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Comment by smolder | Hacker News Reader

Stop taking "the metaverse" seriously, please. It's a rich idiots dream, like a digital Fordlandia. I can hardly blame people for trying to follow trends, because following trends can be lucrative. "The metaverse" is just not the one to follow. It's nintendos virtualboy, vision getting ahead of substance, fixing problems we don't have. If it succeeds at all, it will be a testament to societies ability to bend to the whims of rich idiots. In Facebooks case, they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die before they try to expand on the whole reality thing.

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I'm getting really angry at companies squatting names that are basically common nouns. This practice should be banned. It's something I though was more cyberdystopian-esque not reality, but here we are in the future.

As somebody whose primary intellectual interest is how digital communities conceive of themselves and how cultures are curated online, I am not thrilled about 'Meta' to say the least.

Thanks for stealing the shorthand I had for explaining what interested me.

And never mind what a mess it's going to make for any of us who are interested in metadata versus data.

Thanks, Mark. I love it.

>"squatting names that are basically common nouns"

I feel like we should be using the term "scalping" instead. It is much more accurate.

That's probably not an ideal solution given the history of that word.

Perhaps, but scalping in the modern vernacular applies to people buying limited items and then price gouging because of scarcity. And, now that I think about it, "squatting" is also capable of carrying negative connotations when it comes to history in North America.

A land value tax solves this.

A land value tax in the metaverse - I hadn't considered that before. I wonder what cryptocurrency will be used in the metaverse?

You should probably google "Decentraland".

A land value tax for names? Or well copyrighted ones. I suppose brand reputation could have a value. It could also lead to companies cycling names for cheapness. Imagine say using Toyota-2022 as the offical name for Toyota.

The notion sounds a bit silly on the surface, but good enough at least for serious classroom discussions and evaluation.

Perhaps a land value tax only for dictionary words that relate to the field of use. If Toyota builds a brand reputation, then they should be able to hold on to that brand value without being taxed on it.

Good point! Someone should invent a more general term though; at first I was wondering what taxing Facebook's land would do.

Perhaps "self-appraisal tax"?

One general term, though it's kind of unsatisfying, is "economic land," and it can refer to things like electromagnetic spectrum too. Any finite resource that that is a factor of production and can not be expanded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_(economics)

For namespaces, there is extra value for particular names that come not from any work the owner of the name performed, but rather that comes from the productive activity of others. If I squat "olives.com" in 1994 and wait for the web to get big, and then sell the domain in 2000 to a hottest new direct to consumer olive startup, then any profit from that should really be taxed away. All that "value" came from the work of others that made the web into a valuable place to own some "land."

Maybe "inelastic resource tax" or "squatting tax"?

I'm pretty sure you're wildly wrong about this. Comparing metaverse to virtualboy is a big mistake. Metaverse is not vision over substance. Substance is already there and driving technology to a more refined vision.

We’re already spending significant parts of our days working, playing, exploring and communicating digitally. Dating is online. Commerce has moved online. Art and creators are online. Entertainment is online. Exercise is an AR experience. Connecting with IRL and new virtual-only friends is online. What is left? Food, sleep, sex, and odors? Important things, but a relatively small portion of what we do during our awake hours.

The substance part of the metaverse is already here and proven. We are in a period of refinement which includes technological advancements in the ways we experience it. More compact wearables (e.g. AR/VR headsets), 3D audio, High res displays and better visuals/graphics and most importantly, bridging these different types of experiences in some way, which is a software problem. These are the areas in which tech is trying to gain control and offer the cohesive experience.

I highly recommend you listen to this podcast episode with Bill Gurley (second life creator): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/invest-like-the-best-w...

Everything in your second paragraph is right, and the internet is amazing. I also think VR goggles are cool, have a place in providing relatively short term immersive experiences (though not replacing 16 hours of screen time for some people) and am excited to see where the tech goes.

The reason I use quotes is because Zuck has stolen a word to represent his vision of a world people are already incrementally building for themselves, outside his control. His vision, where his Meta company is central to all this stuff, acts as identity provider and general enabler, and a market -- where Meta is central to even the concept of a metaverse, is shit.

Claiming the name as a brand is a scummy move. It's absolutely dripping with greed, hubris and cynicism. They created this problem, where it's difficult to promote or criticize the general idea of the metaverse and the Meta company version independently. It's the latter that I am confident will be a Black Mirror style horror story if come to fruition, and am urging people not to promote. Any major effort by a big tech company to wrangle the frontier into their walled garden is bad news, but Facebook's past behavior says they'd be especially bad.

There are other words. The Grid or Cyberspace.

His point is that Facebooks new take on AOL isn't going to be that future, not that that future isn't coming.

We already have a metaverse: it's called "reading books".

That's a wholesome idea and nothing more.

Zuckerberg has proven extremely effective at predicting future trends. Look at Instagram and Whatsapp, perfectly timed investments.

Zuck has taken long term bets on the metaverse starting with Occulus and now seemingly betting the whole company on it. He could very well be wrong but there are a lot of very smart people at Facebook and on their board I have to think they did some very intensive validation before doing so.

It could all go up in flames but I think they are going to take a very real run at it backed by billions and billions of dollars.

Don't get me wrong I very much dislike Facebook and the oxygen it provides to extreme and uninformed groups but to think that Zuckerberg is an idiot taking a stab in the dark with the fortunes of a publicly traded FAANG company is not a serious take.

"In Facebooks case, they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die before they try to expand on the whole reality thing." No arguments from me, there is a ton of moderation that needs to be added to Facebook.

I think Zuck has a fantastic understanding of systems and where they're headed...and a negative understanding of human motivation and emotion (outside of their quantified metrics). That's why he's smart enough to understand that FB as a platform has a limited lifespan and to get WA and Insta under his belt when they threatened him, and to know that he needs to come up with something else if he wants to continue to accrue wealth and influence. But at the same time, I think his Achilles' Heel is people acting like the irrational apes we are: If you push someone to hate you enough, they will absolutely cut off their nose to spite you, and this works at the cultural level as well. FB as a brand is culturally 'out' now.

Or, as a kid who played Civ online at the same time he did, I'd describe him as somebody who could win every game of Civ through bug exploits and memorizing the mechanics, but is such a dick about it nobody wants to play with him again and that confuses him.

"If you build it, they will come." Only if they don't hate you, and Zuck isn't doing well in the court of public opinion.

So Zuckerberg was like playing the ATL Falcons with Michael Vick and their 4-6 formation on Madden online? Cool thought.

The difference is Instagram and WhatsApp were products that had real product value before Zuck acquired them.

Zuck has to build a v1 product from scratch with the Metaverse. When's the last time FB has truly built a revolutionary v1 product? It's not really in their DNA anymore. I'm not saying they can't do it, but I wouldn't point to IG and WhatsApp as examples of why Zuck can pull it off.

Facebook Chat is basically a messaging business on its own. Given that Google has tried and failed to get into this space COUNTLESS times over the years, I'd call that a pretty solid new product offering from them.

Facebook has also innovated significantly in adtech afaik

Portal is pretty nifty to chat with families over WhatsApp.

I always say that if you're interested in the Metaverse, I have many acres of land in Second Life for sale, and as many Linden Dollars as you'd like.

This whole Metaverse thing reminds me of when IBM purchased 12 islands and opened a virtual office in Second Life. Of course, as was tradition at the time, someone inevitably showed up with a flying gentlemen's sausage. Eventually IBM decided the whole thing was too costly and abandoned the project.

The lesson here is that when IBM gets involved, that's probably the top.

There's a difference in Second Life and the whole "metaverse" just as there is a difference between the time and tech then and now.

Not every tech is going to be successful at every time. The same solution can fail once and succeed some other time when there's a change in the market and/or the underlying technology.

There's a much larger number of human beings on the internet now. And they are not just on the internet, but they actively use it for a large amount of time. That's the chance in market right now and what will drive the adoption of metaverse soon.

The thing that we should focus on right now is whether we want a metaverse owned by Facebook or something that is defined by open protocols.

Oh wow. Someone already did this! How have I not heard about this yet?

> Look at Instagram and Whatsapp, perfectly timed investments.

What do you mean perfectly timed? If you mean that those platforms shot up in usage/revenue/whatever-metric after their purchase, couldn't that be heavily influenced by the purchase? Neither of those were some small little platform with a groundbreaking new feature before that. Everyone I knew (in highschool at the time) had gotten sick of their parents all joining Facebook and making it uncool, so they moved to Instagram before the purchase.

All that Zuck did was notice the platform all the kids are migrating to and bought it to keep those users. It isn't exactly "predicting future trends." They tried to do it again when everyone's parents joined Instagram so the kids moved to Snapchat, but thankfully that deal didn't go through

"All that Zuck did was notice the platform all the kids are migrating to and bought it to keep those users. It isn't exactly "predicting future trends." They tried to do it again when everyone's parents joined Instagram so the kids moved to Snapchat, but thankfully that deal didn't go through"

I would argue this is exactly what predicting future trends is. See which way the tide is going and make the necessary investments to ride it.

...which everybody does. There is nothing special about that particular smart person's ability to predict the future. Appeals to authority based on selectively chosen past performance... let's see how this ages 10 years from now.

> I would argue this is exactly what predicting future trends is.

It's recognizing current and predicting extremely short-term future trends that lots of other people recognized but didn't have the funds to do exploit in the same way.

Metaverse would be something very different.

I think there's a pretty big difference between buying a rapidly-growing platform and... whatever the hell was shown off in that vaporware announcement video

Buying companies that already have millions of users is different from trying to build a new thing yourself. Many. Of their internally built services and products have failed. Remember the android launcher?

Very much so, but while that is true, one shouldn't overlook the base fact that they did build Facebook themselves which was a very new thing and is now one of the largest tech companies in the world. I'm sure there will be hundreds of small bets and failures with the metaverse concept but I do think that eventually its going to happen.

As far as I'm concerned they're recreating Club Penguin.

Hot take but I think you are incredibly wrong. Remember that Today show clip from the 90's where they laugh off this new Internet thing? That's you. Ignorance.

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

I used to think this but Ben Thompson changed my mind.

This meta verse thing really could be the way we work remotely soon. It works as a working space. It works for companies, it could create good work environments, and companies can afford expensive hardware to get people to work more effecively.

Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom, not as a Minecraft/Roblox alternative.

Chat apps work just fine. I already feel tired, just thinking about having to wear VR gear all day while I work.

If we ever get to that point the VR gear would need to be effortless.

No, just mandatory.

Place Obligatory "Matrix" comment here.

Devs still have control over where they work.

Current VR gear? Maybe. Future VR gear, especially with big tech money in it? Maybe not so much.

Meanwhile, pairing a modern phone with the Bluetooth receiver in a rental car is still somehow a frustrating adventure more than half the time...

Physical cables my friend. Cables.

Joking aside, I've stopped using bluetooth in any vehicle that is not mine (actually using a rental this moment since my car is being worked on right now). Pretty much all rental cars have been built in the past 3 years, and for the most part they all have a USB for Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. So much easier to just use a cable and not hope the wireless connection stays working.

Though the cable itself isn't reliable sometimes and will disconnect itself/pause audio upon reconnection. Maybe good ol' FM and CDs are the way to go.

doesn't android auto also depend on BT? not clear to me why, but I believe it has to be on.

in any case, I find Android auto just trades one set of issues for another. voice control is kinda iffy for all but the most unambiguous commands. I also experience deadlocks at least once a week that require restarting the head unit, phone, or both. I've had this issue with two different phones in two different cars. not sure what the root cause is, but it is really distracting when navigation freezes halfway through a trip through an unfamiliar area.

I cannot speak on Android Auto specifically and what the requirements are currently (though I intend on migrating to an Android device in the near future) my '22 Subaru only allows Android Auto or Apple CarPlay to work via the cable, as you can link the phone over Bluetooth to the 'generic phone' controls, but not the phone-specific-display controls.

Though I haven't had issues in regards to the headunit failing just yet - I've had the phone lock up a few times, but I think that is in part due to the age of my iPhone (6s) and the lack of processing power/ram.

In the future you won't wear VR, VR will wear you.

Maybe you’re not the target audience.

I have a project currently deploying a bunch Microsoft Teams Rooms at a client. It tries to create a similar experience in a physical space. People are confused as hell by it — it doesn’t work the way they’re used to / expecting, so they give up within a few minutes and just connect an HDMI cable to the main screen.

We weren’t even going to have HDMI as a fallback, but the executives demanded it because they weren't willing to spend 5 minutes every meeting dealing with the tech when the problem is that it didn’t work the way they wanted it to.

I cannot imagine my users in-office all donning headsets when many attendees in a meeting are just there to listen while working on other things. I personally like to take those kinds of “listening in” calls while doing work around the house. I’m not sticking my face in a VR headset for that.

I'm with you - the "listening in" calls are where it's at.

If we get to a point where we're "forced" to don headsets for meetings, it can't be long before dummy heads with realistic eyes (to fool the inevitable eye-tracking/iris scanning "presence" check) appear on the market.

A bit like those mouse jigglers they're sell to prevent your status moving to "away"

This sounds like my world and yes Execs can't seem to reconcile that their personal laptop cannot control a camera linked to an android app on the other side of the room. That's not what they asked for initially, they asked for the one-touch join the meeting crap that the salesman sold them on. Come hell or high water though once they get in the room they want their personal laptop to drive the meeting.

It is infuriating.

Yeah the tech is wonderful when there’s a good facilitator who knows how to use it effectively, but the problem is most meeting facilitators are not very good and have their own personal style that might not match up with any given product. Getting to the outcome of the meeting is far more important than using some fancy software, and for 90% of meetings you can get there with Zoom or Teams on a laptop.

What company in their right mind would allow a company with Facebook’s privacy record to have access to all of their most important IP? You would have to be insane.

Virtual spaces for work already exist and (almost) nobody uses them, so I don't know what a different name for the same thing is expected to accomplish.

Nobody uses them because they are clunky and unnatural. The leap of faith is that soon the technology will make these things seamless and natural. Only then will virtual spaces take off in a meaningful way.

Here's a wild idea, meet in person.

What if they're in different cities?

There's plenty of companies that are distributed across countries. On my team I have teammates in Macedonia, Costa Rica, USA, and Germany. Even without Covid restrictions, that's going to be expensive and time consuming for us to meet in person.

Then you know it will be worthwhile

Linux was built using a distributed team without the metaverse. It seems like we’re doing just fine?

Email is fine, thanks.

> Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom

What do you think is missing from today's slack+zoom (or discord +jitsi/google meet, or whatever) combo that would make you more productive?

Idling. The single most important thing I’ve lost since the pandemic started is the capability to overhear conversations.

I can no longer pick up on junior team members talking themselves into trouble and nip it in the bud, I only get exposed to that trouble by the time they’ve invested enough time into it that it becomes a much harder discussion.

When I go grab a cup of coffee I no longer overhear other teams talking about their projects, and ask them if they mind me sitting in to learn more about what they’re doing.

A lot of the organic social interactions that serve as a medium for knowledge diffusion are just gone.

> I can no longer pick up on junior team members talking themselves into trouble and nip it in the bud, I only get exposed to that trouble by the time they’ve invested enough time into it that it becomes a much harder discussion.

Perhaps the environment isn’t right for them to just ask for help?

> When I go grab a cup of coffee I no longer overhear other teams talking about their projects, and ask them if they mind me sitting in to learn more about what they’re doing.

Demo days?

> A lot of the organic social interactions that serve as a medium for knowledge diffusion are just gone.

Happy hours?

Have you joined any company happy hours with 6+ attendees?

It inevitably turns into an awkward mess. Sure you can use breakout rooms but the social happy hour via zoom/slack is not a solved problem.

Yesterday at my work they had a Christmas event where normally they hire a speaker to come to (normally in person, but now on a Teams call), and this year they brought in a lady who's a comedian and minor Canadian celebrity.

She got through the first 25 minutes or so of her routine (which was incredibly awkward -- standup does not work without a crowd, and it's just you telling jokes to your own empty living room) and eventually at one point her audio got stuck as she was saying the word "and" and it literally just kept looping her saying "and and and and and" over and over. They tried to troubleshoot it for about 10 minutes. Her video was still working, but every time they enabled her audio again it was just the looping "and and and and." I felt kinda bad for her. The whole thing felt like a plastic recreation of a real experience, and the technical difficulties at the end were emblematic of it all.

> standup does not work without a crowd

There's a Zoom comedy show my partner has been attending for 1.5 years, and she bawls every week. So, it's possible for a show to work out.

Maybe she was self-aware of the situation as well and decided to turn it into material for next joke

Since there is a sub-set of people that don't even join company happy hours in person, that feature alone could not be sufficient so.

I would change careers if I had to work in VR. I don’t like people and wfh is a dream. I’ve been doing it for 10 years and won’t ever go back.

2010 - what do you think is missing from your work skype group chats that would make you more productive?

Nothing.

Well, IRC worked well enough as a chat app back the day as well. Besides large group chats, I didn't miss any features compared to Teams. And let's be honest, those group chats aren't that productive most of the time.

Now imagine Zuck being in charge. How could it not be a toxic wasteland?

John on Accidental Tech Podcast (http://atp.fm) has articulated some pretty solid criticisms.

Facebook has historically sucked at hardware. Why would that change?

Whereas other parasocial hosts attempt to protect their users, like MMOPRGs mitigating griefing and cheating, Facebook and Twitter amplify and profit from toxicity.

Etc.

That is a common social media criticism, "amplify and profit from toxicity". I find the charge vaucous for several reasons.

1. "Give what the numbers say you want." or "Maximize profit * area of instance." are what they actually want. Even if it leads to emergent antisocial behavior it is set by results instead of a goal in itself. 2. The charge itself could be applied to any form of media, and yet there is a blatant double standard. If one accused three letter network of it you would get a response of "well duh"! 3. The implicit idea that negativity is a bad thing is outright dangerous, yet clearly promoted by the accusatory tone. Publishing government misconduct also promotes negativity and a publication may profit from it. So does speaking out against injustice. Crude and callous as it may sound, maybe some outright deserve the negativity.

> 2. The charge itself could be applied to any form of media

Correct. Zuck, Dorsey, and PageBrin just stole the old guard's lunch money. Just like broadcast toppled print, papyrus displaced clay cuniform.

It's an old story. The power elite always seize control of popular communications. Technological progress begets a changing of the guard.

> and yet there is a blatant double standard

By whom?

There is always a resentful cohort moaning about "kids these days".

There is always some cranks (like me) performatively rejecting the whole system. Yesterday's Kill Your Television is today's Delete Facebook.

While the masses keep plodding along, amusing themselves as able, self medicating, seeking some kind of respite from the never ending sting of the human condition. Moo.

What you describe is working in VR. But please stop conflating VR with metaverse. Although, I reckon, they will soon be synonyms if we continue like this.

>This meta verse thing really could be the way we work remotely soon.

Oh please god kill me now.

For real. The last thing I want is to get disciplined or fired because the eye scanners in my work helmet told my boss that I looked at non-work related items for 3.7% of my work day and they only allow for 2.9% of the work day not visually engaged with my screen.

> Think of the metaverse as a more advanced slack+zoom, not as a Minecraft/Roblox alternative.

The next question is why? Followed by the heath issues problems. You’re supposed to look away from a screen every 10 mins for 10 seconds. How can I do that with the screen strapped to my face? And why we’re here, why would I go to my private space inside the metaverse to get away from people? Why not take the damn headset off? The whole idea is forced.

Magic Leap keeps getting GIANT amounts of funding despite not having dropped anything that people can buy (I think they took a DOWN round of $500M this year.)

Apple is investing significant amounts of capital on ARkit and AI/ML optimizations at the die level. Google has been dabbling in this space for years and years.

Second Life, the non-AR version of the metaverse, was hugely popular back in the day despite the tech at the time (i.e. having to carve time to use it on your computer). Pokemon GO (a Google bet) is still wildly popular.

With Facebook doubling-down in this space, yes, I am going to take this very seriously.

AR != VR

AR has a very clear and useful future. Metaverse is a gimmick to get people to work and live in a world where facebook, err Meta, can nickel and dime everything.

Let’s be clear here, the metaverse is useful for separating idiots from their money (see how much people are spending on fake land atm)

Hot take. You're comparing a video game company in the 90's vision and ability to deliver that vision to one of the largest companies in the world ability to deliver?

While you may not want the Metaverse, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "If it succeeds at all, it will be a testament to societies ability to bend to the whims of rich idiots.", plenty of people are happy to try new things. Facebook, the social network, is a estimate to massive amounts of people willing to get on board with an idea that is new, at least to them.

Frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Seems more like because you don’t like Metaverse you don’t want it taken seriously. But it will be serious business.

> they should really try their hand at making a 2D world that doesn't lead people to want to die

The problem is, the "idiot's metrics", that is the engagement time as the ultimate metric of financial success, clearly show that negative content that is bad for your well-being favors them. They literally earn money from your suffering. How could you expect them to give up on that?

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