I think the discussion around VR/AR sometimes misses the forest for the trees. Yeah, existing products are mostly sucky/very niche, and the existing direction for the entire sub-industry seems very unlikely to break into the mainstream.

But that's not to say it's not possible for a mainstream-successful iteration of the idea to exist. My personal feeling is that there is a viable path to mainstream success, though it's far from guaranteed that a player succeeds in taking said path.

The real question IMO isn't "can VR/AR be made mainstream successful" (this is largely unknowable until someone does it), the question is "can FB be the company that makes VR/AR mainstream successful".

And IMO the answer has always been no. If there is viability in the entire subfield I think Meta is poorly positioned to be the tip of the spear.

Its fundamental business model works against the interests of good products in this field (stuff every virtual surface full of ads! Inescapable eyeball tracking for MAXIMUM CONVERSION ATTRIBUTION!!!1one) - one can make a (good) argument about the implications of Meta's VR play with the interests of humanity, but I don't think we even need to get that deep. Their business model fundamentally is at odds with creating compelling products in this arena. So much of their product strategy seems to be stuck in the hole of "what is good for Meta" instead of "what is good for users".

And then there's seemingly the perennial issue of FB not being able to ooze any kind of desirability or cultural cachet, which is deeply necessary for any of this to reach the mainstream in a big way. Everything it touches, even before the VR/AR pivot, is like an even more corporate and dead-eyed version of EPCOT.

Agreed; i would claim: If video chats/conferencing are XX% (95%) of a real-life conversation and a "metaverse" product can bring that up to XX%+N% (99%) then people will pay for it. If the cost is right it'll become mainstream. If the cost is too high it'll probably be a business or niche tool. Once that tech exists other products will become possible too.

I don't personally see what's controversial with that claim and bet. Separately one can argue if the current tech is anywhere near good enough to achieve the N% gains but the common thread of VR/AR/metaverse as being a useless product forever is a textbook example of missing the forest through the trees.

I agree, if Meta had focused on building an open platform and ecosystem that people could freely experiment with, they might have gotten somewhere. It certainly wouldn't have been as dead on arrival. But of course, that's not the kind of company Meta is. They want everyone to pile back onto facebook where they can control and monetize every aspect, except a cartoonish 3D version of it.

I already spend 8+ hours a day in front of a large screen. If the tech is good enough that I can use it 8 hours without discomfort/side effects and get huge virtual screens - me and millions of professionals are sold.

And when I have it for work the play becomes more realistic.

So for me that's the killer feature of VR - portable monitor replacement - you can take it anywhere, pop it on and you're instantly in your virtual office. This would be worth 1000s $ if it "just worked" like Apple products do.

Apple and Microsoft are the only tech players I could see pulling this off because of the OS integration required. And Microsoft failed with Hololens.

Very true. I think many people don't realize how uncomfortable phone screens are because they are just used to it and love the portability.

The day I tried HoloLens I quickly saw there is much more potential in that tech than many thing.

A 360deg screen that you can take anywhere with you and that can give you a true field of depth / 3d view. When the devices will perform well enough and be portable enough, this will become huge.

But our industry is very fad-driven, and it's common that when one big company starts pouring money into a thing, others do as well. It's usually FOMO rather than some sort of well-considered thing.