This is such an incredibly pessimistic and simplistic view. It is a private company funding research that will eventually lead to revolutionary devices.

Imagine if people in the 1940s/50s said, "wow we could have spent all this money on something besides these giant vacuum tube machines that just add up a few numbers."

There's a difference between deep tech research (which truly can be revolutionary) and "revolutionary" consumer gizmos. I don't think the analogy holds.

Are any of us in the position to truly know that. I feel that throughout history there were always groups of people that dismissed new innovations. Trying to be as unbiased with that statement, I don’t know what the future holds.

I wholeheartedly agree with you in regards to VR (its a fun trinket and while I love my VR flight-sim in the end it is nothing but a toy), but I think AR certainly has potential.

For instance, just imagine wearing a set of AR goggles while <working on your car/building some furniture/whatever> and having an exploded parts diagram available at your beck and call in relation to the physical item in front of you, with assembly/disassembly steps shown should you so desire.

Do you really think that AR and VR will only be "gizmos" forever?

I can think of dozens of real world applications off the top of my head. AR assistance for challenging professional situations (surgery, mechanical repairs, etc), PTSD treatment, AR warfare, gaming, and so much more. And this is with our limited viewpoint in the year 2024.

When headsets (or the evolution of them) are eventually the size of reading glasses and cost very little, this could change the world.

Unfortunately change the world will likely mean zombifying most of the population with social media streams. At least with a phone even the most addicted have to put it down sometimes when they need to use both hands.

I share your sentiments, but realistically how would one implement that? The US (where meta is based) government (ie, the people) can't agree what benefits everyone. The positive side is all of the jobs it paid for.

not allow private companies to accumulate so much capital by breaking them up and taxing them fairly. then use the budget for things like single payer healthcare and affordable housing

Well, again, the US citizens can't agree to that. So then what?

increasing wealth inequality and unaccountable mega corporations. more of the same, basically.

I don't "believe" there is a solution until enough people get really hungry.

The US government already has enough money for these things. They refuse to do it because the citizenry isn’t in support..

Send checks to people and then have massive inflation.

That is how it goes. If one can't understand that by now I don't know what to tell you.

I really dislike this view of the world. Maybe VR is a folly but the innovation we have gotten in this world has come from “burning money”, sometimes it does not work out.

I also how simple we like to make the argument. How we could have instead spent money that “benefited everyone”. Who decides that? I don’t think governments, nonprofits, or other gatherings of people do a better job and probably are actually much worse at it.

Right. GPU tech came about because people wanted to render cool pictures on a computer screen or make 3D games playable on commodity hardware.

Now there are data centers full of them.

What makes it even worse is that so much of this money is made by keeping people addicted and messing up the mental health of teenagers.

It's the dirtiest kind of money.

Given how everyone’s now being ham-fisted into RTO, I actually think this (private) money should’ve been spent earlier.

Solve the management boogie man of remote collaboration, unlock Billions in value by making remote workforces more collaborative.

Hell, would that also have downstream affects of reducing housing demand in HCOL areas and alleviating homelessness…maybe!?

When my city didn't even let people go to public parks, having an Oculus Quest helped maintain my sanity

Consider that these $42B didn't just vanish into thin air. A lot of it went to wages, which people used to buy homes, food and other goods, stimulating other parts of the economy.

Although I do agree with your general sentiment.

Or could've been used to keep employees instead of laying them off and move them to work in other areas of the business and retrain.

you realize that the 42 billion dollars isn't burnt in a furnace right? it was spent on research, labor, hardware. that money reaches new hands. it can be spent again.

the time spent by the people working on it can never be gotten back