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Comment by togs | Hacker News Reader

Seems hyperbolic. Meta is spending a lot of money on R&D right now (good news for longterm investors); Facebook is still the place for real-life connections (outside of business); VR is immature but will be a big deal once it lowers in cost.

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>Facebook is still the place for real-life connections

Most of the people I know left Facebook long ago or never had an account to begin with. For people below a certain age (which includes myself and I'm not young) it will resemble a ghost town.

FB is for Gen-Xers now. Maybe early millenials, but that's doubtful. Some boomers too. But GenX has a good 30-40 years of active lifespan left, so if they don't mess with it, there's some good income stream. But they will definitely mess with it.

VR doesn't need to capture the average facebook user/masses. As long as META can retain devs/early adopters, with great hardware, the ecosystem/community has already been built. High ROI is only inevitable, whales in MMORPG's spend the money because theres a genuine connection with the players/community, that should've become apparent to everyone with NFTs/crypto.

If Zucc's bets on acquiring whatsapp and instagram were plays on time spent/attention, should track that he understands the killer app of VR is going to be time spent/attention. VR isnt just a new medium to tell stories, if it taps into something more primal than anything a screen can convey, then the "next platform" race has already started and META is ahead by leagues

VR absolutely needs to capture the average FB user and the masses. Zuck is not building the new WoW or an NFT marketplace. His goal is to create a highly social, highly monetizable, work/play platform for the planet.

> that should've become apparent to everyone with NFTs/crypto

Right, that's why FB, Meta and its metaverse are so highly regarded in the crypto community.

Is the plan actually VR, or to use it as a stepping stone to AR?

>Meta is spending a lot of money on R&D right now (good news for longterm investors);

... only if your r&d pays off. If you keep spending ten billion each year on something that looks like a second rate version of second life ca. 2010 combined with VRChat it's fair to say you may have a problem.

> VR is immature but will be a big deal once it lowers in cost

What do you mean by that? It's bad now because it's expensive? I think it's bad now because the tech is not ready (bulky, low resolution, low quality graphics, causes nausea, etc) and because Meta's value prop is incoherent. Team meetings in VR? Catching up with friends in VR? Having legs in VR? (How many people does this appeal to?) If it was 100x cheaper now do you think it would have been much more popular?

Internet and websites are a big deal now, didn't help pets.com. Even if VR takes off - which btw is not a given - that doesn't mean it would be Meta's VR. And "spending a lot of money" is not good news for investors. Spending a lot of money on something that will earn a bigger lot of money may be - but again, there's no proof that's what Meta is going to be.

maybe i'm getting old, but I don't see VR ever being more than a niche play thing. Humans will continue to want real world interactions, not just put on a headset and live in vr. Facebook, et al, worked because they were highly accessible. Having to put on a headset? No thanks.

It is a great replacement for the gym (at least for me), but I otherwise I agree.

I'm interested here, could you elaborate? What are you doing to replace the gym? Workouts led by a virtual instructor? Presumably cardio? Super interesting and I'd love to hear more!

Mostly FitXR, which VR shadow boxing set to music (with squats mixed in), but I also play some beatsaber to warmup and cool down. The former is designed for fitness, the latter is more of a game like DDR that can get sweaty. There is supernatural and a couple of others, but I mostly stick with FitXR because I’ve found some music and sets to like over the years.

I agree that FB could capture a fitness market a small fraction of Peloton's for this use. No one ever got fired for mimicking Peloton's business model.

I think that's just you.

I was an early adopter of virtual reality (since sold it and moved on). Even the most energetic VR games pale in comparison to a typical gym workout, provided the person actually works out at the gym rather than practicing fuckarounditis

I find the gym/outdoor running is much more effective for both weight loss (running being the most effective way to burn energy) and muscle gain (which generally requires weight-based resistance training)

It really isn’t. There is a huge community of people doing this, and it doesn’t seem to just be a fad. I find rubbing outdoors to be incredibly boring, gym machines are also. It’s hard to distract myself enough to finish the workout, and that’s not to mention taking the time to get ti the gym in the first place.

With VR, the games are distracting and fun enough that they don’t come off as overly tedious, BeatSaber is better but also less fitness oriented, FitXR is less so, but I can still get through it without expending lots of willpower. The best exercise is the exercise you do, when I was in my 20s and some of my 30s, I could push myself to go running and hit the gym, now VR fills that role.

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