Good point, I hadn't thought about it this way. Will people prefer fake living in the Bahamas over watching other people really living in the Bahamas? It's an interesting question.
It'll also require actual interaction without displaying your physical appearance, which Instagram, TikTok and Snap seem to have killed.
I do like the idea of digital gatherings though. Being able to chill and interact with a distant family member like they're right next to you is pretty cool.
This of course is also one of the reasons that I wouldn't want it for most business settings. I either don't need immersion that goes beyond video or even just audio for most conversations. Or I actively want to just be partially engaged--most big meetings I'm in.
The whole thing is unnecessary and dystopian to the max.
It doesn't seem to happen with sea sickness. I know people who've been sailing for 20+ years and they still feel a bit crap the 24 hours at sea.
My guess is that people will prefer to avoid a chance of feeling cybersick when they can just use some other form of entertainment / display that is guaranteed not to cause any sickness, even if the device is superior when it works without side effects.
You might have to go back to the early 90s for that, we had PocketPC and Palm and Symbian in the 00's... The change since 2002 has been incremental, I think 2002 me would find today's Android similar but faster and simpler - and today's iOS equally as confusing as 2022 me finds it.
I think VR is still in the PocketPC stage, where early adopters think it's great but most people don't need it or want it, it's expensive and/or clunky. It might catch on in 20 years when someone has another go with much better tech.
I owned a Psion 3, then 5, then Palm IIIxe, then a Dell Axim and then the first smartphones came out. First Symbian which was basically Psion, then iPhone and then Android.
I've never not had a smart device ever since the first. And while they have improved a lot some great features were lost (for example the Psion was much better to type an email on than a smartphone).
But my point is: it doesn't have to be perfect yet to be adding value. If it's not for everyone yet it doesn't mean it's a useless flop.
I agree with you that new tech can be good even if only a few people ever buy/use it, however I get the impression that Meta is investing billions in this VR stuff and are targeting "everyone"
Someone never did VR boxing at the Trocadero in London in the early 2000s.
the whole article starts with the point that people get motion sickness, and yet people still go on cruises and people drive cars, some people have to take medicine, but it did not stop the technology.
if there is real need for VR, it might be that those who get sick, will just be outcasts, if there is no real need, I dont think it matters if people get sick or
You mean, downgraded.
Those are not remotely comparable.
Indeed. PCVR has a bit less attention to it, the Quest experiences are very polished.
As one oarticular example, once X-Plane 11 starts loading it freezes the "loading hangar" you're looking at, and when you move your head it stays in the same place, making it 'feel' like it's moving in the opposite direction instead. It is extremely sickening and vertigo-inducing. I really have to close my eyes or jump to the SteamVR UI when that happens. Really, a developer should really avoid this at all costs. Just jumping to a black loading screen would have fixed it and it feels very lazy at the expense of the user.
It's a shame because X-Plane is otherwise much better than Microsoft Flight Simulator in its VR support. The "Ergonomic Yoke" is amazing and the buttons are much more responsive than in MSFS which made a really half-hearted attempt to support VR controllers.
But again, the native Quest experiences in the store are very well curated to avoid this.
The whole experience is based on a precise bespoke VR app. There is no information about it, or the used headset. To be fair that info might be available in the paper, but that's still bespoke app we can't know the quality of.
This quote makes me doubt even more:
> “If my iPhone doesn’t load a page instantly, I might grumble about it, but that’s the end of it,” Ringgenberg told The Daily Beast. “If my VR app stutters on me, I might physically get sick. That does keep people away from this technology.”
This is perfectly true! When it happens on my oculus quest 2, I immediately feel dizzy. BUT I can count the number of times it happened to me over a hundred hours of play on my fingers. (Notably I can reproduce one IO related freeze in Synthriderz' Lindsey Stirling Experience)
Also, this article doesn't mention brain rewiring: if we hand over modern smartphones to the average 2002 computer person, they would have no idea how to use it "where's the cursor", " how do I move windows", "why is my screen getting junk on its top without my will", " why isn't there a button to switch programs"? We just upgraded our brains to handle that. Same could happen with VR.
I'm definitely not a metaverse advocate, I still fail to see it immersive enough and cheap enough to work, and it requires a huge shift back to actually giving attention (which is ironic considering Facebook killed that attention). But I think the Oculus Quest 2 is an excellent game console (which implies it is not for everyone and that's fine)