What's Up with the Metaverse?

I have an Oculus and am fully aware of what it can do, so seeing the bland Metaverse graphics is jarring. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but a juicy one just popped in my head. What if the current Metaverse implementation is bad on purpose? A distraction, meant to diminish public excitement and therefore serious competition from the rest of the big tech, while Meta continues to improve on core VR capabilities and really cement their edge. Then one day - boom! an entirely different experience that takes full advantage of the platform.

Probably not though. The impact-driven incentive culture of Meta is unlikely to allow that sort of feint. The company is going all in on VR because they need to control the hardware layer, having missed the mobile phone boat. Being at the whim of Google and Apple has caused many issues for FB/Meta, so this is existential.

Not a direct answer to your question, because I honestly don’t know.

I am more surprised by the attention this gets in press and tech circles.

Meta is making a long term bet. It might just one of the biggest wastes in recent time, or it could turn out to be something that actually works. I don’t know if it will fail, but I’m certain they’ll learn a ton out of this. If VR is to ever become something, Meta will have a significant competitive advantage.

Meta could be doing this knowing full and well and expecting the first several iterations of this to fail. Now, if you work at meta or own meta stock, it’s entirely up to you whether you want to jump ship.

But why this bet is so controversial baffles me.

If you haven't tried VR you should give it a shot. I find it pretty amazing.

Some percentage of the population is going to spend a lot of time in there in a few years. A small percentage already does today. (Sometimes I meet people in VR who tell me they keep the headset on while they sleep)

Meta is trying to capture as much of that market as they can.

I think the primary thing keeping Metaverse from actually working is the device.

If you never used the Quest VR devices, they are both amazing and disappointing all at once. In terms of the actual performance, amazing. It is just much more immersive than I had initially thought it could be and you can forget your surroundings in the physical world quickly. With that being said, the weight of the device sets in after 30 minutes and after 1 hour of continuous use I hate the thing. My neck is tired, my eyes are dry, and I just want it off my face. On top of all that, you just feel like a dweeb with a 90s alarm clock strapped to your head haha.

I think the form factor is really the thing holding it back from mainstream adoption. As soon as its more akin to glasses, I could definitely see widespread adoption by the casual users. Until then, VR is just a niche.

I think Meta is really on to something by going full throttle into VR. One point I've heard Mark make in various interviews is the increasing immersion of social media and the internet in general. We started out with text, then we moved to images and gifs, then video and livestreaming started taking over. The trend is clear. If you've ever tried VR where other people are in the same world as you, it really does feel different in a hard to describe way than just a video call. It's more immersive.

VR won't be the end all be all (at least for the foreseeable future), there will still be people communicating with each other via text/images/videos. Part of the issue is that VR is still thought of as an "experience", rather than a boring tool/avenue to do other things with.

I assumed that Zuckerberg was looking at the future of Facebook, which would be slow or stagnant growth, and revenue that was worryingly reliant on rival company's platforms. He saw a risk. He said something like "My company will become irrelevant unless we do something really big. What moonshot, no matter how crazy sounding today, might possibly become as big in the 2020s as social media was in the 2000s?" and the thing that seemed possible at the time was VR. Probably a lot of people told him to pump the breaks, but it's his company, so he bet on his belief in himself as a visionary. I guess we'll see.

The reason you're so confused is because despite the development costs there really is that little substance to what they created. They rebranded Oculus and made a half-baked sterile meeting app for it that nobody uses. There is a lot of high level postulating about new standards of linking worlds together or something something decentralized blockchain something but none of that is a concrete reality. In the end, the actual "Metaverse" app represents a virtual world that is fundamentally worse at its job of being a explorable, collaborative, or social than a vr-enabled instance of Minecraft.

Maybe it's a stepping stone into robotics for people wanting to live amongst their robot friends and helpers in AR? A future Boston Dynamics + Meta collaboration?

Also, to control robot avatars in the real-world from your bedroom! How else are you going to buy your milk?! And those robots will be used to map out a true virtual-reality that reflects the real world (RW.) Another way to do that is installing cameras everywhere at participating towns or stores.

So the key is in bridging the gap between VR and RW.

Checkout any walking tour on YT... I'm thinking interactive and live (or near-live) versions of those.

Thing is, even if he pulls it off, he'll still compete for the same e-commerce and ad revenue pie, except he'd have burn 10s of billions in the meantime.

I've got several hypothesis but have no idea on the actual probability. Mark could have lost his mind, or be considering FB now META his playground and wants to do whatever he wants. Or he actually believes it's a good business prospect and is willing to do whatever it takes to make it work.

VR and AR will be huge and I do think it was a smart move to shift the company in that direction, especially as legacy social media (like Facebook) is starting to get tired.

However, I really don’t understand their aesthetic choices. The avatars just look odd and childish, not something cutting edge. I also think they would have benefited from focusing on AR first, rather than VR.

"Metaverse" isn't a thing, it's a concept, powered by specialized hardware. Checkout their headset sales to answer if anyone is using it.

They are probably trying to create a solid foundation on which to build on. The visuals can always be improved later on.

"What's up with the Internet?" - OP 30 years ago, probably.