i wouldn’t normally be concerned since any company releasing a VR product with this price tag is obviously going to fail… but it’s apple and somehow through exquisite branding and sleek design they have managed to create something that resonated with “tech reviewers” and rich folk who can afford it.
what’s really concerning is that it’s not marketed as a new VR headset, it’s marketed by apple and these “tech reviewers” as the new iphone, something you take with you everywhere and do your daily tasks in, consume content in etc…
and it’s dystopian. imagine you are watching youtube on this thing and when an ad shows up, you can’t look away, even if you try to they can track your eye movement and just move the window, you can’t mute it, you certainly cannot install adblock on it, you are forced to watch the ad until it satisfies apple or you just give up and take out the headset.
this is why i think all these tech giants (google meta apple etc) were/are interested in the “metaverse”. it holds both your vision and your hearing hostage, you cannot do anything else when using it but to just use the thing. a 100% efficiency attention machine, completely blocking you from the outside world.
i’m not concerned about this iteration as much as people are not hyped about this iteration. just like how people are hyped about the next apple vision, i’m more worried about the next iterations with somewhat lower price tag and better software availability. i hope it flops and i know it probably won’t achieve any sort of mainstream adoption even if it’s deemed a success because it probably can’t get less bulky and look less dorky, but the possibility is still worrying. what are your thoughts?
People will rip off the headsets if the ads are too intrusive and annoying. Which is why they’ll either be dead subtle, or they’ll offer you paid ways to avoid them.
I don’t think there’ll be mass adoption of this either way, mainly because it’s an expensive gadget coming at a time when folks on median incomes are feeling the pinch.
Have you visited a website without an ad blocker recently? Because typical web advertising has become as intrusive and annoying as technically possible, and millions of people willingly accept that.
VR/AR/Spatial Whatever has the potential to be just as bad, if not far worse.
Do you mean without an ad-blocker?
i mean it’s easily circumventable, “and now you don’t have to worry about losing progress on your favorite game or losing battery, because when you are not using the headset it goes to sleep mode” or whatever, but you are right if the ads are too annoying people are probably not going to use it, or will they? this is the thing i already think the way ads currently are is very intrusive but there’s a large segment of people who are fine with it. and subtle ads are way worse imagine if they constantly put ads in your peripheral vision. it’s cartoonishly evil which is why it probably won’t happen but even giving that power to them is dangerous.