[wpietri]

I share his skepticism of VR as a major business. At this point we have a 150-year history of people being wowed by 3D and mistaking novelty for utility. That includes the Brewster stereoscope in the 1850s; the early 1940s wave that gave us the ViewMaster; the anaglyph 3D movies from the 50s to the 80s; the first VR wave of the 90s; and the 3D movie and TV boom/bust of the last decade.

These all had significant excitement and commercial success. The Brewster stereoscope was introduced to great fanfare at the Victorian Exhibition of 1850. It eventually sold 250,000 units. The ViewMaster has sold millions of viewers and 1.5 billion reels. (In WWII, the US military even bought 100k viewers for training.) All of these products are now marginal or extinct. Novelty aside, none of them is much better than the 2D alternative.

I'm not saying VR will never work. But I am saying that anybody inclined to make a big financial bet on VR should think very hard about this history. Generations of smart entrepreneurs and their customers have mistaken 3D's cool factor for lasting utility. In the end, everybody has gotten bored, shrugged, and gone back to 2D. This is true even when, as with 3D movies, the hassle is as small as putting on a pair of glasses, something millions of people otherwise do daily.

[spb]

There's way more to VR than the fact that presentation is stereoscopic. Writing off VR on the basis that 3D has been over-hyped before is like writing off the Macintosh for not being the first device capable of raster presentation.

You might want to check out this thread to get some idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12046398

[wpietri]

I am saying that 3D products have a history of creating a "wow, this is so amazing" effect that creates a lot of excitement but no lasting value. My concern isn't really with 3D, but mistaking novelty for utility.

People also thought stereoscopic photos were the "new medium going forward", so linking to somebody amazed about a novel experience doesn't change my mind. It's another example of exactly how I think people shouldn't make this decision.

What will make the difference for me is not yet another person being amazed, but people using VR gear on a daily basis for something after the novelty wears off. At this point I have asked an awful lot of VR partisans for examples of that sort of usage, but so far nobody has offered anything substantial.

I hope one day it will get there, but until it does, I personally wouldn't bet much on it.

[syngrog66]

the utility/superiority of 3D/VR over 2D is a lot like the utility/superiority of GUI over CLI/text. at first, the former appears superior. certainly to newbs and casuals. but the vast majority of real work, true work by smart folks, occurs by folks focused on the latter. It's not that there are no niches and no use cases where the former is better, it's that the vast majority of truly necessary cases are best handled by the latter. the latter has an additional benefit/advantage that you can build the former atop the latter, if/when needed.

[wpietri]

That's a very interesting comparison.

[cloudjacker]

ah yes bulky VR headset connected to tower computers via cable is going to single handedly revitalize the enthusiast PC market and prompt mom and pop to buy SLI'd graphic cards to tether themselves in an open world environment

not to have a lack of vision, but nobody is promoting a better solution right now

[VLM]

Its easier to embed digital into the world than to embed the world into digital.

Wait for the first e-ink cheap as paper. That and solar cells cheap as paper. Then things will get interesting.

[Animats]

"Wait for the first e-ink cheap as paper. That and solar cells cheap as paper. Then things will get interesting."

Why? Display cost isn't a big deal any more. Display size is getting insane. I was in Costco yesterday. 70-inch TVs for $1500. TV sets are now outgrowing standard houses.

Solar cells already cost less than their installation cost as a retrofit on houses.

[VLM]

Someone is on the right track, but to emphasize its ubiquitous nature when its too cheap to meter.

Not, "there's my workstation and the giant LCD monitor is no longer a status symbol" but more like "well of course the wall next to my bed is a star trek style all-walls-are-misterhouse interface to everything"

Not, "there's my solar panels which cost more than the roof they're sitting on although they are quite profitable" but more like "well of course every surface exposed to the sun charges a battery or sells electricity to the local power co-op".

Think of the weird stuff that'll happen culturally. Campaigns to save the topsoil because people who want $$$ more than they want grass lawns will kill their lawn by shading it with cells. Endless arguments on HN about if you're better off selling solar power to buy hot pockets or using the sunlight directly to grow lettuce. All battery powered rechargeable devices will charge when sitting in the sun, so you'll have interesting social patterns about not stepping on or running over people's devices. When sunlight equals money you'll have people chopping down their neighbors trees illegally on a regular basis. They'll be a short term "vegas" effect where every surface of the world will have to be covered with gaudy advertisements. People will wear clothes that are computer display fabric and download new patterns more often than they wash, probably. And they'll be viruses that eat your electricity until you pay them off, throw spam on your epaper, and upload nude texture packs to your ecloth clothing (although, who knows, maybe people will intentionally like that?)

I'm old enough to have lived thru long distance voice communication going from "too expensive for regular folks per minute" to too cheap to meter. I can see something coming for at least low power electricity and computer display tech.

[mobilefriendly]

Long distance telephony is a poor analogy-- the high cost in the U.S. was due to regulated market structure (govt policy enforced a monopoly), not the underlying tech. Once the courts opened the door to competition by breaking up Ma Bell and MCI v. ATT , costs collapsed.

[Someone]

LCDs aren’t cheap as paper by a wide margin. Wallpaper is, say, $20 a square meter, and is free once glued to a wall.

Also, imagine putting high-dpi full-colour displays on all your walls and ceilings, so that one can change wallpaper at the flick of a button, or place ‘paintings’ wherever one wants.

Backlit LCDs would lead to uncomfortable living; rooms would be warm, there would barely be any shade in the room, and power costs (even if solar cells are cheap as paper) would probably be high.

e-ink wins on the power usage front, and is reflective, rather than backlit.

[sandworm101]

>> Also, imagine putting high-dpi full-colour displays on all your walls and ceilings, so that one can change wallpaper at the flick of a button, or place ‘paintings’ wherever one wants.

No. Not going to happen. The wall, the plain white-ish surface, has been a thing for thousands of years. I own a nearly infinite number of nails, glues and other fasteners to affix thing to my white walls yet change the appearance of my walls ... well basically never. It would be moderately cool to see a wall capable of HD television, but the physics of ever doing, in comparison to a dedicated device, will never be practical. There will always be a place for paint.

[RhodesianHunter]

“The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.”

I for one would love having every inch of my interior walls e-ink, changeable on a whim, and would likely pay $1 to download a new wallpaper/design on a regular basis.

[pferde]

Such products would be online-only, DRM-bound, with gaping security holes for any two-bit hacker on the other side of the planet who wants to change all your wallpapers to goatse. I'll pass.

[wpietri]

I too enjoy science fiction, but I don't think that has a lot to do with the sort of near-term investment decisions that are being discussed here.

[dredmorbius]

Mediatronic chopsticks.

People will pay extra for wallpaper that doesn't move.

[taneq]

View-Master aren't dead. In fact, they have a VR offering (based on Google Cardboard): http://www.view-master.com/en-us

(Whether or not you think that counts as 'relevant' is another thing.)

Edit: The problem with 3D movies/TV is that there's always that one person who gets headaches or eye strain from them, and so you can't use the 3D function. Then by the time you're finally watching something on your own, you just watch the 2D version by habit.

[wpietri]

I think that the ViewMaster is a very successful novelty-based toy. But as far as a serious display device, I'm comfortable calling it marginal. That nobody can name their nearest competitor is a sign that it's not a big market.

If the desire for a 3D TV experience can be overcome by casual viewing habits, then that's a sign to me that the value delivered is quite low.

That certainly matches my experience. I found 3D movies a pleasant novelty, but after a couple times it wasn't something I would pay extra for. That's in sharp contrast with, say, color. Or theater-quality sound, which I went out of the way to get for my home setup and make sure is properly working whenever I watch something I care about.

[taneq]

> I found 3D movies a pleasant novelty, but after a couple times it wasn't something I would pay extra for.

I think this sums it up nicely. I'll sometimes pay the couple of dollars extra if I'm already seeing an action film at the cinema, because I think it does add some value, but it's in no way indispensable.