> Casual passive consumption of video benefits from being able to fit in between other activities easily. I'm never going to want an immersive experience when I have 2 minutes to kill waiting for a friend to show up at a bar - I just want easily digestible content snacks.

This presumes the existence of important "other activities", and relegates this content consumption as some lower-priority thing done between these activities. I know people who really don't have any important other activities: passively scrolling through video after video is their primary activity. For this [I'd guess growing] group, VR's ability to block out the unimportant real-world is the next obvious step.

The fact that a lot of viral videos are produced with built-in video game split-screens proves that people don't want full immersion. To fully engage our focus-deprived adhd brains you need multiple inputs at once.

If/when VR becomes as easy as putting on a pair of sunglasses, then it won’t be much different from pulling your smartphone out of the pocket. Luckily, we’re probably decades away from that being feasible, on the technological front.

VR is by its nature immersive. Immersion is inherently at odds with quick and easily digestible.

3d video served by an AR sunglass display is plausible (but probably way overkill for the next decade), but feeling like you're in an entirely different environment while waiting in line at the post office is never going to be a thing people want.

I disagree that it’s that much different from people being immersed in their smartphones, not taking notice at all of their surroundings anymore. With a sunglasses-like solution, you probably would/could still see the actual surroundings in your peripheral vision, or via pass-through, similar to how you can still hear your surroundings through non-sealing earphones, or via pass-through for sealed ones.

Very implausible imo, have you used VR before? Will never be safe to use in public spaces: what and who is around you is unpredictable, so only AR will be viable.

>Casual passive consumption of video benefits from being able to fit in between other activities easily

The same was said of video vs. reading. “I’m never going to want a video experience, it doesn’t fit in between other activities as well as reading a page of something.”

To be honest, I still feel this way. I can't stand when content is only available in video format. Give me text!

I feel this way when I click on a news article and it's actually a video with a headline.

Sure, but plenty of people still browse Reddit or Instagram (or HackerNews), listen to podcasts, etc.

There is a middle ground between "AR will never take off as an entertainment medium" and "AR will kill video/images/text."

Likewise. I'd never want to have to take out my handheld computer, boot it up, and connect it to the internet just to kill 2 minutes looking at pictures of cats, when I can just as easily look at my wallet full of cat Polaroids.

I see a future where you blink twice to power up your ocular nerve implants for a few minutes of stim, then power 'em down when you get a popup that your buddy is nearby and ordering drinks.

You think people in the future will have experiences in the real world with other real humans. That their buddy isn’t a bot algorithmically refined to maximally connect with it’s user. And that the user can power down their ocular implant. How cute.

To be fair, I think most everyone agrees that XR is the future, not VR. XR could easily take the replacement.

Isn't VR a type of XR?

VR is the world real-world excluding half of XR. Excluding the world is often not desirable, which is why VR, alone, definitely isn't the future.

over/under 2040 ?

Under. Way under.

Google Glass's spectacular failure had a chilling effect on the entire industry, but it failed due to (1) lack of killer apps, (2) poor aesthetics, and (3) consumer concern about privacy.

But ML has revolutionized image and video processing, Apple etc. could design a less hideous headset, and nobody cares about privacy anymore.

> could design a less hideous headset, and nobody cares about privacy anymore.

I think it would help to not make most of the promotional material about video recording, and not make a huge camera the most visible feature. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Quest lineup, including rumored Cambria and Apple renders, obscure the forward looking cameras.

Google Glass picture, which looks like a webcam on your face: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/19/google-gl...

> I think it would help to not make most of the promotional material about video recording, and not make a huge camera the most visible feature.

The Snapchat glasses, as well as the Instagram/RayBan glasses don't seem to have suffered from having a prominent camera, which suggests there was a change in mass acceptance of cameras.