[dorfsmay]

Visited last weekend. Interesting for sure. Funny to see how many times and for how long we've been trying to do VR!

Some of the "failures" were unfair IMO, like minitel and Block Buster: It's like saying using wind sails on ships was a failure because it was replaced by steam engines.

[manholio]

VR is just the most recent incarnation of the "3D vision" gimmick every generation will rediscovered and then abandon. We had multiple waves of this fad, starting with the stereoscopic novelty postcards of the 19th century, the many 3D cinema revivals (the Avatar craze even saw the rise of ludicrous 3D TVs), and now Metaverse and its ilk.

It always fails because, once the novelty of the effect wears off, people realize it's basically pointless. The extra information 3D brings is not worth the logistic cost. So they revert to regular 2D cinema, classic virtual worlds like MMORPGs etc. which are much more comfortable to experience and deliver the same basic product.

[wongarsu]

Alternatively, we try again and again because there's a lot of promise if we get it right, but so far the technology just isn't there for anything sustainable beyond the novelty factor.

This round we got far enough that there are some industry use cases for AR, which shares 99% of its tech with VR. Maybe that will funnel enough money into development to break out of the hype cycle into something sustainable.

[manholio]

I think stereoscopic viewing is fundamentally a bad idea that holds little promise - it's not really 3D, but a parlor trick that gives confusing depth information, the eye must focus at the screen even if the scene is very close or very far. It's too annoying and tiring as a sustainable consumer technology; maybe tools only professionals are required to use, ex. remote surgery gear, with pros and cons well understood.

This could change if holographic digital screens become practical, allowing, for example, multiple people in a room to see a real 3D scene, each from a different angle without any head gear.

[chowells]

There are some attempts at making light field displays. Those seem like they would address this, but it's a lot of engineering to get from where they are now to a useful head-mounted display.

[ahelwer]

>the eye must focus at the screen even if the scene is very close or very far

This is just literally untrue. Your eyes focus "into" the VR scene, not at the screens one inch from your eye.

[neuralRiot]

But you cannot focus where you want, so it’s not 3d but layered 2d. In a 3d emulated image you cannot focus on a background object and even if you could the interpupillary distance would be the same and so the focusing one. Our image processing in the brain uses such information to calculate, that’s why you can approximate the dimension of an object and distances in real life but not in a picture even if it is a 3d one.

[manholio]

> Your eyes focus "into" the VR scene, not at the screens one inch from your eye.

3D head gear like Oculus have optical systems that move the physical screens virtually to a much greater (and comfortable) distance - most people can't even focus objects closer than about 10 cm.

That's not what I meant. Rather, even that virtual 3D screen is still at a fixed apparent distance from your eyes, unlike a natural scene that contains objects that are father or closer. Such objects scatter light not only at different angles for the two eyes, the bulk of the 3D effect, but also at different internal convergence, requiring the eye's lens to deform and compensate.

This is an effect current tech cannot reproduce, leading to a nauseating and tiring viewing experience - as if the whole immersive virtual world wasn't already.

[creeble]

I think this is a pretty good summary, but misses one key point: people don’t like wearing something that blocks their natural vision for very long. Some can’t even do it for a few minutes. It’s not like any other form of technology in that way. Even 3D TVs didn’t have this “feature”.

Gamers might be able to do it all day, and it will probably always have that market. But as a replacement for the flip-open or pull-out-of-your-pocket screen, never gonna happen. Sorry Zuck.

[jhbadger]

It just needs its "killer application". I don't know what it is, but consider. Another constantly failing gimmick until recently was the videophone. "Nobody needs to see somebody while talking" was the standard explanation, and every attempt at a videophone failed for decades. But then the pandemic happened and then the remote work craze and virtual meetings became the killer app for that.

[ghostbrainalpha]

You say "it always fails", but also it fails because "extra 3d information is not worth the logistic cost".

Couldn't you conceive of a future where the "logistic cost" drops so incredibly low, that the cost is less than the benefit of the extra information?

[BizarroLand]

For instance, if the soft-AI systems like KoboldAI and StableDiffusion were re-trained to handle the conversion of 2d media into 3d media and guided in the process by an appropriately talented director with a tech team and artists to support it, an entire mediacentric cottage industry could erupt just with managing the licenses to convert old movies into explorable 3d interactive adventures.

How cool would it be to have a chat with Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, or to make a mad dive to save Mufasa at the last second and see how The Lion King would play out without his death as a motivating factor? If you could do all of that and more in a VR Cineplex it would probably be more entertaining than Disneyland and available at every Mall in America.

Honestly, that's probably a trillion+ dollar idea, but implementing it would need an insane amount of money, time, skill, processing, and resources plus dozens of large egotistical companies working together.

[manholio]

As I said above, true holographic digital screens could make 3D seamless and ubiquitous. At current computing trends, that appears at least a number of decades away from consumer gear.

[ghaff]

In the case of Blockbuster, it's reasonable to argue that they should have at least taken advantage of their brand (and relationships) to get into the DVD rental by mail business which would have, relatively speaking, not been a big stretch. Though phasing out retail would have been disruptive.

Of course, streaming was a whole different game. (As would be original content.) And it's not like Netflix is looking especially robust at the moment.

[BizarroLand]

Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix in the early 2000's for $50,000,000.

I bet it spent a while regretting not making that purchase, but then again, if they had Netflix may have become a passing fad and never branched out into the online streaming market.

https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/netflix-blockbuster-meeting...

[ghaff]

I had forgotten that. Yes. I suspect they’d have done the DVD by mail thing but then would have stagnated however many years later.

[thunky]

It blows my mind that Netflix is still mailing DVDs.

Not only that, but their DVD plan is far better then their streaming plan because it includes decent (not Netflix produced) movies.

[tvb]

> Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix in the early 2000's for $50,000,000.

Ah, an example of the Butterfly Effect: then we'd have a billion references to FAABG on the web instead of FAANG.

[sublinear]

I think it's highly unlikely Blockbuster was ever going to build and maintain a streaming service if they had purchased Netflix.

[BizarroLand]

Hopefully this doesn't sound rude but that's what I just said

[msrenee]

I swear Blockbuster tried to do a DVD by mail thing. It just never got popular.

[chiph]

They did, in summer 2007. They priced it for a dollar less than Netflix. They stuck with it almost 6 years, ending it when they left the retail business (except for the one franchise store remaining in Bend, Oregon).

https://www.reuters.com/article/industry-blockbuster-dc/bloc...

[yakak]

I think Blockbuster was an anti-brand at that point because of choices they made to navigate having national brick and mortar shops, making an unknown startup more trust worthy.

I'd used them begrudgingly in places that had no independent shops and the various inventory they didn't have were usually rumored to be that their management was christian conservatives, though I think it was more that they avoided a few arbitrary hotspots of potential conservative boycotts that would hurt them in other regions.

I remember that when a friend suggested them, I was quite pleased to be paying $1 more not to help them.

[ridgered4]

Yeah, they definitely did something like this. I recall you could return the DVDs to their stores to speed up the turnaround. And they eventually started a short price war with Netflix. But IIRC they had a lot of debt to begin with and combined with much higher overheard from all the stores it ended predictably.

[marcosdumay]

Would you trust them to get DVDs by mail? At least my model of them was that they would do anything to scam me out of late fees.

[throwoutway]

This is how I explain innovator’s dilemma to others

[beezlewax]

Pretty sure wind sails are going to be making a comeback soon.

[wongarsu]

Traditional sails are very labor intensive, I doubt they will ever make economic sense again. They also take a lot of space that most ships don't have.

The two variations that might go somewhere are kites to save maybe 10% of fuel [1], or some variation of rotor sails [2] on tankers or bulk carriers that have the unobstructed deck space.

1: https://future.hamburg/index.php/en/artikel/skysails-marine-...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_ship

[speed_spread]

It might happen when rich countries start imposing tariffs on cargo ships using bunker fuel. Burning that stuff is utterly terrible but it's cheap so hey.

[ridgered4]

IIRC even after shipping went pretty much whole hog on fossil fuel transport there were some odd duck ships called windjammers, made with modern components like steel hulls and masts but still powered by sail. For awhile they filled a niche of transporting some types of non-time sensitive goods for a very low cost.

[mcculley]

I have been seeing this prediction for a while. What makes you so confident?

[beezlewax]

I've noticed it's become an area of research again in universities. I'm sure tariffs will be put in place eventually to make shipping "greener". Harvesting wind energy seems ideal to at least reduce emissions.

[mcculley]

I work in the shipping industry operating tugboats. I have also seen the claims that this will happen. I remain unconvinced. I haven’t seen any infrastructure changes that would indicate adoption anytime soon.

[ljw1001]

Someday I want to own a company that fails like blockbuster