Looks Like We Can Finally Kiss the Metaverse Goodbye
It appears Meta's Horizon Worlds may literally and figuratively not have legs after all.
It appears Meta's Horizon Worlds may literally and figuratively not have legs after all.
Meta (the company hilariously rebranded with this non-sense as their foundation) has moved on to the next grift: AI and mobile video surveillance devices.
To be fair, they've been doing mobile surveillance for a long time.
I love that they changed their name to show how serious they were about the metaverse being the future of tech and it never even came close to being a thing.
isnt meta kinda late in the game for AI anyways, apple was even later and they abandoned for the most part.
Considering they developed the framework everybody builds upon nowadays, I doubt it.
Not later than anyone else that hopped on the chat gpt bandwagon.
They've been in the AI game for about as long as everyone else. I would consider their lab to be one of the best in CV tech.
IT WAS STILL AROUND???
Second Life outlived it lmao
Metaverse was like the AI nobody asked for getting pushed into apps. Nobody wanted Wii Mii like hangout rooms where you have to water a clunky headset.
Metaverse was like the AI nobody asked for getting pushed into apps. Nobody wanted Wii Mii like hangout rooms where you have to water a clunky headset.
I was willing to give a shot to something like the Metaverse, but the instant I heard it was a Facebook/Meta project I had zero interest and hoped it would die. This was my same experience with Occulus. These are both technologies I want for a cyberpunk future, but Facebook cannot be the one to control them.
It’s funny how almost everyone from FAANG is failing hard in the gaming space. Like Google fails with Stadia, Amazon shutdown how many game studios, Netflix shutdown that studio that were making a Squidgame game and the Zuck dumped billions into the metaverse void. Looks like the Silicon Valley way of doing business just doesn’t work in the games industry.
Which is weird, because the gaming industry is full of low effort, hyper monetized slop that sells extremely well.
Almost any other company and Stadia could have survived.
Stadia was amazing for what it was, so obviously Google had to kill it
VRChat is the most popular “metaverse” and it’s still growing every year.
So it’s weird to call the metaverse dead when Horizon wasn’t even in the lead among its competitors.
VRChat is not owned by meta, therefore not part of the meta verse.
Metaverse is not the same as VR.
Metaverse is a (imo cringe) term for VR experiences in general, but in particular VR social experiences. Facebook changed their name to Meta specifically to try to brand themselves as the metaverse company, it wasn't the other way around.
VR is virtual reality. A mode of interacting with 3D space using a head mounted display.
The metaverse is just social VR where you experience a shared 3D space with others in VR headsets. Don’t let Mark fool you into thinking only they make social VR spaces/the metaverse. That’s what he wants. He didn’t invent the term. He just claimed it as his own. And in my opinion, pissed all over it too.
I get your point, I genuinely do. But the way the general public uses the term metaverse is to refer to Horizon, not that style of game/app in general.
But a device you kind of use sometimes (if you remember you own it)
Oh shit I do own one. Thanks for the reminder
May I ask why? It seems like a huge risk due to being tethered to a Facebook account which could get banned at any time. Was the price too good to pass up?
It's funny because the meta quest recently had an update that got rid of custom/user created environments for the home area and only gave you some shitty options. The default one was a shitty balcony that overlooked a big stupid tower advertising this and they made the "portal" to it permanent and unremoveable.
In addition to this almost every time you opened a menu it would pop up a fucking ad/link to enter the application almost every time.
Pretty sure now this was a desperate last ditch effort to try to increase traffic - but clearly NO ONE wanted it and it just pissed everyone off more.
If they want to save face to any degree they should revert that fucking patch ASAP. I miss my home environment being a fucking derelict warehouse.
It always amazes me that some executives think that taking away customization is the way to get more traffic instead of driving away to people who put effort into making a customized thing
It amazes me that so many people bought this product from Meta. When the Oculus Rift was first announced I was so excited and hopeful that we were finally going to get VR right... then they got bought by Facebook and I knew right then that I'd never own one. Here's hoping the new Steam headset can live up to the hype.
I miss my original Oculus Home. Had a nice arrangement of furniture, a shooting range, a little shelf that held virtual cartridges of all my games, various little statues and trophies that you could display for achievements... and they just got rid of it all.
Immediately killed any interest I had in customizing my virtual space. Why bother if they're just going to rug pull it at any time. They could've at least let us continue to visit it "offline".
For real, they should have either bought or cloned VRChat as a first step, and then looked into expanding from there. That shit is a metaverse that people willing go into primarily because it enables a ton of free expression.
Free expression? That doesn't sound very brand-safe, how will we sell ads alongside that?!
Yes but that expression wasn't commercial, so it wasn't what the snow crash company really wanted.
How can I say goodbye to a place neither I nor anybody I know has ever been
Even his avatar looks dead.
Pretty life-like tbh
Making it ironically the most photorealistic thing on the Metaverse.
What's dumb is that they have the hardware for it, and 3rd party software can use the inside-out tracking to making your legs work (tho it's still pretty jank compared to a physical tracker attached to your ankle or even a Kinect setup). What the fuck is Meta's problem? Do they only have vibe coders on staff? Surely it's not the jankiness they have problems with; the hand/finger tracking is also janky as fuck.
Facebook once explained that their mobile app is so huge because they encourage everyone to just roll their own thing instead of sharing code, because it's faster to not have to coordinate or something. Well, if you never leverage other people's work ever, you're going to spend a lot of time reinventing wheels, and a lot of those wheels will look more like hexagons.
Lol! Ephebophile management philosophy!
The metaverse, in some form, is nearly inevitable IMO. But it'll be a federated-like infrastructure and I'm very glad Facebook will have fuck all to do with it.
It seems that you understand what the term "metaverse" was even supposed to mean; care to enlighten the rest of us?
Not them, but I think I've got a bead on it, assuming you treat it as a general concept and not a trademark:
It's basically the Platonic ideal of a game lobby. Kinda like what Miiverse was supposed to be, or Ready Player One. They were both after my time but I think maybe kinda like Club Penguin or Roblox? Like an overworld with a custom avatar that you can socialize in and sync into other apps or games together.
It does seem basically inevitable, fast forward gaming 10 years and I'd be surprised if something like that wasn't the norm.
Like many crappy things these days, the name and some of the concept were stolen from good sci-fi. Snow Crash, in this case, in which it was as if the entire Internet was VR.
Which, the Web barely existed when that book was written, so wild visions of what the Internet might turn out to be were to be expected. And something like it remains a common cyberpunk trope to this day.
That said, I disagree with the other poster that it will ever happen, let alone is inevitable.
we'll live in pods and have jobs in second life
Others gave reference to the origins, but in practical terms think: gravatar meets roblox meets VRC, scaled and decentralized as a VR web.
But it'll be a federated-like infrastructure
Unfortunately I don't see any guarantees for this. Unless the incentives that led to the enshittification of the internet disappear, the Metaverse will probably eventually look and function much the same. It really is that predictable.
Yea, and asset ownership will make federated Social VR awkward. As in, few will put in time making spaces and games that can be instantly duplicated and rehosted.
It’s an upside that platforms have, they can do at least some moderation regarding content theft. It’s never perfect, but it’s better than a free for all.
Perhaps an open set of standards at the least. Some form of super-oauth would be required but I should have clarified that the openness of a true federation-like model is aspirational: invisioned as a conscious and intentional rejection of the ever-increasing monetization, financialization, and enshittification of all mediums of social interaction.
People didn't jump on the FB metaverse partly because it was shit, but partly because it was painfully obvious it was full of grift and a billionaire's wet dream of further social monopolization. From the moment it was pitched, no one (but people who stood to gain) thought it would succeed. The friction and frustration has been increasing. The world falling apart makes the little nagging annoyances just that much more irritating, and people are starting to actively resist them rather than just rant and succumb. Social peer pressures are starting to move the needle too.
Meta couldn't make their digital shopping mall work with unlimited money. Tailscale made hosting from home 100x easier. Federation protocols are maturing. It's fundamentally no different from hosting a Minecraft server, which even kids do
This will die, but in one year GTA6 will release. People are already "working" virtual jobs for pennies in unofficial servers for the last game and Rockstar has prepared the ground even more for the next.
That's the most human looking picture of Mark Zuckerberg I've ever seen
I miss the Playstation Home game. Wish that was vr.
Say 'goodbye' already??
I never got to say 'hello' in the first place!!
I love how Faceremoved changed the name of the company to Meta, and still haven't changed it back.
Oh no! Shock! I would rather join MySpace before I purchased a house in the "metaverse".
So long and thanks for all the memes. Definitely worth the billions of dollars spent on it.
Oh seriously. In a sane world this shit stain would be fired for incompetence.
They could have spent them much better, on me.
Is he being hunted in this picture?
Billionaires are the most dangerous game
Nah, he's on one of those stupid foil boards.
https://bigworldtale.com/world-news/mark-zuckerberg-appears-relaxed-as-he-foil-boards-in-hawaii/
"I just bought more land in the Metaverse"
Can't wait for Metaverse land annexations (hackers)
The whole appeal is that "land" is free. No one will pay
That's still a thing? Is it just Zuck wondering around his own digital universe trying to find people to be friends with?
It will happen to ai too.
Everything is ai, maybe after ww3
You can't run with an idea if it has no legs?
Looks like meatverse is back on the menu
Oh no but I was just about to join
What the fuck is the Metaverse?
Basically a terrible bootleg of "Ready Player One".
Basically a VR space that Mark Zuckerberg thought was going to be the new internet and everyone will do their stuff there while wearing a VR headset and represented by an on screen avatar.
It means different things to different people.
Roblox is the most successful example.
It's like an centralised version of lemmy where you have to spend thousands on hardware just to join - and that isn't even hosting costs.
So long... never knew you.
the creepy Zuckerborg avatar just wants to read peoples minds.
If only I could access Second Life via the Metaverse...
Do u kno da wae?
hahaha think of all the money stupid people spent on that.
I don’t understand how a single person besides zuckaguck ever thought this was interesting. I’ve always seen it as the stupidest shit ever, only happening because of zuckamuck’s stolen power and wealth. Zuckahuck’s vision is an absurdity, a freak. It should have never left his head.
20 years ago I worked in IT at a major university, and one of the things I managed there was a 3D visualization wall. Basically a 15 foot wide rear projection wall in 4k, and by wearing special goggles you could see in 3D.
I once saw a demonstration using that wall that showed how surgeons could theoretically perform surgery remotely when using haptic devices. For cutting edge technology from 20 years ago it was quite impressive.
For highly specialized remote activities, including the above, remote learning, etc. I could see something like this very useful. For general social activities, not at all.
I definitely agree that these are fascinating uses and are worth pursuing. Zuckajuck's project, though it might be useful for these applications, isn't developed for these applications. That's what I meant by his vision being an absurdity, a freak -- it's driven by gross goals. I think you got what I meant, just wanted to expand on it though. Thanks for adding nuance to my perspective.