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Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

98 out of 100 people I know would never use a VR or AR headset beyond once to see some amazing demo.

I wonder what would say average people of 19 century when offered to ride a car. Book reading was also not mainstream just as recently. Utility beats everything though.

Is there utility in ar/vr glasses? Are you enjoying reading and typing from your small screen with your neck turned to the ground? With a friction of getting your phone in and out of your pocket 20 times a day.

How could it not be obvious?

It is a common trap to think that because an unlikely and successful technology--at the time, now obvious--has become mainstream, all (currently) unlikely technologies will inevitably become mainstream. But it is a way of looking at history that only confirms the biases we may have. Instead, it would be more useful and accurate, both descriptively and prescriptively, to look at life and technology from a statistical perspective.

If VR/AR glasses become no more burdensome than eyeglasses, then you might see more broad adoption. But right now headgear is uncomfortable for work. Even ignoring the weight, if you balance headgear for one position (looking straight ahead) then it is unbalanced for any other tilted position, and it's not like you gain freedom of movement. If anything, you lose some freedom of movement. Plus, taking the gear on and off is (in my experience) more burdensome than getting my phone out of my pocket.

I'd love it if the tech gets there someday, but it's not yet clear how it does.

The utility benefit still has to outweigh the bodily detriment.

> If VR/AR glasses become no more burdensome than eyeglasses

I think the most important aspect of this is that such glasses don't introduce a separation between you and the rest of the world.

If people using AR are disconnected from interacting with others in real life (which seems very likely), then there will be a social cost for using it on the regular.

I think this, more than any other single thing, is what will keep AR in the realm of niche applications. The similar problem with smart phones is already one that people complain about a lot. AR would only make it worse.

> friction of getting your phone in and out of your pocket

it's a quick (and mostly accepted) way to tune out, for example, while standing in a line or something. Yes, many people overdo it, but imagine popping on your VR helmet for a second in a social setting.

Average people in developed countries in the 19th century were accustomed to riding in trains and horse carriages. A car wasn't fundamentally much different for passengers.

I'm hanging out for my AR dream: I walk into a room and the gizmo projects the name, organisation and role of every one of my LinkedIn contacts over their head (visible to me only) for any of them in the room. I would put up with considerable physical discomfort for that.

But for a "weirdly lifelike zoom meeting"... no

Imagine walking into a bar and seeing everyone's dating app profile hovering above their heads.

I know 100% that this will happen some day, and I hate it.

...and those without a dating profile will have an advantage because they'll be more mysterious.

or they'll just be denied entry.

Well, I've noticed an increasing number of people (particularly the younger ones) who have bailed out of dating apps entirely because of the problems that come with them.

There will certainly be at least some places who want those people to buy drinks at their establishment.

Also a summary of our last few conversations and emails & texts, if it’s someone I know.

Heck, just give me a conversation script to follow.

You want a dialogue tree IRL? That feels dystopian.

Sure, to spend a few minutes playing life on Easy Difficulty, why not. I could tune an LLM with How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Then it'll just be our AI avatars conversing with each other. Mission accomplished.

Count me in the group that would use a headset, but never one made by Facebook

To their credit, their headsets support WebXR in their browser so you don't need to use their proprietary frameworks to develop immersive experiences, you can do this using open frameworks like Aframe and Three.js and pure web technologies, and what's more those will also work just fine for desktop and mobile web users, here's an example:

https://aframe.io/examples/showcase/sky/

On desktop, you can pan using the mouse. On a phone, if you grant access to your accelerometer, you can move your phone around as a window onto the panorama. If using VR goggles like my £200 Oculus Go, you can crane your neck around. I have a 360º camera, the Ricoh Theta Z1, and the Oculus devices make a very good viewer to share immersive views of far-off places with friends or family.

That's a definitive blocker for me, too.

I was going to make a counter point that the tech simply isn't there yet.

Then I considered how people hate to even wear normal glasses. So even if the tech could be as seamless and compact as normal prescription glasses, uptake would be iffy.

> So even if the tech could be as seamless and compact as normal prescription glasses, uptake would be iffy.

Remember the glasshole era ?

(The short-lived project known as Google Glass for those who don't know)

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