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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

does anybody really think that companies are going to supply their employees with $1k VR goggles just so that they can do a virtual meetup instead of just a normal phone or video call?

Yes. Spending $1k (probably a lot less if you're buying a thousand devices at once) is almost insignificant when it comes to kitting out staff to do their job as well as possible. If you can make someone you're paying $100,000/year just 1% more productive then it's already paid for itself. Plus it's a perk "top of the line VR headset for every employee" keeps people onside (I'm reluctant to say 'happy'; that would be too much).

If the company I work for decided to get all the staff VR headsets for meetings I'd be really cool with that. If we switched to Teams though, that might undo the happy vibes..

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Imagine how dumb you're going to feel if you're the only person in VR in a teams meeting.

Hah yes. 7 people on low-res webcams and one with a 4k Master Chief avatar.

Or the alternative even. I work in consulting. What would it be like if my team was geared up in VR and the client was not? What would it be like if the client was geared up and we were not?

I would imagine... really distracting.

You mean like in real life where people can wear casual or dress clothes? Won't it just be that business cultural norms develop?

More like real life where you're on screen share but your client is literally phoning it in (because they can't run webex/zoom or they're on the road).

Lowest common denominator applies for critical attendees.

I didn't mean geared up in goofy avatars. I meant rendering themselves in VR at all

Isn’t that just the definition of network effect? Meta is clearly betting that at a certain critical mass not owning a VR headset in a professional environment will be like not owning a webcam.

I think it will come across as unprofessional to join a meeting in vr personally. And triply so if not everyone, or everyone of a certain class is doing it.

VR is goofy, and it'll continue to be goofy. Like... ok so you have an avatar. Are a cartoon? That's a bad start. Are they maybe an unreal meta human that looks like you? Different than you? Like you, but poorly done? Ok whatever let's assume the rendering is fine.

What are you doing in this virtual meeting? Are you standing? Because that would be very weird for a business meeting. Presumably you're sitting irl because this is work, so maybe your avatar is sitting... Do they have a table in the virtual room? Because a meeting with no table is a bit odd for a business setting. But if you're in VR, you probably don't have a table in front of you irl. Or at least not the same table that's virtually in front of you. What does your body language track? What if Carol starts lagging and her avatar starts jerking around? What if your facial tracking gets something wrong and you just have a weird look on your face? Or more realistically your facial tracking is just a pretty simplistic thing that vacillates between neutral and smiling and you need to convey negative emotions?

In snow crash, the thing that made the metaverse work was very strong facial expression mimicry. It's not a terrible argument, but we don't have that. We have fake expressive facial mimicry that looks emotive but isn't actually that nuanced to your own face.

VR Chat for business just seems like a preposterous idea. Especially for older folks.

VR Chat for business just seems like a preposterous idea. Especially for older folks.

What this usually means is that startups and 'cool' companies adopt it, and then companies run by older people adopt it because they cargo cult anything successful. That could be enough to drive it to the mainstream. It's worked for lots of other tech and ideas (websites, mobile apps, nosql, agile, etc).

Remote work in general seems like a preposterous idea many folks .. even after being forced to do it, they can't really wrap their head around how it works, or why some people like it

A few years ago when video chat was, if you asked tech workers, already the norm for remote meetings, I know for a fact that at least one of the big three management consulting firms still strongly preferred call-an-actual-phone-number voice conferencing.

It struck me as goofy at first but I think they had it right, actually. You can join a call like that from almost anywhere. Don't need to dig out a laptop, let alone VR garbage. Airport, walking down the street on the way to another meeting, in the car on speakerphone (like, probably don't do this, but of course tons of people do), whatever, it all works. No "do I have the service they want installed? Is it updated?" No other crap popping up and making noise or distracting you. And phone number plus code had fewer problems than meeting invites for all the hip services.

Maybe not having VR will end up being one of those things that signals either low or high status. I can't imagine C-suite types fucking around with VR except for big all-hands announcements or whatever.

That’s a pretty weak bet given that owning a webcam isn’t even expected for meetings between businesses.

How do I bet that they're wrong?

short $META?

I imagine the meeting would take place at a level of communication determined by the lowest common denominator. If the client can't do video, then everyone else does audio-only. If they can't do VR, then you all are stuck with a Zoom call.

7 people on low-res webcams and one with a 4k avatar he was using with his wife the night before who's been out of town a lot..

With Zuck watching.

Wait. Now I want this.

Is the productivity gain so big? Mind that it's not only cost to acquire the devices, but also all maintenance around them etc

And then you have people with different degree of reluctance, which you have to encourage and train (see the recent post about Facebook/Meta pushing their managers to enforce VR meetings ...

All companies I've worked for so far outfitted their employees with the cheapest screens that where somewhat typical in the respective years (e.g. 24" 1080p screens 5 years ago, 27" 1440p now). 4k screens have been available for much longer for reasonable prices (more like 500$ can 1000$), are much more ergonomic - and they still didn't invest in those.

I think that's due to a mixture of productivity and employee pain hardly being measurable, and whoever decides the budget for those things is not an actual computer poweruser. I wouldn't see it being much different for VR devices. Unless maybe the head of IT in a company is hyped about that stuff.

The problem with that comparison is that only a small percentage of people are going to be even 1% more productive using VR, and a noticeable percentage will be noticeably less productive (e.g. nausea issues)... and with the state of current technology you're not going to find out which person is in which group until after you've spent the money.

> ... just 1% more productive

I see this repeated again and again but where are the studies? I totally fail to see how putting a VR headset would make the corporate world more productive.

I'm not a luddite: for example I can clearly see why AR, when I drive my car, can be convenient (say with navigational aids) or can provide safety features. I see the use cases that'd benefit many people.

But a VR headset making people in the corporate world more productive? I mean: it may be the case but it remains to be seen.

Heck, I don't even know: are people supposed to do VR meetings seeing 3D avatars kinda looking like the other persons in the meeting? For I don't see how you could see the real person correctly, knowing that it'll have a VR headset on its head (so it cannot filmed by any camera correctly).

How are facial expressions going to be represented in the VR meetings?

Someone will smile and you'll instead see a 3D model smiling? I'd say if that's the case the chance that there's a productivity gain has to be weighted with the chance that it could also be the biggest flop in the history of flops...

It is weird because VR is the subject of this giant bet by Facebook. Really VR is still nascent. I bet you couldn't find a really bulletproof study in the 90's that giving employees laptops would boost productivity by a measurable percentage, but it still seemed like a reasonable thing to try out at least.

I believe there's work on getting cameras inside the headsets for expressions and gaze-tracking.

Does this actually make someone 1% more productive? I'm skeptical, but willing to be shown to be wrong.

Most companies don't even buy webcams to improve meetings, they're not going to spend 100 times more on VR headsets

MS Teams is already a chore, I'm not adding an extra layer of mental overhead on top of it.

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