Unfortunately, after skimming through the PDF of the complaint (https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/1910134fbco...), it appears the FTC is not seeking that remedy.

It appears VR is still too small of a market for them to care about.

Also, Facebook doesn't have a monopoly on VR - there are several competitors in the market, like HTC and Valve.

Yeah, and that might be because Valve is too expensive for them to buy.

Valce is also probably not for sale.

There's also a bunch of social features embedded in the Steam client; I wouldn't be surprised if regulators took exception to any acquisition by another company with a social network.

Seems a bit short-sighted because if Oculus becomes the dominant VR platform that Facebook envisions it to be then it's going to dwarf instagram in terms of economic importance (for advertisers and users) over the long term.

That's a big if, one that hinges on way too many things to be able to successfully argue in court about:

1) VR ever becoming a huge player. It might. It might not. Right now there's no real evidence that VR will actually become a big deal, and Facebook could argue that this is a niche offering that can't be anti-competitive because there's no real market yet.

2) The feasibility of VR technology independent of major vendors. There's a strong possibility that without a huge R&D budget VR will never overcome the hurdles that might keep it out of the mainstream. Facebook could argue that removing Oculus would doom VR to failure in the market.

3) The Sirus/XM merger removed 100% of satellite radio competition (there's only one vendor left after the merger), but both Sirius and XM successfully argued that the market isn't big enough to support multiple vendors. Facebook could argue a similar case, that for the health of the VR market there should be fewer competitors.

I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if any of those would be winning arguments, but based on previous anti-trust cases I've followed that would be the strategy I would expect. And it might be why the FTC didn't go down that path.

The flip side of it is that VR isn't mature enough for a company like Oculus to succeed independently. Having the resources of Facebook behind it will help the VR market as a whole (for now).

I think the FTC will deal with that as it comes. Including that in this case would be speculating the future of the Oculus business.

Ugh, yeah Facebook probably bought Oculus thinking:

-What if a lot of people use these in the future

-What if they're really comfy when they get slim, and people use them all the time, even for essentially web browsing.

-Later models can easily have internal and mouth facing cameras so you can smile at people in VR

-Let's intimately observe the finest twitch of every expression felt by our users, peering deep into their minds, learning more about how to manipulate and destroy humans than anyone ever thought possible.

Their thinking is pretty much all laid out in the 2015 Zuckerberg memo on VR/AR: https://twitter.com/lucasmtny/status/1095861887588229120?s=2...

Ava the Oculus Connect 6 keynote video on YouTube.

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a VR headset worn on a human face - forever."

(Apologies to George Orwell.)

Damn straight. The prospect of how much you can learn about human reactions is INCREDIBLE. Eye and mouth tracking is everything, here: it would be turning a wide variety of human behavior study into Big Data and straightforward machine learning.

What would you do with it? What wouldn't you do with it?

I'm getting down votes here, does anyone really think Facebook wouldn't do this?

You're getting downvotes from apologists and shills

> I know it's a pipe dream, but an independent Oculus would make me so happy

While that would cool for short-term, independent Oculus can stagnate. VR still needs many more billions to be truly usable, and I don't think independent company will be able to fund it.

> independent Oculus can stagnate

My experience has been that technology is far more likely to stagnate at BigCo than SmallCo - especially if SmallCo's only source of revenue is said technology.

FB are pouring billions into oculus. They intend to operate it at a loss for a good 5 more years.

Only when AR is a thing will they stat to push for profitability.

I think this is the problem. Operating at a loss while wiping out players without deep pockets to run at a loss.

This should be illegal. Amazon and Uber have wiped out small players.

If they are dumping billions into manufacturing, and selling at a loss, maybe that's a problem. If they are dumping billions in to R&D and improving the tech, then let them do it.

That would make all new business illegal, as you operate at a loss for multiple years.

At some point it needs to be illegal. When a large company of 30000 employees starts wiping out entire industries with cash buffers, you can see why this is just wrong and monopolistic/oligopolistic behavior.

The problem with this is that would make virtually all of silicon valley start ups illegal.

In terms of loss, the actual hardware is profitable as far as I've heard.

There's a large difference between using your profits to crush competition in another area, versus setting dollar bills on fire in the pursuit of growth.

There should be regulations around both of these, but they'll need to be different ones.

I agree that this maybe should be illegal, but on the flip what is forcing the other companies to operate at a loss? I would think the name “Facebook” backing oculus means more than a low price

I think down the line that would be true, but Facebook's willingness to burn literal billions of dollars at this point is basically the only thing carrying VR. Id love to see it split off in the future though.

I'm not sure big money is what is needed to create a flourishing VR sector. The appeal of VR has always been creating virtual experiences that are different and unique. honestly I think it makes much more sense for that scene to be decentralised and independent. Kind of like Minecraft came about, I have trouble imagining it as some sort big money project.

I don't think the issue with VR at this point is so much technical than it is that nobody's yet been creative enough to make something truly unique with it.

Agree. VR is not more than a novelty and gaming tool yet. Gaming is a huge potential, but I think the real use cases haven't been proven out yet.

I'm still a believer, but I suspect there are other non-VR technologies that either need to catch up or just figure out how to dovetail for VR to be anything other than a novelty.

Oculus doesn't present a monopoly concern in advertising, though.

Just wait until you slip into the Oculus 5 and enjoy a movie night with your friends anywhere in the world!

Oh what’s that? Your eyes looked at the logo on the shirt the hero is wearing, are you perhaps interested in learning more about where you could buy it?

Or, if the Oculus becomes the most popular VR equipment, think about the advertising can be shown to people in VR Chat rooms, VR films, virtual cinemas..... all bound to a single company.

Pretty sure the focus is on Instagram and Whatsapp only, not Oculus.

considering some of the things that facebook has been used for it should be very careful about what it does with VR/AR and the potential for use as a HUD facilitating an attacker and providing them with a support team