Hard drives succeeded (in the sense that we now see) because they exponentially created more use cases for themselves (by driving more data processing and storage).
AR doesn't really do that. Most people simply can't derive value from annotations over the real world, in the way they can by simply storing things. So the total addressable market is a lot smaller. Furthermore, AR adoption doesn't drive more AR adoption.
Which is where the VR case is stronger. There are some scenarios (all social) where I can see viral, exponential VR adoption. For all its flaws, the fact that SecondLife still exists demonstrates there's enough of an escapist market to self-sustain.
The biggest problem AR has is that most people aren't fighter pilots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3vbPEtSbv0&t=54s
Hard drives succeeded (in the sense that we now see) because they exponentially created more use cases for themselves (by driving more data processing and storage).
AR doesn't really do that. Most people simply can't derive value from annotations over the real world, in the way they can by simply storing things. So the total addressable market is a lot smaller. Furthermore, AR adoption doesn't drive more AR adoption.
Which is where the VR case is stronger. There are some scenarios (all social) where I can see viral, exponential VR adoption. For all its flaws, the fact that SecondLife still exists demonstrates there's enough of an escapist market to self-sustain.