Oh, yes, I didn't notice that potential misunderstanding. Correct, we use VR for surgical training, we don't train people to use VR (except incidentally as part of our onboarding for new users).

Even then, it still demonstrates that people need to become accustomed to the technology in a safe environment, a space for "training". As opposed to training people to use computers, where their visual faculties are still intact, you couldn't just release VR to the mass market and expect everybody to jump on board.

Television was an easy sell. Radio you could see? Great.

Smartphones and tablets were an easy sell. Computers you could put in your pocket? Computers that even your nana and grandad could operate? Brilliant.

VR? I don't know what the sales pitch would be that someone in Best Buy could give to a technologically illiterate person, at least without that conversation devolving into a bunch of technobabble and an offer to come do some training in an environment and social context likely to be completely unlike where the customer would be likely to use theirs.

You seem to have different goal posts for VR and you also seem to take existing tech for granted.

Like television, VR sells itself.

If someone has never seen television before, you don't need to draw up a sales pitch to convince them that it can enrich their life. You just need to have a television on display tuned to an action movie and that person can see for their self. It immediately entertains.

Same with VR. Ever seen VR on display in the wild? People, young and old, are naturally drawn to it. It immediately fascinates people.

Your post makes it seem like you would've poo-pooed computers and video games because keyboards and gaming controllers are too complicated. Yet the VR interface is much simpler than those. Watch a tech-illiterate person strap on VR for the first time. The first thing they do is look down at their hands and wave them around.

Like the person seeing an action movie on television for the first time, they don't need a sales rep to tell them how this might be entertaining.

At the same time, VR still gives me a splitting headache in ~15 minutes at every exposure. So the "Oh Cool" is still supplanted by blinding pain and nausea.

It's sort of a smell-o-vision situation.

> If someone has never seen television before [...] you don't need to draw up a sales pitch to convince them that it can enrich their life

Indeed, because they can see a television. They enjoy it immediately. They don't have to put on a headset, they don't have to engage in sensory deprivation, they don't need to think about software, they don't need to think about use cases.

The point I'm making is that TV was a bogus analogy.

> Your post makes it seem like you would've poo-pooed computers and video games because keyboards and gaming controllers are too complicated

Not at all. Game controllers don't require me to take myself out of my environment to enjoy them.

> Watch a tech-illiterate person strap on VR for the first time. The first thing they do is look down at their hands and wave them around.

They then say "wow, this is cool, I wish I had one". They don't say "I want to buy one of these and put it in my living room". To think they do is, again, that disconnect between Silicon Valley and ordinary people in full force; that because we think it might be cool, somehow we know everybody wants it, and we'll happily ignore all the reasons why people don't or, more condescendingly, dismiss them and anybody who mentions them.

Such hubris should be the lesson of Google Glass and Snap.

> They then say "wow, this is cool, I wish I had one". They don't say "I want to buy one of these and put it in my living room".

N=1, but after I experienced a high-quality VR headset and got to play VR a game alone for a while, my reaction was "wow, this is cool, I'm sure as hell gonna get one of these". Then I realized I'll have to also upgrade my desktop for this, and decided this needs to be actually budgeted. Such is the adult life. You may want to buy something, but there are more important expenses too. VR is still expensive, especially if one doesn't have a gaming rig at home. But it's getting there. It starts to pop up in bars and cafes, and in richer houses.

(Also, getting used to VR took exactly 0 seconds for me, and I can't imagine it's because my subconsciousness is tech-savvy. Good VR already feels natural.)

"Computers that even your nana and grandad could operate"

Hmm no. My grandad had worked out the video recorder, my nan not so much. She has a dumb phone, but never turns it on, nor charges it.

Agree with your final paragraph. Wonder if 'Surround' cinema would work as a marketing term?