Facebook Unceremoniously Kills Off 'Oculus' Brand | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Unceremoniously Kills Off 'Oculus' Brand

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I can't think of a more ceremonious way to kill a brand to hold an event announcing that the entire company was pivoting to do what that small piece of it did before, and that to monumentalize that change you were renaming the company...

It's... literally a ceremony... and not a small one.

The speech Zuckerberg gave onstage with pomp and ceremony said, "Our apps and our brands — they’re not changing." Contrary to this claim, the Oculus brand was killed offstage in another executive's Facebook post. I'd say that was unceremonious.

Yeah the unceremonious part here is the lack of announcement or even mention at the big ceremony.

To be fair, nobody outside of a tiny niche of PC gaming enthusiasts has any idea what Oculus is (or was) as a brand, nor do they care. That it didn't even seem worthy of mentioning to him isn't really surprising.

My mom knows what Oculus is. If that doesn’t mean anything I don’t know what is.

To be fair, she probably wouldn’t care about a name change as long as they keep making her Beat Saber machine.

If your mom plays Beat Saber on an Oculus device, I think knowing the Oculus brand is kind of unsurprising. Most people have never played Beat Saber or even tried a VR device; Oculus, in those circles, is a pretty niche brand.

Beat saber was featured on Jimmy Fallon even, so definitely it has a good grounding in American (and maybe Korean) pop culture.

> Jimmy Fallon

> Korean pop culture

I’m not seeing the connection. Can you explain?

Ah sorry. It was more of an aside. Fallon caters to an American audience, I threw in Korea also just based on the amount of YouTube videos in Korean covering it.

> If your mom plays Beat Saber on an Oculus device, I think knowing the Oculus brand is kind of unsurprising.

Indeed. It’s rather more surprising that my mom is playing a VR game and purchased equipment for it in the first place.

For that to happen she must’ve been aware of the Oculus brand.

I don't think specifically any one person's mom is the definition of niche. To bring some comparative data to the discussion, the Sega Dreamcast — which was considered a failed console — easily outsold all versions of the Quest.

Oculus has sold around 4 million Quest headsets, which don't require a gaming PC and cost less than current-gen gaming consoles.

But it was only last August that they announced Horizon Workrooms (beta) the VR space for teams to connect, collaborate and develop ideas, together https://www.oculus.com/workrooms/

And honestly the technology isn't good enough for those masses they are now catering to. There's a reason VR commercials are so fanciful - if they showed the actual experience almost nobody would buy it.

> if they showed the actual experience almost nobody would buy it.

You can't do this without putting them in VR in the first place.

This is so true. I've been pushing VR meetings as an alternative to travel for workshops in these Corona times.

But people don't even grok it unless you strap a headset on them and give time to get familiar with it. Once you do that you always hear "wow this is powerful, I forgot I was here"

For us VR enthusiasts this is a given. For others it's a gimmick until they experience it. Like Morpheus said "No-one can tell you what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself". Only through this experience as a VR advocate I have I seen the truth in that.

This is why I'm happy Facebook is so all-in on VR. They're doing this really hard work for us.

> Once you do that you always hear "wow this is powerful, I forgot I was here"

I don't find VR immersive at all. When I hear people say this, I tend to think they're a moron. The software, game design principles, and hardware has a long long way to go.

It's not about the quality. But about the interaction with others you can get lost in. Some of the users said this after engaging in a complex workshop we had set up as a test.

Of course they didn't literally forget that they were in VR. But that adjustment to the real environment was there.

You can also tell when people start apologising for running into other people or entering their 'personal space'. Eg standing too close with their avatar. In VR that doesn't matter technically but it feels wrong. That's when you know it 'clicked' and they're really there with a person half a world away. I get that myself too, it's great. But I love seeing it in people that try VR for the first time (and by this I mean real 6DOF interactive VR, not Google cardboard derivatives)

But yeah there is a large component of suspension of disbelief. I'm sure that will always be there no matter how good the tech gets.

>When I hear people say this, I tend to think they're a moron.

In other words, you are small minded and assume that your personal experience is universal, so anyone that experiences things differently must just have moronic levels of intelligence.

and here you are assuming something negative about me, wow. Human experience is really special.

In my opinion, mainstream standards on pretty much any topic are exceptionally low. Mainstream news, tv, video games, movies, books, food, politics, farts, and all, are pretty poor. Not an especially novel opinion.

So yeah, when someone says "i forgot where i was" after playing SUPERHOT or beat saber on an oculus for fifteen minutes... I'm gonna roll my eyes on the same level as finding bell peppers spicy or cop shows surprising.

I mean, they're assuming something negative about you based on your own words, that dismissed other people as "morons" for enjoying a VR experience. Why are you then surprised when people make a similar snap judgement about you?

I'm not surprised, just amused at the irony of asserting someone's bad for making a negative assertion about someone else.

If you think that is ironic, you should probably look up the paradox of tolerance. Someone saying they think people that like things different than themselves are morons, and someone saying that that viewpoint is small minded are not equal.

This is false. Oculus has sold millions of headsets. I mean it's not at home console levels of popularity but it's definitely no longer part of the niche gaming space.

literally just bought a quest 2 and I'm pretty blown away

tried vr years like 5 years ago and didn't seem fully baked then but now i don't see why you would buy a console when you could get a vr headset for cheaper and it's far more novel.

imagine the nintendo wii except 8 times better.

It's very hit or miss.

I have a Vive from 2016. I purchased the Q2 with the intent of doing dev work with it and I expected it to be a big improvement. I mean I read reviews like yours and I saw what it was capable of.

Don't get me wrong, it's a big deal that it is now standalone (the Vive very much feels lke the matrix), but the visual fidelity hadn't incresed prceptibly in that time (as far as I can tell) and the headset itself is still too heavy.

The higher sales are interesting but it's at like 6 million units worldwide? The most popular consoles were over a hundred million. We're not even into a console that everyone knows about but only that weird dude has like the Xbox yet.

I can see a future where these googles are 3x the resolution, even cheaper, and as light as actual glasses, and that day we'll be at mass market, probably before it.

But if you made me work in VR for any length of time at all as of now, I'll quit because the quality is not there yet. I'd rather play the latest games on cheap but incredible monitors anyway.

Give it six weeks. You might still be entralled. I sold mine, I don't want to build anything for that guy.

I purchased a Q2 mostly because it was an incredible price for getting into VR, something I had long wanted to do mainly because I read a lot of sci fi as a kid.

Unlike the Vive I rented some years ago for a party, the screen made text more or less readable when it was large enough (I think the screen door effect interfered more on the Vive). Also not needing up base stations was a huge QOL improvement for using it a lot, and after I upgraded to Wifi 6 the desktop lag was pretty negligible. The weight doesnt bother me at all to be honest but having it resting against my face probably wouldnt be great day after day.

But after playing around with some desktop mirror apps, I decided it's not where I'd want to switch - yet. I code on a 32" 4k monitor at 100% scaling and I'm not interested in replacing that until I can get close to the same number of words infront of me at a time.

But.. 8k Pimax has been out for a while, 12k Pimax VR headset was announced, and the Varjo aero is expensive but has 2880x2720px per eye and was just released to consumer. The space is getting interesting very quickly at the moment.

Feels a lot like digital cameras from circa 2000. You had cameras like the Nikon D1, an expensive piece of kit which barely did what it needed to do. But it was getting better.

That's how I feel and VR and it's form factor has been around for decades... strap a sweaty headset to your face and isolate yourself.

Maybe it will be big for games but gluing a computer to my face for longggg periords of time no thanks.

AR glasses though they could be truly be the next big thing like the iPhone ...subtly enhance the world around us and our social interactions with each other through a form factor we are accustomed to.

> AR glasses though they could be truly be the next big thing like the iPhone…

Yes. This is where we are heading just like smartwatches, it is now a reality.

It always matters on executing it right, just like the smartwatch market. The first to do that right with AR glasses, wins.

Indeed and the vision Zuckerberg showed for AR glasses looked way too busy.

The UX needs to be subtle (not a lot going on) ... enhance and revolutionize daily life experiences like smart glasses that can zoom in like binoculars (would also help low sighted folks), glasses that turn night into day and vice versa and some other ideas ive thought might enhance real life like playing ping pong or a card game and the glasses keep/show the score with each point awarded... also when you meet someone new the glasses tells you their first name at the least. As well show you how a building or a spot in the woods where there once was a house looked decades or more ago.

Also for branding call them smart glasses not AR glasses ... average person can easily understand that branding.

All good points and makes sense. Whoever gives the smart glasses its killer app with a great UX and ecosystem of apps wins.

This 'killer app' will likely come from Meta, Apple, Alphabet or Microsoft and unlikely that it will come from Snap.

Then, there's always surprises.

If you watch Zuckerberg's AR Glasses demo posted today (fantasy demo) where he's fencing an Olympic fencing champ you will see above her head the score of the game.

Once I saw his first demo of Facebook Stories glasses where he was playing ping pong (in late August/early Sept) I immediately thought the glasses should be keeping/showing the score and posted that thought. They probably were working on that before, but maybe not and overall and right now its all just fantasy. Possibly for patents and to show investors that Apple's blocking Ad Trackers is hurting us but we have a way forward.

Also he is showing off a lot of AR Glasses tech not VR cause he believes VR (strapping headset to your face) isn't the next big thing rather AR/Smart Glasses are. But all he is showing is YEARS away.

It can be very immersive for games designed well for the VR platform. It can also be quite immersive when visiting locations, as long as the video is high quality. There's also some interesting 360 video experiences, like experiencing being a character in a movie. I also see the potential for exploration, like with the three space apps I have. And there are several apps which give you a good workout. The Supernatural one is great, if you're willing to pay $200 a year.

Thanks I had been thinking about getting one after a positive review I read here [1].

But I'm starting to think it's not going to be good enough for a days work.

[1]https://blog.immersed.team/working-from-orbit-39bf95a6d385

>I purchased the Q2 with the intent of doing dev work with it and I expected it to be a big improvement

Well there's your mistake. I also have the Q2 but it was never meant for work but for games. The device was built to be as cheap as possible with the apropriate compromises that are just not gonna cut the salami in terms of image clarity for small text and such needed for work. Games like beat sabre and super hot? A complete blast! Browsing HN or code on it? Pass.

A VR headset for work would need to have a high resolution display panel per each eye, instead of shared one for both. That would massively increase the price, weight and the GPU horse-power needed to drive 2 high-res displays while decreasing battery life.

The tech is just not there yet for this to be cost effective enough to sell in high volumes but we're getting close really fast.

Kind of feel bad for my ambiguity....I bought it to make VR content with.

> imagine the nintendo wii except 8 times better.

This made me laugh

What, I guess you never tried VR

>if they showed the actual experience almost nobody would buy it.

Next you're going to tell me that buying a Dodge Challenger won't get me a beautiful girlfriend and that HungryMan Dinners don't look like culinary masterpieces.

> if they showed the actual experience almost nobody would buy it.

Some of the pieces are real. Everyone has their mouth open, because it's real hard to breathe with your nose with all that stuff on your face.

It only took someone having me try their Quest for two minutes to decide I should buy one. And it's been great for the cost and portability.

Zuck said nothing changes brand wise - but Oculus name is dead and he did actually hide that fact. But in the grand scheme of things Oculus is pretty unknown, so that was probably part of the consideration to let it go quietly.

my interpretation is that they try to build a new brand and disassociate what had been Oculus from Facebook. At least in my bubblr ime thkng that keeps people from even trying Oculus stuff is the association with Facebook. By giving the company and the products a new name they can try to restart.

“Meta Unceremoniously Kills Off Oculus Brand” - Meta: The New Meta. Facebook pretending to be self-aware is the new meta. No that’s old-meta. What’s the take? Hmm. Pick a New Name: The Easiest Meta. Introduce Meta to the popular discourse. Let the masses use it freely. Embrace the freedom of missed interpretation. It’s not Fake, it’s Meta. It’s not Facebook, it’s Meta. You wouldn’t understand, it’s too meta. How cool would it be if we just called it Meta? Metacognition. Meta-engineering. Meta-reality: it’s the business we’re already in! Have you seen the new Meta branding? It’s like the universe, but meta, and now we own it. It was so simple! The new meta, endlessly cyclical, and quite a long way from advice dog. Rush B. Trust Me.

I’d say that it’s less about choosing “Meta” as a name, and more the realization that Facebook isn’t just the name of the company, it’s the name of a single product the company makes. I’m really unsurprised by the name change.

Think of what it would be like if Microsoft were called “Windows”, or Apple were called “Mac”. Facebook has realized that their main product does not appeal to everyone, and attaching the “Facebook” name to everything they do is not a great way forward. That’s why the Facebook name didn’t take over the Instagram or WhatsApp brands.

I think this is partially right. The difference is Apple made the Mac. Microsoft made Windows. Facebook was the thing and then Facebook (the thing) made Facebook, the company. The relationship between owner and intention is something like retroactive. If Facebook could have called Instagram “Facebook” at the very moment of acquisition and got away with it I’m sure they’d have been thrilled. But that was similarly never the way of things. Facebook the company has always been trying to convince everyone that Facebook (the originating product and all it’s ill-gotten marvels) is a product of the thinking. But it’s the source. A tiny homebrew app for gossip didn’t suddenly will into existence Instagram and WhatsApp. The nature and timing of the product put the resulting company in a financial position to encourage us all to play along and believe they had anything to do with the purpose and utility of those things. Oculus was similar. The promise of infinite cash for the problem. Make it better faster. Fastest. The product existed, now please believe Facebook is why. Call it meta. The meta is why. Sure it’s a little on the nose, but is just here to assemble the pieces anyway, so who cares what it’s called. Now the carnivorous beast built of such crudely stitched limbs it so desperately tried to integrate has donned a hat. A hat on a hat. Unsurprising, yes.

> Facebook has realized that their main product does not appeal to everyone,

Let's don't fool ourselves: the only reason to change the name of the company is because "Facebook" name has many negative (and fairly earned) connotations. Every time "Facebook" (the company) launched a new product there were concerns about the privacy and invasion they do (and to me their were justified).

They want to reduce that by being able to say "Meta just created X" instead of "Facebook just created X". Let's see how far it goes...

I would love for some judge somewhere to wholesale reject any trademark efforts on FBs part for “Meta”

The first computer made by Apple was the Apple I. Then came the Apple 2. I'd suggest leaving them out of your example ;-)

Interestingly Mozilla seems to be doing the opposite and naming more things "Firefox". But I don't think they're an example to be learned from when it comes to these decisions.

Both Apple and Microsoft had made many more things before making Mac and Windows. They had a larger vision from the start, unlike Facebook.

Metastasized metadata.

Back at Sun it was Java. I wonder whether it is a great vision that will propel FB even further up, or a start of a renaming orgy and detached from reality megaprojects in a company overtaken by mid-management types and marking transitioning of FB from an ever expanding superstar into a large undead incumbent.

I’m imagining it somewhere deep in the unceremonious middle. It’s unfortunate. Are they too big to die? I’m not super-rooting for that, but where is the reality check of the 90s? Where’s the actual disruption? The actual non-Facebook metaverse is a concept I don’t see them nearing. Huge tech != meaningful longevity. Are these companies surviving on market growth alone? Not actual market growth, but literally just access across the planet? Countries from the distant electronic past coming into digital yesterday? It’s free users for a system that is literally not innovating outside of FRL. Are they? What is the offering to humanity? On what merit dare they claim dibs on what they guess is the next plane of reality? Use Facebook messenger on Instagram? Now you don’t have to use Facebook? What a 2021 we’re having! I absolutely love the tech demos, but the ability to have a photorealistic avatar is not what is holding the metaverse back. Are we really just waiting around for a 1:1 representation of our physical identities? Think of the security you could have if we built the privacy in! Should I thank Facebook for having the money to fund the development that everybody else wants to have the money to do? Walkabout Minigolf is literally the most engaging and dynamic social experience I’ve had in VR. It’s low-poly minigolf. Did all the Facebook thinking stem from “how do we own the next App Store?” Because it really feels that way. Is that how we got the App Store?

> Did all the Facebook thinking stem from “how do we own the next App Store?” Because it really feels that way. Is that how we got the App Store?

You sound so dismissive when you put it that way but the App Store makes an absurd amount of money and Their 3 main products have to sit on top of their competitors foundations.

It makes sense for them to try to make their own and the smartphone battle is already over.

Are old facebook engenineers going to be called now meta engineers?

MAANG

MANGA

That's another layer of meta.

GAMMAN

But Google is now Alphabet, so should be MAANA

All the big consumer facing brand of Google are still under Google. YouTube is owned by Google directly, not by Alphabet. So it is fair to keep Google's G in the acronym. Also Microsoft should be in there much more than Netflix.

This gives us MAGMA. Like the thing that will burn you alive if you touch it.

If you leave Google as Alphabet, and keep the Microsoft for Netflex swap, it’s: MAMAA

And a 2-second 3D hologram of Freddie Mercury just popped into existence.

Close enough... https://youtu.be/pG-kdPZZwQE

> This gives us MAGMA

Best pronounced as Dr. Evil does in the first Austin Powers movie

If we added one starting with Z we could make it really confusing: AMAZAN. Any suggestions?

I don't understand this move. As much as Facebook has tarnished the Oculus brand, it still had positive attachment among longtime VR users and enthusiasts. For me the 'Meta' brand is linked more strongly with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, in an overwhelmingly negative sense, than with Oculus or VR.

>longtime VR users and enthusiasts

This segment of users is probably not what "Meta" is concerned with.

That would be very in character for the company formerly known as Facebook.

I agree.

Mainly, I think this is a push from a company who's idea pool has desiccated.

What is the end goal to have people in a headset talking to each other? That will happen irregardless of whatever platform it exists on, and unless FB is giving away unlocked headsets perpetually, I don't think people will pick their "Metaverse" over any other.

They might have an edge if they started as a peripherals company.

you say this, but people choose Android over Apple, despite the terrible security and privacy problems the entire android eco system has.

Say what you like about metabook, but at least its currently optional on your phone/device. Google and the myriad of shitness that is the android OEM manufacturer security is hard to escape.

Sure, you can use custom roms, but you can do this with oculus as well.

Crossing the chasm, at some level, means abandoning the early adopters. By the time the product achieves mainstream success they will have moved on to the next thing anyway.

As much as I dislike facebook, dropping the Oculus brand is probably a good move for the bet they're making.

Oculus is too associated with gaming. Facebook wants VR for telepresence, they don't want the gamers market, they want the facebook market.

I think VR sucks and I hate it, but if Zuck convinces my mum to strap on a headset, there won't be much I can do about it. And he has powerful means to convince people...

Why do you think VR sucks and you hate it?

Just got my Quest 2 a few weeks ago and I'm loving the shit out of it. (I still have some issues with it that I'm overlooking of course)

I still have and use weekly my Rift S, Oculus was a great company.

I am so excited for the near future where facebook / meta will be irrelevant.

Why?

So we can take a third(?) attempt at keeping our social lives out of the hands of for profit megacorps.

I will always think that Carmack not working for Valve is a huge lost historical opportunity.

The Facebook brand is tainted so they're renaming themselves Meta because people won't be trigger by "a Meta Company" in the site footer.

Facebook is still going to be called Facebook, this is just renaming the parent company to more accurately reflect its portfolio - Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Occulus.

Most Facebook users will never even know about this renaming.

I think that's exactly what OP was trying to say: Instagram WhatsApp, etc. footers/splash screens will now read "a Meta company."

This is really weird!! Oculus has a great branding. My only theory is that they want to make it tighter to Meta so as not to get into any antitrust issues. But even then it doesn't make any sense to me...

Is Carmack still working on Oculus?

Yes he is, and the highlight of Connect for me is his keynote.

I posted the video somewhere else in the thread and I think there is an not-so-active submission of the video on HN here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29032872

But the man is sharp and straight to the point and I just love listening to his insight.

I believe he is still an advisor but now mostly concentrates on his own AI research.

He was as of a month ago, and it doesn't appear that anything has changed since.

I have lost a lot of respect for Carmack with how nonchalant he's been towards working with somebody as dubious as Zuckerberg

Can I ask you something? Is Zuckerberg really THAT bad of a guy? I am no fan of FB, and I don't own any FB products, but I don't think there's anyone who I would outright refuse to work with just based on their negative public reputation.

I mean the way people talk about Zuck, you'd think he's a mass murderer. But I'm not sure what he actually did other than brag about having passwords back in college and making ruthless business decisions.

> I mean the way people talk about Zuck, you'd think he's a mass murderer

For many people, the way (most) people talk about someone (i.e. their tone, not specific details) is the primary signal used to determine their own general tone/opinion about that person.

A few other common reasons someone may not like Zuck: 1. He's rich 2. He's at the top of a hugely profitable company (and profitable companies are generally disliked) 3. FB has absorbed a lot of the advertising spend, at the expense of traditional media (whose tone sets the tone for many people, pt 1)

4. FB's choice to encourage divisiveness ("engagement") via their algorithm places my country's democratic future very much in doubt.

and of course print media (in the UK) and rolling news (in the US) has tried its very best to bridge the divide.

In no way are they pumping out ever more opinion pieces rather than actual news, to pander to which ever "side" they "support"

I am so very tired of whataboutism.

its not "whataboutism" its the "oh facebook is the single biggest threat to x, y &z" its reductive and plainly bollocks.

if Facebook was editorialized, then yes, it would be the leading cause of x, y & z. Facebook is a reflection of society. How do I find out about some nefarious actor on facebook? through news, its pretty rare that I am organically exposed to that stuff.

Take Tide pods, that was a total moral panic driven by American TV. The "death bird" panic was driven by UK daytime tv. It got to the point that my Kid's school was showing the image to my kids, saying that it was ok and that its not a problem, and that you were never going to die, all the while having an expression of repressed fear.

Facebook is a Social Phased lock Loop. You have to engage with the extreme content for it to continually be shown to you.

I dislike Facebook, they have made some strategic failures. However this _obsession_ with facebook absolves everyone else, which is both the point and the risk of this stupidity.

That’s a cogent argument; your earlier comment was not.

I think our core disagreement is the pernicious impact of the engagement algorithm. It’s not hard to fall into extreme content: you just have to engage with something adjacent to something adjacent to something adjacent to it. “Slippery slope” is finally a meaningful phrase.

> “Slippery slope” is finally a meaningful phrase.

I have difficulty with this. It reminds me very much of the argument against video games, or "driller thriller" which lead to video censorship. Don't get me wrong, the availability of it is disturbing. However I would counter that it takes a person who is vulnerable for that to work on (ie take someone who is "center ground" and walk them to an extreme) its not an instant process. Again, we as wider society need to be better at spotting and supporting these types of people and equipping them with either a benign purpose, or the critical thinking skills to avoid extremist holes.

Where I do think we might agree is age restrictions. I don't think children should be on any type of social media that can host images or posts long term. (I suspect chat is less risk, so long as its timeboxed and has reasonable parental support.) Anyone less than 18 shouldn't be on facebook/snap/insta/tiktok at all, I don't think

Is this Mark Zuckerburg or his wife?

Given that everyone continues to talk about Zuckerberg’s website every single day despite the massive fines, privacy violations, scandals, etc it tells you that his ruthless business decisions are working and his website is more relevant to this day than ever.

You and I may not like him or use his website, but it seems that it is enough for someone like Carmack to continue working there for longer and the users who still detest him and his website to continue to have an account and use it regardless.

From a business standpoint, he is still winning. Every time someone uses his services or he is talked about, he wins.

Someone doesn’t have to be a mass murderer to make me not want to work for them.

> brag about having passwords

No, he openly offered personally identifying information. Bit different.

Hmm, I think it’s a bit like the emperor of Japan back in WW2? He wasn’t actively making the bad decisions, but he certainly supported the people making the bad decisions while having the absolute power to stop them.

In the best case he’s just ridiculously naive, in the worst case…

In other words, he's ultimately responsible for damage done under his leadership.

What damage though?

I guess little things like

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/07/facebooks...

and

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/03/faceboo...

He called his original users dumb fucks and had multiple secret meetings with the U.S. administration that just literally tried to overthrow our (U.S.) democracy.

Facebook has been successfully used for, and did not feel the need to intervene in, orchestrating genocide in other countries, IIRC - and this is before his secret meetings with aforementioned administration. Something something if it can happen somewhere it can happen where you are.

There are many other things, but those are the first to come to mind that would make me want to have absolutely nothing to do with him. Do you not care about other humans and civil society? If so, Zuck may be for you, but not I.

> I don't think there's anyone who I would outright refuse to work with just based on their negative public reputation.

Many successful SWE's and hiring managers have publicly and anonymously discussed not wanting to work with or hire previous Facebook devs based on morals and ethics of business, not even mentioning Zuck. Are they just trying to virtue signal and act woke? I don't know.

Carmack is a libertarian who has previously supported Republican candidates, and used to work for Palmer Luckey, who was an outright MAGA supporter (unlike Zuckerberg, who claims to dislike Trump) — and aside from that, having meetings with Trump when he was President without inviting journalists into the room is something plenty of businesses did. I don't think Carmack is going to be thrown off by the Trump meetings. If anything, Zuck is probably a better owner for Oculus from a political standpoint than Luckey was.

> He called his original users dumb fucks and had multiple secret meetings with the U.S. administration that just literally tried to overthrow our (U.S.) democracy.

So like every other large company then.

"We connected people together and it turned out 1% of them are assholes"

> Are they just trying to virtue signal and act woke? I don't know.

Yes, is signalling your virtues and acting .. "aware of what is going on, or well-informed, especially in racial and other social justice issues"... bad?

> Yes, is signalling your virtues and acting .. "aware of what is going on, or well-informed, especially in racial and other social justice issues"... bad?

If it harms others, then yes. Just yesterday I read about lawsuit where white male was fired to hire two females. Which is a direct consequence of diversity virtue signaling.

So they harmed 1 person and helped 2 people? Seems great overall.

Also as you're talking about humans, probably use "man" and "women", otherwise you sound like... someone who would complain about people being woke.

> Can I ask you something? Is Zuckerberg really THAT bad of a guy?

Even independently of Facebook/Meta, yes.

You would too, for a salary in the 8 figures.

I really think he is not interested in just the money. I think you need to give him the challenge to do something cool that he's interested in, access to teams of smart people to collaborate with, resources to be able to make an impact with the technical solutions he finds and give him the leeway to do his thing. There are not a whole lot of places that have the mass and spirit for this. Although, Carmack being him could spin something out of thin air, I'm sure.

He never struck me one terribly concerned with ethical dilemmas. More the pragmatic kind that wants to work on cool stuff. But I always listen when Carmack talks because no matter his ethics, I find he has exceptional insight.

Some people have morals and the option to make a choice not to shit on them. I wouldn't work for Facebook regardless of how much they offered (but i can afford not to because i have plenty of other options). Once you have stable amounts of it, money isn't everything.

Someone like Carmack could make 8 figures doing their own thing.

doing your own thing can be a chore that keeps you very far from doing the fun stuff, especially if you love R&D.

when you least expect it you will be in a meeting about business management crap, it's very hard to keep that at bay.

I don't regret doing my own thing, but sometimes I'd like to work for my company instead of running it.

True. He was probably making 8 figures under ZeniMax

Actually, he sued ZeniMax over them not paying him the eight-figure sum he sold his stake in his company for.

I don't think Carmack would run into any problems finding other 8 figures jobs, and he has been rich for a long time now anyway.

Also what is it with this idea of "everyone will throw morals into the trash to work at X", it's simply not true, some people DO indeed posess ideals and the integrity to go with them.

It’s probably not so much the 8 figures, but having billions of dollars and hundreds (thousands?) of engineers at your (partial) disposal, building a totally new device

I really wouldn't, truly. The only way you could get me to work for somebody like Zuck (if I even had any qualifications they were after - I most definitely do not) is if he were lobbying the entirety of the US political system to advance stem cell research and pry medical innovation out of the evangelicals cold soulless hands.

Back to Carmack - if I were Carmack, had the intelligence and experience Carmack does, along with the money and connections Carmack has - I would simply find somebody not as slimy as Zuckerberg to work on VR related things with, it's as simple as that. I'm sure there are several others who would be happy to fund him if he reached out.

Do you think otherwise?

Not every person is smart in every way. Some people are very good at reading technology, some are very good at reading the motivation of other people. It could be that Carmack mistook Zuckerberg's intentions with Oculous and believed him on the handshake promise (I'm giving a lot of grace to Carmack... it's hard to see people you respected fall by the wayside).

Unless Carmack doesn’t have the ability to quit, he’s choosing to continue working for Zuck every day.

As is every other fb employee.

I highly doubt that the metaverse thing (VR ad mass market or whatever) can work out economically. Therefore I read the Meta rebrand as an enormous personal hybris project, "I've succeeded before and I'll succeed again (and this time even if I fail I'll still have more money than I can ever spend)". The intentions are all late 20th sci-fi dreams, fully in line with what an idealized Carmack might like.

From that tech dream perspective, which I assume they both share, the Facebook way of making money while chasing those dreams is just circumstantial details. For both of them. I'd expect those two to get along excellently. One of them is now basically renaming his life's work out of admiration for what the other can do, and the other is probably not infinitely immune to flattery.

> The only way you could get me to work for somebody like Zuck (if I even had any qualifications they were after - I most definitely do not) is if he were lobbying the entirety of the US political system to advance stem cell research and pry medical innovation out of the evangelicals cold soulless hands.

Zuckerberg Chan Biohub may satisfy some of your criteria

https://www.czbiohub.org

> I would simply find somebody not as slimy as Zuckerberg to work on VR related things with

The problem is, there are only two other companies with the budget, R&D budget to do that. One is apple, who I doubt would let Carmack be free to do what he wants. The other is Microsoft.

And then there's Alphabet

They would abandon VR long before getting anywhere near success of Quest 2. At Google they literally proven they just unable to invest into anything long-term.

At the same time Facebook bet on VR is decade+ long game.

You can hear for yourself what he has to say here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnSUk0je6oo

Do you work for a better CEO?

You could work there, proform in a negitive/incompetent way that doesn't lead back to you and then leave after a while with a boatload of cash and a slightly worse off company behind you. You could even influence those you leave behind leave the company in an even worse way.

I wouldn't write someone off simply for working for someone.

He's definitely not doing that. The man is sharp and doing a good job. But I do not have the same loss of respect that OP has.

This seems strange, I wonder what they'll call future headsets.

they are meta quests now

Meta Goggles

I'm not sure if this reporting is correct. If you check meta.com and on the top menu "what we build" you can still see Oculus in the list.

Is there any company that's even close to Oculus in the VR space? I know HTC's Vive and Valve's Index could compete with the Rift, but they didn't have the Oculus app ecosystem. Samsung's standalone died, same with Google. Is there anything equivalent to the Quest 2?

The Index is great, but it will lose in the end because of 3 reasons:

1) much cheaper price

2) portability

3) seamless onboarding experience

I love my index but there is no way that it can currently beat oculus because of these things.

Also, Oculus is well aware of these features. At least Carmack is.

The highlight of connect for me was the Carmack keynote. I suggest all techies watch it:

https://youtu.be/BnSUk0je6oo

Given that Valve's next big product is a cheaper portable non-VR gaming system with a (planned) seamless onboarding experience, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was a test run for a future portable VR set to compete with the Quest.

Valve, with their already existing VR ecosystem, is probably the best positioned to compete in the space.

The main thing Valve has going for it is good will among the gaming population, which Facebo- Meta certainly doesn’t (to a stupid extent, IMO).

However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space. I’m sure that’s somewhat of a business decision, but I honestly think Zuckerberg has a genuine interest in the technology and just wants to move it forward. While Valve could technically also sell at or below cost and hope to make it up with their Steam cut, they haven’t been willing to do that with any other hardware release.

> However, Zuckerberg said during the keynote that they were going to continue to sell hardware at or below cost in order to grow the space.

It's really a shame this isn't illegal.

Meta has 30x? 100x?, 300x? the resources of Valve. I'm not routing for Meta but it seems unlikely Valve can out do Meta.

Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world (eg not things like Farmville, but games pushing the limits of immersive 3D tech). The only real competitors to Steam are consoles. Games have traditionally been the main driver of home PC hardware, so I wouldn't count Valve out easily.

Valve has the best immersive PC gaming platform in the world...

Facebook cannot do VR based on games. It wouldn't bring in enough money to sustain it. They're going after a much bigger market.

The entire global PC gaming market was worth $42b in 2019. It's up a bit since then, but not by much[1]. That's equivalent to about 5 months of Facebook's revenue[2]. In other words, in terms of revenue, Facebook is double the size of the entire PC gaming market.

It doesn't really matter how good or how big Valve are. They're a big fish in a small pond compared to Facebook.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/292516/pc-online-game-ma...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/technology/facebook-profi...

When it comes to engineering talent, I wouldn't be so sure. Steam is also among the biggest marketing platforms, especially for early adopter gamers.

You mean the platform where you could change the password of any user account by going through account recovery and leaving the password blank? (That was exploitable for many years)

As long as Facebook keeps investing in exclusives for their platform while Valve doesn't they'll keep losing market share, no matter what new headsets they come out with.

What is the boon if someone "wins" VR?

New Playstation VR is on the way.

Varjo review by Tested: https://youtu.be/slRKY1cIr6E

"high system requirements and a $2000 price tag"

This still exists - https://about.facebook.com/technologies/oculus/

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