Meta Employees Are Selling the Metaverse, But Not Working In it (bloomberg.com) 48
An anonymous reader shares a report: During the pandemic, when many workers saw their teams only via videoconference, Mark Zuckerberg's embrace of virtual reality seemed somewhat reasonable. The company renamed itself Meta Platforms and prioritized bringing about the "metaverse," a digital immersive world where people could meet up and do things together -- including their jobs -- while wearing VR headsets at home. Meta is still selling this vision to corporate customers, as well as consumers. The company debuted its Quest 3 headset on Thursday. Apple is expected to unveil an ambitious version that will compete with Meta on Monday.
But so far, Meta isn't practicing what it preaches. Employees across the organization generally aren't using the headsets -- especially not for work meetings, according to 11 current and former employees. Even those in the VR part of the organization don't use it regularly for work, said one former employee, who, like the others, declined to be named discussing internal culture. Meta only provides headsets to employees if they've signed up for an internal program to test new features before the public. Otherwise, they get a discount, the people said. Some teams -- including policy head Nick Clegg's -- tried experimental VR meetings, only to abandon the practice after finding it uncomfortable and glitchy, one of the people said. Some of the glitches may be attributed to the testing program.
But so far, Meta isn't practicing what it preaches. Employees across the organization generally aren't using the headsets -- especially not for work meetings, according to 11 current and former employees. Even those in the VR part of the organization don't use it regularly for work, said one former employee, who, like the others, declined to be named discussing internal culture. Meta only provides headsets to employees if they've signed up for an internal program to test new features before the public. Otherwise, they get a discount, the people said. Some teams -- including policy head Nick Clegg's -- tried experimental VR meetings, only to abandon the practice after finding it uncomfortable and glitchy, one of the people said. Some of the glitches may be attributed to the testing program.
How long can an average person wear a headset? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are their any stats on what is the average time-to-first-vomity-feeling for modern VR headsets?
Or, if you hold a meeting in VR, what %age of people won't last an hour?
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"Are their any stats on what is the average time-to-first-vomity-feeling for modern VR headsets?"
I think this is a misunderstanding which crosses two unrelated issues. Those who get sick (maybe 20%) generally get sick right away in response to certain types of virtual motion not after some amount of time wearing the headset. Since you aren't REALLY moving the brain generally catches on after a certain amount of VR experience and this problem gradually lessens and vanishes entirely until those who get sick s
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....while wearing VR headsets
No sane person wants to do this except for very specific situations (playing a game) for a short period of time. As long as wearing a headset is a requirement of the "metaverse" then it is doomed to failure.
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Are you affected by games where you aren't moving? I find it more nauseating when the game moves me (or worse, turns me) when I'm not expecting it, but the ones where I'm sitting/standing in an environment are fine
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Newcomers to VR Arenas are given games without locomotion and generally don't have sickness problems. VR home gamers who are determined to master the most challenging (but most rewarding) types of locomotion generally report full acclimation within a few weeks. About 1 in 7 VR users have a focus problem called vergence accommodation conflict (VAC for short) which makes close (about half-arms length or closer) objects blurry, currently there's no immediate fix for that, its a user-acclimation issue analogous
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If you're holding a meeting then motion sickness isn't likely to be a major issue, so it's headaches rather than vomiting which are the limiting factor. I went into the office on the wrong day due to a miscommunication the other week and spent some of the time testing the VR side of my company's product, and I had to stop after an hour and a bit because I was starting to get a headache. I believe that my colleagues who regularly use VR goggles can wear them for several hours without problems, so maybe it's
Sunken Cost Fallacy at work here (Score:5, Interesting)
Its time an adult had a quiet word with Zuckerberg and told him that not enough people are interested in immersive VR for any length of time and if they were then Linden Lab would have been one of the biggest tech companies on the planet by now because of Second life.
Re:Sunken Cost Fallacy at work here (Score:5, Interesting)
Second Life persists despite Linden Lab's incompetence. If Meta was smart they would have bought SL and saved themselves wasting Billions but NIH syndrome and ego often go hand-in-hand.
SL saw a uplift / revival during Covid but the platform is slowly dying. The "adult" content is one of the only reasons it is still around since no one (else) wants to even address that elephant in the room.
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Indeed. Although my take is that without at least reasonable adult content, the whole thing will never take off. The mode-change from other human interactions to this way is just too large and too expensive.
Re:Sunken Cost Fallacy at work here (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody will touch SL because its primary use case is 3D FurryMUCK.
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The "adult" content is one of the only reasons it is still around since no one (else) wants to even address that elephant in the room.
What? It involves elephants now? Talk about a difficult standard to live up to.
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No furry/kink shaming now. /s
This reminds me of that creepy Orangina Commercial [youtube.com] with furries back in 2007. Who knew they would predict Zootopia or BoJack Horseman? =P (The latter which the Fish Out of Water episode was really good.)
I've never understood the desire to dress up as a animal and play in a virtual doll house but hey, apparently some people do. More power to you if that's your thing. You do you.
SL survives on a *lot* of cyber sex (Score:2)
That's where the real money is. Not consumers playing around in a virtual space and cyber sexing but you log into work every day and you log into Zuck's Metaverse whether you like it or not. And if it gives you headaches and hurts your eyes tough.
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Speaking of getting laid, how old is your kid now?
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I think zuckerburg was working on this from the end backward. He saw VR as a way to have 100% of the person's attention and therefore a way to be even more effective to manipulate them and convince folks to buy ads. A completely captive audience. But the reality is there is no compelling reason to want that and for a lot of people it is a hell no to willingly sign up for it.
You're wrong. Thsi is not about attention or captive audience.
It's about controlling the next big platform end to end. Or putting it another way: Making sure that Google and Apple can't crush the company whenever they want.
Whether VR is the next big platform remains to be seen. It's a bet.
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My take is ZuckerFucker has surreounded himself with yes-men (one of the worst mistakes any type of "leader" can make) and hence no such adult that could tell him a few hard facts is available.
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Indeed. He basically was in the right place at the right time due to sheer luck, no skill involved. We have some other rich fucks in the tech sector with about as much demonstrated skill.
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eat their own dogfood, starting with the top (Score:2)
that's because Meta Requires Office Workers To Return To Desks Three Days a Week [slashdot.org], duh.
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Its time an adult had a quiet word with Zuckerberg and told him that not enough people are interested in immersive VR for any length of time and if they were then Linden Lab would have been one of the biggest tech companies on the planet by now because of Second life.
As soon as someone mentions Second Life as an example of a prior version of the Metaverse I know they have zero experience with the Quest headsets.
Meetings in VR are actually better than in zoom. Much better, really. Yes, you don't want to wear a headset for hours, but then you also don't want to be in Zoom for hours: But the experience in VR, except for ergonomics (obviously), is better - proper screen sharing (of both real and virtual screens), a nice whiteboard, an environment that is actually nice to
Re: Sunken Cost Fallacy at work here (Score:2)
Someones drunk the koolaid by the gallon. Zoom etc allow you to drink a coffee and do stuff irl easily such as reading something else if the meeting gets dull. Good luck doing that in a VR meeting with a headset on. As for whuteboarding, have you ever used a modern collaboration tool?
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Do you want to try again with something that actually makes sense?
They don't use it themselves (Score:3)
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My take as well. For example, one of the reasons quite a bit FOSS software is pretty good is that people made if for their own use and not just as a product to be sold. Obviously this software and service here is not any good and certainly nowhere close to the real world alternatives.
This is not any surprise either. ZuckTheFuck got big on a single, likely stolen, idea. That means he had between 0 and 1 good business ideas in his whole life. At the same time he is obviously desperate to be somebody and be re
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"You will eat our dogfood and you will like it."
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You think the plumber is fixing your pipes because they like you, or think your plumbing is the very best masterpiece in the whole world?
No, they do the job you need done, and accept payment for it. It's not bad.
Seriously... (Score:3)
...that you make, for example, dildos and BDSM attrezzo doesn't mean you have to use it (or even like it).
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Does have a serious negative impact on quality when you do not though. Part of that can be fixed with external testers, but "eat your own dogfood" is one of the few reasonably reliable ways to ensure quality.
Talking about sex-toys, if you look for example at how the "womanizer" was developed, the main tester was the wife of the inventor and without her input that thing would never have been as impressively good as it obviously is. Now sex-toys are obviously at least in part gender-specific and specific to i
Such a surprise (Score:3)
They do not want to run around with ugly avatars and wear headsets that probably will ruin their necks and may ruin their eyes? Such a surprise.
While I don't believe in the Metaverse... (Score:3)
The only way Facebook is going to make it work is to dogfood it.
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Matrix (Score:2)
Just wait until Neuralink merges with Meta and creates the Matrix. You'll be able to plug in but when you do your ability to unplug will be removed.
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Better Than Life from Red Dwarf would be a closer scenario.
Like Yugo car-sellers then (Score:2)
nft
Rich Man Syndrome (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect if you spend enough of your life fabulously wealthy and successful it becomes really, really, really difficult to remain rational and well-adjusted.
Just consider personal relationships? You have employees, old friends with far less wealth and success (progressively harder to relate and an uncomfortable wealth imbalance), and potential new friends, most of whom will only care about your wealth.
The only real option is other weird ultra-rich folks, which is why Musk is chatting with Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen [theatlantic.com].
Zuckerberg created the Metaverse because he no longer had people around him who were in a position to tell him it was a stupid idea.
Doubling down on bad hardware (Score:2)
VR is a hardware problem, fundamentally .. yet they are trying to spend it with software hacks and wasting billions. Put the money into the hardware side instead. Start with a high res display, that provides at least 60 ppd. Then work on foveated rendering and eye tracking which will eliminate the need for a high end GPU. Then work out pancake lenses. Only then is VR ready for the mass market. Thats the minimum requirement. Ideally they would figure out holographic lenses so that the headset would weigh abo
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*spend = fix
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VR is a hardware problem, fundamentally ..
That's strange, because the people i know with VR headsets, including myself, think that there are not enough good games for it.
Do As I Say.. Not As I Do (Score:1)
Selling to who? (Score:2)
VR sucks. Meta sucks at VR. Apple will suck at it too. Maybe it will be worthwhile at some point, but it won't be Apple or Meta when that happens.
Probably left their goggles at the office (Score:2)
Once they have to go back to the office, I'm sure they'll use the goggles more.