The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too High

Re:The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too... by wpietri on Sunday December 13, 2015 @05:47PM (#10728304)

If I had, it wouldn't matter. Lots of smart people have been sucked in by novelty experiences to say, "OMG REVOLUTION" and then been wrong. E.g., Google Glass or the Segway. Heck, I thought Gopher [1] was the best thing ever and would change the world [2]. And I've made the mistake a number of times since. With, e.g., Jobs's NeXT. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29

[2] And it was the best thing ever, but that's not enough to change the world.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer

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Re:The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too... by modeless on Sunday December 13, 2015 @07:23PM (#10728632)

Well if you always wait for market confirmation before getting involved with something you'll never reap the benefits of getting in early. Personally I have a bit more confidence in my own ability to tell the BS from the real deal. If other people were wrong about the Segway or Google Glass that doesn't necrssarily make me wrong about VR.

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Re:The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too... by wpietri on Monday December 14, 2015 @12:27AM (#10729553)

I find this reply puzzling. I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I'm just here asking for evidence that it has more than novelty value. That smart people think something will change the world is interesting, but it's not evidence of market uptake.

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Re:The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too... by CyberDildonics on Monday December 14, 2015 @12:03AM (#10729500)

Did you ever use google glass? It was a pile of shit. Do you realize the NeXT computer was 13k in 2015 dollars?

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Re:The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too... by wpietri on Monday December 14, 2015 @12:25AM (#10729545)

Sorry, I'm not following your point. Yes, there are reasons those things failed (although in the NeXT's case it wasn't price; it was in the same ballpark as other workstation-class computers). But at the time, some smart people thought both were going to change the world.

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Re:The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too... by CyberDildonics on Monday December 14, 2015 @01:31AM (#10729700)

No one actually thought either of those things were going to change the world. The only place that came from was marketing.

Did you use google glass and have you used VR?

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Re:The Dangers of Setting VR Expectations and Valuations Too... by wpietri on Monday December 14, 2015 @09:56AM (#10731288)

Steve Jobs thought that the NeXT was going to change the world. (For its time it was certainly revolutionary, but I'd call it too revolutionary for sufficient adoption.) Sergei Brin, Marc Andreessen, and John Doerr thought that Google Glass was going to change the world. Many smart people were quoted similarly on the Segway. Ditto on 90's VR or any number of other interesting ideas that turned out to have some flaw or not deliver sufficient value.

I have used neither Glass nor the latest generation of VR. Which I'm ok with. If I did, I might or might not think them cool, but that's irrelevant. I'm not in any of the plausible market niches for early-stage VR, so my personal experience won't say anything useful. The kind of evidence I'm asking for here is not whether somebody thinks something is amazing. It is whether they are finding it useful enough on a day-to-day basis that they are paying for it and re-paying for it.

If they are, that's great. And if not, well, maybe we just aren't there yet. It can take time for technologies to find their feet. But given that I'm getting a host of replies with anything but what I'm looking for, that seems telling to me.

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