getting (more) into the Black Mirror game.
Dystopian metaverse. https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/22/11087890/mark-zuckerberg-...