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Comment by IshKebab | Hacker News Reader

I don't know, I own an Oculus Quest and some games are definitely amazing. Beat Sabre and I Expect You To Die for example. I love them.

But I still rarely use it. Even completely wireless it's still a hassle to get out, and not especially comfortable or easy to wear. And even shifting it slightly results in things going out of focus so you need it lines up just right.

Plus very few people have big empty dedicated VR rooms so you have to move furniture.

There's definitely potential but there's zero chance people are going to use this routinely for work even in a few tech generations. It would need to get to the weight and convenience of wearing sunglasses, with an angular resolution close to that of a real monitor.

We're probably 40 years away from that tech.

For gaming I think it will get more and more popular. For socialising and work? No chance.

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I hear you. For months I had my Oculus sitting in the corner of the room gathering dust. Unlike a phone, it's not pinging notifications at you all day so it's easy to forget about.

But you know that saying "come for the tool, stay for the network"?

Right now, we are super early in the adoption phase. You can tell by looking at what fraction of your Facebook network are on Oculus (in my case it's about 2%). That's why most of us are playing solo games which feel a bit like mere novelties.

But now that all of my work colleagues have one, I'm using it heaps. The value of VR grows the more your buddies have access to it.

For socializing and work I think there’s quite a lot of chance for VR, especially if due to climate and pandemics we can’t travel as much as we used to.

It’s just a matter of finding the right balance of capability and convenience.

Remember, videoconferencing was also dead and nobody used it… until they suddenly did.

> Remember, videoconferencing was also dead and nobody used it… until they suddenly did.

People use videoconferencing now in spite of its flaws because they have to. Once the pandemic is truly over it will gradually return to near its old levels.

The fundamental issue is that a lot of people have shitty internet. VR doesn't change that. Replacing shitty videoconferencing with shitty VRconferencing is not a compelling option unless you really benefit from the VR (maybe architects?).

> Once the pandemic is truly over it will gradually return to near its old levels.

Given the extreme push to retain remote work, I’d say this is unlikely.

> The fundamental issue is that a lot of people have shitty internet. VR doesn't change that.

I’ve been in middle of nowhere rural areas and still could get 10mbps, which is plenty for video conferencing. Though admittedly this requires demand and local action.

My broader point was about the younger generation. They are quite fond of videoconferencing in my experience where teens and early 20s are on it half the time while they do other things. Most have good enough mobile phones for FaceTime or WhatsApp video. Average internet speeds (and thus Wifi) are in the 40-50 mbit range, which is plenty for a typical 750kbps video conference (1.5-3 mbps or so if you want HD). Even LTE rates are getting better.

Uneven bandwidth hasn’t stopped Netflix or YouTube from taking over our culture. More interactive video and VR makes sense as a coming wave. The demand will grow over the coming decade, and if the wireline infrastructure isn’t upgraded, people will switch to satellite or wireless. Zuckerberg is looking 20-30 years out.

> 10mbps, which is plenty for video conferencing

I think it's more about latency and packet loss than raw bandwidth. I have 100 Mb/s fibre and it's way way better than my old 200 Mb/s cable was.

> Uneven bandwidth hasn’t stopped Netflix or YouTube from taking over our culture

Well yeah but Netflix and Youtube don't care about latency or packet loss.

> Zuckerberg is looking 20-30 years out.

Definitely agree there. This screams "we're scared this will be the next big thing in 30 years and we don't want to let anyone else own it".

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