[filoleg]

Having an engineering mindset is not the same as never making mistakes (or never being too early to the market). The only way you won’t make those mistakes and keep a perfect record is if you never do anything major or step out of the comfort zone.

If Apple didn’t try and fail with Newton[0] (which was too early to the market for many reasons, both tech-related and not), we might’ve not had iPhone today. The engineering mindset would be to analyze how and why it happened the way it did, assess whether you can address those issues well, decide whether to proceed again or not (and how), and then execute. Obsessing over a perfect track record is the opposite of the engineering mindset imo.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

[tmalsburg2]

His engineering mindset made him blind to the fact the metaverse was a product that nobody wanted or needed. In one of the Fridman interviews, he goes on and on about all the cool technical challenges involved in making the metaverse work. But when Fridman asked him what he likes to do in his spare time, it was all things that you could precisely not do in the metaverse. It was baffling to me that he failed to connect the dots.

[torginus]

I don't think that was the issue. VRChat was basically the same idea but done in a more appealing way and it was (still is) wildly popular.

[hparadiz]

All the work Meta has put in is still being felt in the VR space. Besides Valve they are the only ones pushing an open ecosystem.

[Macha]

VRChat is not a product a large corp can or would build though.

[filoleg]

VRChat is more popular, but it doesn’t mean that copying their approaches would be the move.

For all we know, VRChat as a concept of that kind is a local maximum, and imo it wont scale well to genpop. Not claiming this as an objective fact, but as a hypothesis that I personally believe to be very likely truthful. Think of it as a dead branch of evolution, where if you want to go further than that local maximum, you gotta break out of it using an entirely different approach.

I like VRChat, but thinking that a random person living in the mainstream who isnt into that type of geeky online stuff is gonna be convinced of VRChat being the ultimate metaverse experience is just foolish.

At that point, your choices are: (1) build a VRChat clone and hit that same local maximum but slightly higher at best or (2) develop something entirely different to get out of that local maximum, but risk failing (since it is a totally novel thing) and coming short of being at least as successful as VRChat. Zuck took the second option, and I respect that.

Just making a VRChat Meta Edition clone would imo give Meta much better numbers in the short-term (than their failed Meta Horizons did), but imo long-term that approach would lead them nowhere. And it seems like Meta is more interested in capturing the first-mover (into the mainstream) advantage heavy.

And honestly, I think it is better off this way. Just like if someone is making yet another group chat, i would prefer they went balls to the wall, tried to rethink things from scratch, and made a group chat app that is unlike any other ones out there. Could all of their novel approaches fail? Yes, much more likely than if they made another slack clone with a different color scheme. But the important part is, it also has a much higher chance to get the state of their niche oit of the local maximum.

Examples: Twitter could’ve been just another blog aggregator, Tesla could’ve been just another gas-powered Lotus Elise (with the original roadsters literally being just their custom internals slotted into a Lotus body), Microsoft would’ve been stuck with MS-DOS and not went into the “app as the main OS” thing (which is what they did with Windows).

Apple would’ve been relegated to a legacy of Apple II and iPod (with a dash of macbook relevancy), and rememebered as the company that made this ultra popular mp3 player before that whole niche died. Airpods (that everyone laughed at initially and lauded as an impractical pretentious purchase) are massive now, with every holdout that I personally know who finally got them recently going “i cannot believe how convenient it is, i should’ve gotten them earlier”, but it was also a similar “who needs this, they are solving a problem nobody has, everyone prefers wired with tons of better options” take[0].

If you want to get out of a perceived local maximum and break into the mainstream, you gotta try brand new approaches that would likely fail. Going “omg cannot even beat that existing competitor that’s been running for years” is kinda pointless in this case, because competing with them directly by making just a better and more successful clone of their product was never the goal. I don’t doubt even for a second that if Meta tried that, they would’ve likely accomplished it.

And for the naysayers who don’t see Meta ever breaking things out of a local maximum, just look at the Oculus Quest line. Everyone was laughing at them initially for going with the standalone device approach, but Quest has become a massive hit, with tons of people of all kinds buying it (not just people with massive gaming rigs).

0. And yes, removal of the audiojack somewhat speeded up the adoption, but I just used an adapter with zero discomfort for a year or two until i got airpods myself (and would’ve still continued using the adapter if I just didnt flatout preferred airpods in general).

[aerialfish]

Yes, I thought the same exact thing. Seemed so odd to hear him gush over his foiling and MMA while simultaneously expecting everyone else to migrate to the metaverse.

[filoleg]

I mean, I am not sure what response people expected when a person, in a conversation about their work project, is being asked “what do you like to do in your free time.”

Maybe I am an outlier, but when in a conversation about work-related things someone asks “what do you like to do in your free time”, I believe the implication here is that there is a silent “…to do in your free time [outside of work]”.

Answering that question with more stuff related to work project typically falls somewhere on the spectrum between pandering to the audience and cringe.

No idea how this concept can even count as novel on HN, where a major chunk of users that are software devs keep talking about hobbies like woodworking/camping/etc. (aka hobbies that are typically as far removed from the digital realm as possible).

Imo Zuck talking about MMA being his personal free time hobby is about as odd as a software dev talking about being into woodworking. In other words, not at all.

[baby]

He wants to see MMA fights from VR, pretty good usecase.

[wpietri]

This is a super common behavior when a) the product is for other people, but b) you don't care about those other people. You'll see both in technologists (who, as you say, get fascinated by the technology or the idea) and in MBAs (who instead get hypnotized by fashionable trends, empire building, and the potential for large piles of money).

[iorrus]

Let’s be honest VR is about the porn. I’d it’s successful at that Zuck will make his billions.

[stubish]

The computer game and television/movie industries both dwarf adult entertainment. The reasons for the rationale on how pornography made the VCR and VHS in particular a success (bringing affordable video pornography into the privacy of your home) do not apply to VR.

[latentsea]

Not gonna lie though, VR is way better for porn than VHS.

[bamboozled]

and is responsible for building evil products to fund this stuff.

Apple photos and FaceTime are good products for sharing information without ruining your attention span or bring evil. Facebook could’ve been like that.