To Build the Metaverse, Meta First Wants To Build Stores (nytimes.com) 52
One of Mark Zuckerberg's first steps toward building the metaverse may be physical instead of virtual. From a report: Meta, the social media company formerly known as Facebook, has discussed opening retail stores that will eventually span the world, said people with knowledge of the project and company documents viewed by The New York Times. The stores would be used to introduce people to devices made by the company's Reality Labs division, such as virtual reality headsets and, eventually, augmented reality glasses, they said.
These devices are gateways to the metaverse, a futuristic digital world where people move from virtual to augmented versions of reality almost seamlessly. Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, last week renamed his company Meta and laid out a vision for pursuing the metaverse as the next social platform. The stores would help show people that virtual reality and augmented reality can be fun and exciting, exactly the way Mr. Zuckerberg sees it. The aim of the stores is to make the world "more open and connected," according to the company documents viewed by The Times. They are also intended to spark emotions like "curiosity, closeness," as well as a sense of feeling "welcomed" while experimenting with headsets in a "judgment free journey," according to the documents.
These devices are gateways to the metaverse, a futuristic digital world where people move from virtual to augmented versions of reality almost seamlessly. Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, last week renamed his company Meta and laid out a vision for pursuing the metaverse as the next social platform. The stores would help show people that virtual reality and augmented reality can be fun and exciting, exactly the way Mr. Zuckerberg sees it. The aim of the stores is to make the world "more open and connected," according to the company documents viewed by The Times. They are also intended to spark emotions like "curiosity, closeness," as well as a sense of feeling "welcomed" while experimenting with headsets in a "judgment free journey," according to the documents.
Where you can panic buy (Score:1)
virtual toilet paper for the upcoming real apocalypse.
Re: Where you can panic buy (Score:2)
I tried using the virtual toiletpaper. After FB's latest move to "open retail stores", I suspect it was actually just shares of FB stock I was wiping with.
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virtual toilet paper for the upcoming real apocalypse.
Who needs virtual toilet paper, that’s what hyper inflation is for...
Re: Where you can panic buy (Score:1)
Didn't we try this in the early 2000s? (Score:2)
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No, and also no.
Try reading Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, or at least excerpts from same, if you want to come up to speed.
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This particular story reminds me of the Taelon regeneration centres in Earth: Final Conflict, or the visitor clinics in V.
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That's the future corporations want for sure. They can profit from the surveillance, and from the counter-surveillance methods which don't quite work to counter... their spy equipment.
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Or trying reading his latest book, where he refers to the people of Ameristan as having been "facebooked."
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I surely shall, I own all of his other books.
Re: Didn't we try this in the early 2000s? (Score:2)
Crypto seed words are a nam shub for wealth.
Dystopia (Score:3)
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A virtual world where companies track your every usage and try to sell you as many shiny things as possible so you can feel better owning pixels.
To sell what? (Score:3, Insightful)
VR devices locked to their authentication platform, and non-water-resistant Ray Bans that turn you into glasshole 2.0?
Whoopee!
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VR devices locked to their authentication platform
Just wait till the brain implants are locked to their authentication platform, that’s when the real fun starts.
And then nice tubes to live in (Score:1)
to generate power to run the MeatVerse with no blue or red pill choice.
It all comes "Free" with your BookFace account.
#GrimMeatHookFuture indeed.
Carbon footprint ? (Score:1)
What will be the carbon footprint of all of this ? Will it help or hinder our efforts to stay within the 1.5 centigrade target ?
Ready Player One (Score:3)
Re:Ready Player One (Score:4, Informative)
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It's all he knows. Big tech has a diversity problem. Everyone comes from a privileged homogenous background. They just happened to be in the right government university at the right time.
Sorry, but women and minorities are greedy assholes, too. That skillset isn't just limited to white males.
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I think Zuckerberg has watched that movie too many times. Except instead of rooting for the heroes he rooted for the evil corporate asshole who wanted to shove advertisements in everyone's faces.
"We can sell 80 percent of the screen WITHOUT inducing seizures!
readyplayerone "
Or he's hoping to induce "Blipverts" in the deadbeats.
Meta-stasized (Score:2)
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It'll be a choice until the government decides it's the best way to keep people safe. They'll have to spend a few months selling it to people with "think of the children" rhetoric including, but not limited to, "Don't you want your newborn to be safe their entire life?"
Fuck me. Every time I think our dystopia is already here they find another way to up the ante. I hope Musk at least manages to get some of us off this rock before the entire human race goes septic. We're pretty close already. It's a race
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Facebook announced they will be removing all facial recognition including over one billion templates, yet Meta made no such claim.
In fact they explicitly said they're taking that tech out of Facebook, and using it in their Metaverse software.
This metaverse could be a really good thing (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe if all of the crazy people stay in a virtual world all of the issues with facebook dividing people could just stay in the metaverse (like consparacy theories, political polarization, ect). What happens in the metaverse stays in the metaverse. Maybe they could build a virtual capitol for people to storm.
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meatspace (Score:2)
You can pry meatspace from my cold dead fingers.
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Pompeii masturbating guy, is that you?
Description is off. (Score:2)
The wrong person & company to drive it. (Score:3)
The concept has been around for a while (Gibson, Stephenson, et. al.) and a few things come to mind:
Suckerberg seems to be unaware that most of those visions are cautionary, even if the idea is 'cool' it's not without some serious issues
1) He and Facebook have zero trust. Most people will keep their FB accounts b/c they're free and out of habit, but I seriously doubt anyone will spent serious money to join his fucked up vision of a metaverse, knowing it will be only for monetization, data capturing & marketing.
2) Look at what they did with the Quest, once they decided to force the FB connection to use it, many potential users were like nope. Plus they lied and have since started putting ads in it too. I have a Vive Pro and while it has some ties to Valve, it's not required for everything, and I can use it offline if I want. And no ads.
Those two items alone make me think (and hope) it will be a huge money sink with a disastrous outcome for them.
Re: The wrong person & company to drive it. (Score:1)
Sense of closeness (Score:2)
Right, right. That sense of "who was wearing this headset last?" And "WTF is that smell?" And "I hope I don't catch anything from this."
This is a hell of a time to open a store like this.
Metaverse == ‘Second Life’ (Score:3)
Sounds we've heard before (Score:2)
Either this is the tvision/internet/computer pitch, where "all societal interaction will be in the metaverse" actually becomes true over the course of a couple decades... ...or this is the biosphere/flying-cars/jetpacks/lunar-colony/space-travel/telesurgery/space-elevator pitch that takes a hundred years to fail with nothing but a fizzle.
Meanwhile, we're in the middle of nuclear-fusion/autonomous-cars/AI pitches, which are still fizzling away.
It took a 5-year global pandemic for video conferencing to succee
'More open and connected', LOL (Score:2)
Facebook is evil, 'Meta' is evil, and Zuck is evil. To hell with all of it.
Oh and by the way: how about we fix actual reality instead of hiding in fake reality?
Building stores before houses. (Score:1)
Lessons learned from the real world: 0
Thanks Zuck, but... (Score:2)
I strongly prefer real reality over the augmented or virtual varieties.
I will NEVER enter their stores (Score:2)
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What if there's bacon?
And it's crispy?
But not too crispy?
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Your choices will no longer be yours (Score:1)