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> we're working on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account

I mean... Quest had this ability before. And Facebook took it away. And now they want us to clap for them when they say they're kind of bringing it back, at some point in the future, in some kind of limited capacity for work accounts?

Call me skeptical.

I'm not really aware of any platform (including Quest) where I would say that Facebook is doing a good job of supporting consumer choice, and I've read plenty of leaked internal communications from the company that suggests they're internally pretty hostile to the idea (Mark included).

Maybe they've turned over a new leaf, but if Mark wants us to all give him the benefit of the doubt that a metaverse is going to be different, he could start by showing this commitment with... any of their current products, really.

There's a lot of talk here about how Facebook is going to be moving into the bold new world of user agency and privacy and choice, and not much acknowledgement that Facebook is responsible for making these platforms what they are today. I don't like Mark's subtle insinuation that Facebook is doing something new or bold by getting rid of restrictions on Oculus that he created. Especially when he hasn't actually fixed the problem, he's just vaguely assured people that the problem might get fixed a year from now, maybe.

He wants credit for swinging in a new direction, and he hasn't actually swung in that direction. Well, prove it, Mark. Prove it with your existing products before you start bragging about how good your next product will be.

I assume this just means that they'll require a "Meta" account instead of a Facebook account, and it will come with all the same problems as creating a Facebook account.

Also, their "support" for sideloading, while better than nothing, requires a valid phone number or credit card number to sideload anything.

This. Whether it's linked with your other social media or not isn't the issue. And whether it's a "Facebook" account, "Meta" account, an "Oculus" account, or whatever, it's all still an account with Facebook and can be expected to have all of the baggage that comes with an account with Facebook.

I have an Oculus account since 2013 with none of this crap, just email/password, we should be able to use that as we always did.

Sounds nice, doesn't it? However i believe they very recently starting requiring a validated dev account (i.e. with phone number) for devs to continue to sideload to their Oculus Quest, right?

Which is somewhat fine since you can use an anonymous prepaid SIM card. Oh wait, the amount of countries where you can still get a prepaid SIM card without ID is diminishing, all in the name of "fighting terrorism". The internet is not going in a great direction.

   We'll continue supporting sideloading and linking to PCs

I see this as a tacit approval of the thriving network of pirate games, something like the Adobe Photoshop model of proliferating and becoming the de facto platform.

Does facebook still have a real-name policy? interacting with people in the metaverse with my real name is the last thing I want (we all saw ready player one, no? does zuck understand the importance of anonymity?)

From what I've understood they're especially been enforcing it for Oculus.

That said there are privacy controls. You interact with other Oculus users through a customizable username. And your Oculus activity can be set to be shown to "Only me" (or Oculus friends, or FB friends, or public).

But FB themselves are obviously still collecting all the data they can.

This is actually pretty big for me. I got a Rift a while back but it's been in a drawer ever since I needed to connect my FB account.

You actually don't need to connect it to FB for now as it's only the new systems such as Quest 2 that are forced to link it to FB. However, they have threatened to change that in a year or so even for the Quest 1 and Rift.

We just created a new account with a fake name. Happy so far with everything and we get to enjoy playing with no risk of info leaks.

> we're working on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account

How much work does that take?

> I've come to believe that the lack of choice and high fees are stifling innovation, stopping people from building new things

A shot at competitors' app stores.

> How much work does that take?

Especially since the original Quest didn't require a Facebook account. It required a Quest account, but it didn't have to be explicitly linked to Facebook. (It's also one reason why I still use my original Quest and haven't gotten the updated model).

> ""and frankly, as we've heard your feedback more broadly, we're working on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account. We're starting to test support for work accounts soon, and we're working on making a broader shift here within the next year."

Assuming not good or bad intent but meta intent would mean they're working on a meta account, so while you stop into a 'verse it's not your social, it can be whatever, but they'll link all your accounts in the meta umbrella.