[deckard1]

yeah, it's a bit weird that Marques Brownlee recently gave a better presentation on Meta/Metaverse than what Zuckerberg cooked up.

But I think that's the intent. Because when you lay out Meta's strategy so naked, like Marques did, then you realize that no one is going to buy into it. You need early adopters and those are the ones that are going to sniff out that you're actually building a dystopian privacy-invading Skinner Box platform controlled 100% by Meta and they will predictably eviscerate you.

Marques brings up the part of what Meta is focusing on now, which is creating replacements for everyday functions with a VR twist. He claims some of them are actually quite good. But I think this is the way Google approached Google+. People don't want something good-as or marginally better. What Meta needs is a killer app. Something that can only be done in the Metaverse and is so compelling that people are willing to give Meta full control over their life and spend the money on the hardware. That's a tall order.

[nicolashahn]

I don't think the "metaverse" needs to succeed as much as the hardware does. A set of AR glasses that aren't bulky or sci-fi enables a huge amount of brand new functionality, on maybe even more than smartphones did. In that case, if Meta has the best option on the market, it doesn't need to write the killer app, someone else can do it, just like the App Store enabled iPhone developers to do.

I'm less optimistic on the VR takeover, but I can imagine a future where VR headsets would be preferable to using laptops for daily use, and the same thing applies there.

[JoeJonathan]

Not sure if the technology will get there, but I can see AR being much more useful. I don’t want to cut myself off from the outside world, but I’d love to be able to put on a pair of glasses that allow me to use a giant monitor without needing an actual monitor. Or a home theater. For me, something as simple (though it’s probably technically complex) as a high resolution screen coupled with AirPods for watching movies would be a killer app. And if I could use those same glasses to work or bs on the internet (on a plane, in a cafe, on a bus), I’d be all in… and I’m willing to bet everyone else would be as well.

I suspect this is what Apple is trying to do.

[majani]

Glasses will simply never be cool outside of some niche communities. They are a sign of disability and weakness for most people

[shubb]

Good point about someone elses killer app - but if this is the case then Meta need to focus on SDK / dev evangelism - the way source engine made steam as a platform. They seem more focused on building their own application.

[pascalxus]

Yeah, the zoom replacement looks really cool. Butt...

The biggest problem I have doing zoom calls with family is an unstable internet connection at their end and I don't think the metaverse is going to be able to solve that. And besides, I'm certainly not going to pay 500$ for a headset just for Awesome VR calls, if i can just use a phone call.

The biggest potential is being able to work remotely. Just imagine all the remote work Metaverse could make possible. And 500$ headset might just be in the budget for a midsized company looking to expand it's workforce.

[aj12ay]

Ok, something I’ve thought about is the Metaverse version of video calls couuuuld require less bandwidth than video calls. Because you don’t have to send every frame — instead it’s the one time cost of a model, and then animations data + voice streaming.

And, maybe you can interpolate better since the domain space is human activity instead of an arbitrary video.

[nr2x]

To be fair, mkbhd is a genius at what he does.