It's a peripheral, not a platform.

Even if it were just the Quest: How is it reasonable to require an account to use a "stand alone computing device"? I have many stand alone computing devices in my home without the need for an account with their manufacturers.

I was already skeptical of my Oculus Rift when after buying it I learned I needed to create an account just to download drivers (WTF!) No other device on my computer requires an account to obtain drivers. I would love to hear the justification.

Take oculus Rift as an example. You own a game (on a different platform) which supports VR (including your device). You plug your Rift in, calibrate the sensors/room and start playing the game. You shouldn't even need internet connection.

For support requests, use the serial number, like everywhere else.

Consoles work offline just fine.

"We require you create an account so that we can protect your personal data."

The thing is: to sell me stuff, you don't need to know my name. You don't need to keep tabs on me. You may offer it, but I may decline. Plenty of mortar-and-bricks-stores work this way: there are loyalty cards for tracking, but customers who forego them do not have to register to make a purchase.

Point in fact: there are also internet shops that allow such options. Sure, they need a bit of data to send the parcel and the confirmation/invoice/etc. But that doesn't require everyone to create a username/password combination - and some internet shops blissfully do not require that. They get paid and ship the purchase to the address specified, and that's it.

In this case, it seems purchases could be tied to the Oculus device specified during the purchase. While I can certainly imagine benefits to tying purchases to a user account (e.g., ability to use on multiple Oculus devices), I don't see a reason to require logging in. Am I overlooking something?

If (when) the device fails, you would lose all of its associated software licenses and have to buy them again

I mean, my Nvidia card has had one for years because I didn’t realise I could’ve installed the drivers without creating one. What did a graphics card ever need with that? My mouse required one.

I'm not sure if this still works or if there are other things beside the driver that one would like to have installed nowadays.

https://insider.razer.com/index.php?threads/i-need-an-accoun...

Only if you use or log into your bogus FB account.

- create burner gmail

- create burner oculus name/account

- create burner Facebook account

- always use a VPN

It seems like you could completely remain anonymous and provide Facebook with data they could never correlate to a real person.

There is no having a tiny bit of Facebook. If you give them a finger ...

After initial login I was asked to verify myself by either providing ID (sic!) or a phone number.

Well, seems that after 2023 I'll just trash my Quest.

I’ve supported Oculus since DK1 through every single iteration of hardware. This change by Facebook has just killed the brand entirely for me. I simply won’t sign up / back into Facebook (killed my account around 2011 as I found it overwhelmingly toxic and have never looked back) to use a piece of hardware I already purchased.

That seems like it could go poorly, like if one person in a household had been buying a secret birthday present or an engagement ring or researching divorce lawyers and then the targeted ads were associated to everyone in the house.

EDIT: I didn't know that Facebook bought Oculus some time ago, back in 2014--for some reason I thought it happened far more recently. I would make the case above for someone who had bought an Oculus device before Facebook's acquisition and now would be forced to use its platform, then. I don't have anything to do with Facebook, personally. I don't even use WhatsApp, so there's that for my moral integrity.

Fortunately, I haven't.

In any case, I personally have never owned an Oculus or anything related to Facebook.

If you sign in to one of their accounts, you are functionally signing into the facebook website.

However - supposedly your oculus account will be valid until the end of 2022 [0]. At that point you could change to a newer hardware platform from another manufacturer.

[0] https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-facebook-account-required-ne...

Their position is clear. They’re fucking creeps masquerading any user experience they create as anti-spam.

Don't create a burner account. Facebook's TOS is to lock burners and require an ID to unlock, so you'd be locking all your games out of access.

That's why I was wondering if it's officially confirmed somewhere.

I don’t think there are many people that are cognizant in how to break their social graph.

I’ve seen a few other hackernews comments corroborating it over the past year. But it isn't a common case so Facebook gets away with it.

Job done. raise the noise floor.

I ended up using my personal email address because that's how they want it.

My mum has a shadow facebook account for a number of reasons. She only has one friend, its on a shadow email. It's still active after a good 6 months.

it didn't require a phone number either. I mean it asked, but I didn't give it one.

So long as the emails dont bounce, you're good.

Simply not true. I suggest you try yourself and see how long the account stays unlocked.

I mean I don't know how I can make it any clearer....

I don't use Facebook, but I totally recognize how valuable it is for my grandpa. Sadly, Facebook does not allow any mistakes to be made on its site, which is what older people tend to do when faced with new tech.

I used a realistic sounding name, I tried several email addresses that were rejected as blocked, eventually I landed on an email that worked and my account got immediately disabled.

I'm sure I could eventually succeed, but I don't believe that it's fair to brush this off as something that anybody could do easily.

I imagine that you could use a plausible but fake name and a plausible but fake "random person" image, but I'm not interested in actually interacting with that website enough to try.

You might try a clean OS & browser install, to avoid trackers, and maybe if you've been banned a bunch already, use a VPN (or stop using a VPN) or use Starbucks wifi or something.

Is it possible to do that with a Facebook account?

I've also spent a bit of money on Rift games. This is angering.

I'll buy one of them from you for $300 or the pair for $500. That seems like the going price? Contact is in my profile, let me know.

EDIT: Oh, it's $399 retail in the US. Damn Europe.

Not that he knows. https://theconversation.com/shadow-profiles-facebook-knows-a...

The parent's downvotes makes it seem like HN expects the purchaser to know about the FB affiliation

FB can not be trusted. I'd argue they should be dismantled.

Time after time they have not only expressed views that are downright alarming but they have been actively repeatedly caught out deliberately flaunting the law and fucking their customers. (not to mention their Russian connections and their part in the election tampering in the US).

Google are a naught boy compared to the actively evil FB org.

If you don't want to send them a government issued photo ID, you can make a new account that lasts 10 minutes and then is locked on you and holds any accounts linked to it hostage as you can't sign in.

come on