Having an Oculus account was pretty much like having a Steam account. It keeps track of your devices, your purchases, and you get emails or notifications (if you enable it)about products it thinks you want. Not perfect, but an a tradeoff I will accept for great devices and a good service.
Having to log into FB means you have to create an FB account, and they try to stop you from setting up a fake one not connected to your real phone number and emails. Using your device will mean that sometimes you have to log into FB which can be a real hassle on your home browser or phone. You have to think about leaving cookies, not leaving certain apps on your phone, particularly if you are on Android, and if you are a Quest 2 developer you are an Android developer so all the security questions are x2.
Plus, FB probably keeps this account you set up just to use your Oculus device and they post to it every time you buy a game or maybe every time you get an achievement. I have no idea if anyone actually has the misfortune to see those posts, but I wonder if they collect money on ads that are served to the accounts that have no other activity than automated Oculus posts. Someone here would know.
I love the Quest 2 and I am really happy FB is doing this. Thank you FB for this.
Maybe some fun startup like Magic Leap or maybe Snap rebrands to Antimeta.
We are going to have to strike some balances. It's really annoying to have FB (or anyone) mandate that you join a multi-platform surveillance ecosystem to use their hardware. On the other hand, a platform with a digital library-- like say a kindle-- requires a login and some personal info. We just need to set some limits so that companies don't abuse these relationships.
the balance is easily reached before the advent of facebooks' policy - you buy the hardware, you get to run _any_ software on it.
Some software require an account, but only because that software's specific needs (like VR chat would require some sort of account to identify a user).
Steam lets you use steamvr without having a steam account. The only reason facebook didn't is because they saw an opportunity to pull in people by force into the facebook ecosystem.
Big tech companies are pushing for a 360 approach where all you media, entertainment, work and even finance happens on their platform.
But what happens when one of their "AI" bots flags you for some arbitrary reason or they simply don't like you? Google is notorious for automatically banning accounts and it's virtually impossible to get a resolution. Bots ban you and bots "answer" you plea for resolution "We've looked into the issue and you're still banned. Bye."
So yeah, facebook bundling all their services under one account is not acceptable.
When losing your account just meant not being able to look at a few emails or social media their attitude was (almost) acceptable, but when losing access to your account could mean not being able to pay for things (apple pay, google pay), not being able to access stuff you've paid for (any digital content purchases through the account), possibly not even being able to access your phone; then it becomes a more serious responsibility and just suspending an account for arbitrary reasons is no longer acceptable.
Unfortunately, the tech companies don't seem to have got the message and still regularly ruin people's lives by banning accounts for no discernible reason and giving no recourse to getting them back.
I think if they are going to continue on the course they are on there needs to be some sort of campaign to force them to take more responsibility and to give people a proper channel to get bans investigated. Enforced by some sort of ombudsman or something.
Another option could be that if an account is banned for ToS violations the account holder can still log in and access "essential" services such as payments, plus have read-only access to stuff like emails and photos so they can still rescue their lives.
I would say a mix of both will be essential.
In some countries (France?) requires that online purchased products are transferable like in the real world. Mostly this is used for game resale, but it should enable you/the company to transfer purchases to a new account. "You banned me, but give my wife the games I bought"
There may come a day where the world is utterly broken for the unaugmented, just a confusing sterile landscape camouflaged in QR codes. Getting kicked off the Metaverse will be a terrifying form of exile. But it will all be a private company's decision, so that will make it OK.
Edit: Thread discussing the Apple ID suit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26890055
NSFW
https://www.patreon.com/meshedvr
http://www.illusion.jp/preview/honey2_dx/
This is also a reason I will personally never buy an adult game from Steam. I don't want my gamer account and my sexual preferences to be linked.
Let me also add that inside out tracking means effectively the device is filming me in various states of undress and I have to trust that they aren't collecting any of that data for "quality assurance" etc...
And with FB/Meta, that same data is data that's used to connect me with my Mom and family on FB. No, just, no!
I deleted my account specifically cause I felt like "why am I still looking at this stuff?"
I would love to be able to use oculus or instagram (which i can now) without an FB account. Recently I created an account to use ad manager for my job and it's been really annoying how many friends (from the past) I get suggested and how much the algo seems to want to rebuild my old account...
Zuckiness, if you will.
How about ... no accounts.