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Mark Zuckerberg Still 'Long-Term Optimistic' on Metaverse, Says Skepticism Doesn't Bother Him Too Much (coindesk.com) 82

Posted by msmash from the haters-gonna-hate dept.
Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he was still optimistic about the metaverse on a longer, "five-to-ten-year horizon" at the New York Times Dealbook Summit in New York City on Wednesday. From a report: "The way we communicate gets richer and more immersive," Zuckerberg said via a virtual interview, doubling down on his company's bet on a virtual and augmented reality-dominated future. The company has come under criticism for generating billions of dollars of losses as it builds out its version of the metaverse. However, Zuckerberg admitted that Meta would need to operate with "more efficiency and discipline" in the near term as macroeconomic woes have forced the company to scale back on spending. [...] The billionaire CEO said he's unfazed by critics of his company's bet on the metaverse, saying a lack of pushback typically means an idea is not ambitious enough. "Skepticism doesn't bother me too much," Zuckerberg said. "We've had doubters the whole time."
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Mark Zuckerberg Still 'Long-Term Optimistic' on Metaverse, Says Skepticism Doesn't Bother Him Too Much More

Mark Zuckerberg Still 'Long-Term Optimistic' on Metaverse, Says Skepticism Doesn't Bother Him Too Much

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  • Hey zuckersplurge (Score:3)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @02:58PM (#63091704)
    Try real hard to subsidize sub two hundred dollar VR headsets and then see if your crayon universe might get more customers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Are you suggesting that Zuck could make it work by subsidizing the VR headsets? Sorry, but you couldn't afford to pay me to wear one. Zuck probably could, but not at the scale of the number of people he'd have to bribe to make it viable.

      Related question for the Slashdot crowd: How many of your close friends did you meet via the Internet? Most of my closest friends are people I first met IRL, though there was a period when many of my friendships were related to our shared interests in computers. However in t

      • Sorry, but you couldn't afford to pay me to wear one.

        While you couldn't pay me to wear one for work I tried on one while bored waiting for a flight and proceeded to have an Amazon order placed before I boarded the plane. It's fucking amazing.

        If you love playing games.

        Not so much for work. That's just dumb.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by caseih ( 160668 )

          I'm not a game player, but VR paid for itself several times over in doing some home renovations. Being able to see and walk around the plans was invaluable. It was pretty obvious what changes we'd need to make, and what was going to work great. In my mind, architecture and design is an area VR can really be effective. Also possibly in engineering too.

          Games, meh. Never cared for them.

        • I tried on one while bored waiting for a flight and proceeded to have an Amazon order placed before I boarded the plane.

          If You said that like it was a good thing. Fuck Scamazon. If Zuckerberg and Bezos have their way, the moment you put Zuckerberg's dorky goggles on it on it will automatically order $1000's worth of Amazon tat on your behalf without your having twitched a muscle.

      • Related question for the Slashdot crowd: How many of your close friends did you meet via the Internet?

        Giving up moderation to answer your question. 1 (out of 3 close friends). My wife that I've been with for about 16 years now (can't believe it's been 16. It feels like 5.). But the truth is, I've also met other people online that I would also consider close friends but I've lost touch with them. And the amount of close online friends I've lost touch with is about the same as people I would consider close that I met IRL that I lost touch with.

        However in those days we were mostly communicating via local phone calls so we were local and had quite a number of face-to-face meetings, which were usually more interesting than the computer-mediated interactions.

        I think you've hit the nail on the head but made an incorrect attr

        • Zero via the internet.

          All in person.

          Internet hugs just aren't the same. Same thing with virtual pets (remember those). Same thing with chairs - ya gotta sit in them before you decide whether you like them or not. Same with food. A picture isn't enough - even in virtual reality.

          A virtual walk in a virtual neighborhood with virtual people? I can get the real thing just by walking my dog around the block where he can meet and greet his friends as well as do what needs to be done, and talk with other dog

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          I never get a mod point to give, but I'd have given yours an interesting and informative ifn' I had.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Zuckerberg could make it work if his VR world didn't suck balls. Literally a sterile world that looks like Roblox designed by a committee with lame minigames, disembodied avatars floating around wondering what the fuck they were doing there. But hey you could book meeting rooms!

        Imagine instead it was a proper MMO or Fortnite and it was free and fun. Maybe you can even log in from a browser and play there (in 2D of course). People *would* come. Then Meta could build revenue streams and build the service fr

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          My employer strongly encouraged us to try Second Life, which was much as you describe. Color me unimpressed of the extremely shade. But I don't think it's just a quantitative problem. I prefer real life and I think most people do, too.

    • I could toss it into the closet so the headset can talk to Alexa

  • A bit of focus into making the world would help... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @02:58PM (#63091706)

    It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that there is a massive overfocusing on monetizing and crypto technology while the software itself is relegated to the second plane, and gets easily overshadowed even by softwares such as VRChat.
    First you need to have something people want to use before monetizing it.

    • It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that there is a massive overfocusing on monetizing and crypto technology while the software itself is relegated to the second plane, and gets easily overshadowed even by softwares such as VRChat. First you need to have something people want to use before monetizing it.

      He should have bought roblox, they at least have an excuse for why many aspects look like they were designed by a 12 year old.

      • Or maybe hired the developers of Half Life 2. Because that looked better in 2004. With 18 years of technological progress, it should be possible to run it even on a VR headset with limited computing resources now.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dohzer ( 867770 )

        He should have bought roblox, they at least have an excuse for why many aspects look like they were designed by a 12 year old.

        I'm still waiting to hear the reason why Roblox hasn't been sued by Lego.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      I don't think I've seen a lot of focusing on monetization and crypto in the Meta facet of things. Sure you have stupid things like Decentraland, but that has nothing to do with Meta. So far Meta has only been making their 'Horizons' stuff and selling apps and hardware. There have been scary things said about where they are likely to go, including I think some worrisome patents regarding how they might use it.

      The big challenges are:
      Facebook is experiencing headwinds, and investors are pissed that the VR s

  • "The way we communicate gets richer and more immersive."

    Richer and more immersive takes more effort. I see no reason for most people put in more effort then what is required to type a few sentences most of the time.

    • "The way we communicate gets richer and more immersive."

      Maybe we can make a script that has our avatars follow him around all the time to loop giving him the finger. I'd say "kick his ass" but no feet yet.

  • he's capable of making mistakes? Because right now my hubris o'meter is reading 100. It seems like he thinks the metaverse is a shoe in, because he doesn't talk about fixing the complaints of the metaverse. I think meta has some big big hurdles to overcome if they want widespread adoption of VR.

    • I think that Zuckerberg doesn't realize that Max Headroom was supposed to be dystopian science fiction, not a prediction of our actual future.

    • Re:Does zuck know (Score:5, Interesting)

      by youngone ( 975102 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @03:44PM (#63091876)
      The problem is that people like Zuckerberg have a tiny provincial view of the world, and his experiences are really limited.
      Because he (and rich white Americans like him) are going to be the people who create this "world" it will reflect their experiences and be of limited interest to anyone who doesn't share their worldview.
      Which is almost everyone.
      I implore him, in that case, to pour more of Facebook's money into this idea and keep pouring in more and more money until it works. Borrow heavily, bet the whole farm on it.

      It can't fail.

    • Re:Does zuck know (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @05:46PM (#63092188)
      No he doesn't. Billionaires spend millions creating an image of themselves as altruistic technical geniuses. After a few years of that you start to believe your own hype. It's especially bad for guys like Zuckerberg and Musk who blundered into insanely successful businesses thanks to wealthy family and good connections and ruthlessness..

      • wealthy family and good connections and ruthlessness

        I thought that was how all billionaires got there.

  • It may not bother Zuck, but I am certain investors and stockholders are not that thrilled.

  • He's fucking it up (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @03:27PM (#63091810)

    He is working on it as a software problem when the issue is hardware. Instead, he should fund hardware development (faster eye tracking, 60+ ppd resolution displays.) VR isn't visually appealing, and that destroys the immersive effect. It's not a thing most people would want to experience immersive 360 degree movies in, for example. Or do virtual tourism like visiting an art museum or exploring an Egyptian pyramid. If they fixed the visual quality, VR should be excellent for doing things like visiting the Titanic, or exploring King Tut's tomb. The better VR hardware you have, the easier the software will be. With foveated rendering GPU requirements for VR are much less than for a PC. Foveated rendering takes advantage of the fact that your eye only sees a tiny portion of where you're looking at in high resolution. The rest of it can be rendered ultra-low resolution. I mean, try to read this paragraph without moving your eyeball. A VR headset only needs to track your eyeball at a high frame rate (less than 120 fps) and render a small box in high res.

    • He is working on it as a software problem when the issue is hardware.

      Um... Meta owns the whole Oculus hardware platform. They are selling headsets with eye tracking, and there are apps already released that do foveated rendering on the platform. They have a ton of several year out hardware enhancements for thinner lenses, higher resolution displays, higher dynamic range, etc. If anything, I think they are doing reasonably well on the hardware side of things. The _software_ for their multi-user metaverse, tho, needs serious help. It's quite buggy and deficient in several 'ta

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zuriel ( 1760072 )

      VR should be excellent for doing things like visiting the Titanic, or exploring King Tut's tomb

      I mean, VR is already pretty good at this type of thing. Exploring environments or gaming give you interesting experiences that aren't possible in real life. Improving the tech will make it better, but VR is already viable for a lot of stuff. Remember gaming in 640x480 on a CRT monitor? That's where VR is right now. There's tons of room for improvement, but it works fairly well.

      VR as a substitute for going to the office, though? I don't even want to be in a video call, let alone VR. Voice call, maybe. Email

    • Instead, he should fund hardware development

      Errr... Facebook has funded more hardware development in VR than any other company in history and continues to do so.

      faster eye tracking

      I see you haven't seen eye tracking demonstrations from their insanely overpriced headset yet. Speed is not a problem.

      60+ ppd resolution displays.

      PPD isn't a problem either. What people don't like is the screen door effect. That needs to be addressed by reducing the gaps between pixels rather than increasing the number of pixels (which in turn need an incredible amount of computing power to drive).

      VR isn't visually appealing, and that destroys the immersive effect.

      Speak for yourself.

      It's not a thing most people would want to experience immersive 360 degree movies in, for example.

      Of

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @03:31PM (#63091828)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • What you're describing is what Elon Musk is doing with Neuralink [neuralink.com].
      • Pretty sure all Elon's doing with Neuralink is hoping really really hard for an interface that employees can wear that gives them a nice little tickle to that sweet spot in their noggin every time they finish their procedure on the car they're helping to build and it gets to move on to its next post - on time. Imagine the plug that Bezos would make his workers wear in the warehouse. That Pandora sure has quite the box, doesn't she?
        • Well that's the funny thing, isn't it? When GP describes the technology breakthroughs that we enable us to trick our brains into experiencing real virtual reality, it sounds pretty great. But when you consider that in fact it would be an actual technology in the real world developed by flawed human beings with human motives, then it starts to sound more like The Matrix. I am not so sure the "perfect drug" is a good thing, even if it is under our personal individual control instead of a big bad billionai

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by narcc ( 412956 )

            GP is describing silly science fiction. It's a bit early to worry about the ethics of it all.

    • what if they put the effort in, but they just suck at it?

      I don't think it's for a lack of trying. Zuckerberg spent a ton of money and hired the best people. Experts in their field. They made exactly what they want, it's just what they want nobody else wants.

      For my money VR doesn't work with my eyes. Just like with 3D my eyes "know" something isn't right. Zuck has spent a fortune trying to fix that because about 30% of the population isn't fooled by VR. But it's a problem nobody can solve just yet.

  • Says Skepticism Doesn't Bother Him Too Much

    Nothing much "bothers" him, especially not raping people's privacy.

  • Metaverse instead of onsite (Score:5, Interesting)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @03:47PM (#63091882) Homepage Journal

    If Metaverse is so great Zucky, you should offer it to your employees.

    Commute 5 days a week, share colds with everyone else in the "Open floorplan"

    Wear a headset 5 days a week from home.

  • ... he is going to go the Musk way, isn't he? What is it with these types.

  • I'm really optimistic (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @03:58PM (#63091926)
    About these newfangled mortgage-backed securities. They can only go up!

  • This is Zuckerberg's Spruce Goose [wikipedia.org]. It's never going to fly (or be obsoleted first).

  • Think longer term, Mark (Score:4)

    by Chelloveck ( 14643 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @04:35PM (#63092038)
    I've been "long-term optimistic" on the Metaverse ever since I first encountered the term in Snow Crash 30 years ago. I'm still long-term optimistic about it. But unlike Zuckerberg, I'm not dumb enough to think the technology is anywhere close to justifying short-term optimism.

  • ...they've discovered the technology necessary to implement legs.

  • Could Star Trek be wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Wednesday November 30, 2022 @06:05PM (#63092232)
    Star Trek: talking to "Com-pew-ter".
    Amazon: talking to Alexa.

    Star Trek: Holodeck.
    Fakebook: Metaverse. (Linden: Second Life)

    "Educators" : "the future of education is online"
    Pandemic: No it is not.

    Twitter: We don't need no steenkin moderation
    EU: Yes you do

    One of my old bosses said you can't improve on certain design patterns, like "the bowl" or "stairs".

    Example 1. "the bowl". It is curved enough to hold water. You can put handles on it, or curve the lip to make it nicer when it touches your mouth, you can color it, change the size/depth. But in the end the fundamental properties of a bowl cannot change, or it will no longer hold water, and then it ceases to be a bowl, and have utility.

    Example2. "Stairs". The stair design pattern has a rise of 7 inches and run of 8-14 inches. The dimensions are based on average body height/stride size. So then the "standard" stair is found in every building, public or private, because it has the greatest utility to the the greatest number of people.
    (https://engineeringdiscoveries.com/standard-dimensions-for-stairs/)

    My conjecture is that "Technology" has plucked all the low hanging fruit. The idea that technology can provide innovative and USABLE solutions at a constant pace has run into fundamentals.

    I'm not claiming to know what the fundamentals are, but you know one when you run into it. Could be form factor or psychological. So for instance the slab phone with an array of icons, and swiping gestures to control it, with diagonal size of ~6 inches, is the pinnacle of design. It is small enough for your pocket, large enough and high res enough to read on, and can be used with one hand. You can't REALLY beat it. There will be attempts. Samsung phones fold. Tablets come in lots of sizes. They have their niches... but you can't REALLY beat the form factor of the slab phone for it's USABILITY by a very wide cohort.

    I'm doubting very much we will see many new/innovative mass market products that are TRULY USABLE, and therefore popular.

    Metaverse? Motion sickness and intolerable eye strain and headaches. Low Res. No legs. Get effing serious. No thanks. Interesting idea but not usable by the general public.

    • Metaverse? Motion sickness and intolerable eye strain and headaches.

      Most people suffer from motion sickness for little more than the first few days of trying a headset. Eye strain? WTF were you using? A VR headset should set the focus point 1.5m in front of your, there's literally more eye strain you reading this post.

      Facebook has some serious issues in the software department. It's not motion sickness or eye strain or any other physical ailment that is holding the Metaverse back, ... actually I lie ... because Meta's software is so gut wrenchingly bad it may make you throw

      • Facebook has some serious issues in the software department. It's not motion sickness or eye strain or any other physical ailment that is holding the Metaverse back, ... actually I lie ... because Meta's software is so gut wrenchingly bad it may make you throw just because of how bad it is, not because of motion sickness.

        I don't understand why everyone in the world realizes this except Facebook.

    • My conjecture is that "Technology" has plucked all the low hanging fruit. The idea that technology can provide innovative and USABLE solutions at a constant pace has run into fundamentals

      That's been a hypothesis for over a hundred years now.

      • So now it's finally happened.

        But seriously, sure, new things will be designed ... and people will buy them.
        But look around. The best part about the latest iPhone is .. what?
        It'll call a satellite if you crash your car?
        did they add a fifth camera with zillions of more pixels?
        or did they change the color?
        Where's the value for you?
        It's 99.9% same as last year's model != innovative.

        • If you get one really good idea per decade, you're already doing better than most of history. tbh, if you get one good idea per century, you're probably above the average.

  • There's not one doubt in my mind that Virtual Reality is going to work.

    I remember in the 1980s, there were all these people speculating that computers were a fad.

    And I remember in 1993, when my nerd friends and I were in high school, talking excitedly about our experiences on the Internet. We were dialing into the public modems put up by The Armory, [armory.com] a geek house in Santa Cruz at the time, and from there with our SCO Unix accounts, we could talk with each other live via talk, use IRC, telnet, gopher, lynx,

    • I remember in the 1980s, there were all these people speculating that computers were a fad.

      I remember the 1980s too, and while there were some who did say that, most people, especially tech minded ones, realised that personal computers were going to be a big thing - if that is what you meant by "computers" because mainframes were already well established by then.

      The difference with today's Metaverse is that most people, especially tech minded people, are saying it will fail. Few people will be willing to wear Zuckerberg's dorky goggles all day at work or through meetings - video conferencing h

  • the modern Edsel.

  • But first, some Metamucil, for being full of ...it

  • Z is pretty sure that everyone will be using Metaverse when NYC is under 10 feet of water from global warming.

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