It is absolutely incredible to me that Facebook thinks it still has the social capital to pull a product like this off. To me the question of whether smart glasses are a good idea in general either socially or commercially is somewhat secondary to the elephant in the room: "would I wear glasses made by Facebook?" And... no, of course not, of course I wouldn't do that.
I guess people buy Oculus still so it's not like Facebook has zero success with its hardware, but I think a big part of that is that it's the lowest-priced option on the market and is aiming at a product category where consumers are not particularly privacy-conscious: ie, games. And from my perspective I look at Oculus with its required account links and all of the privacy and TOS drama that has come out of that hardware, and I just can't imagine buying a hardware product from Facebook at all, let alone a hardware product that has a camera attached to it and requires me to install an app on my phone to use it (which is likely a bigger data-trove for Facebook than the camera is).
It feels like almost any other company would be better equipped to try and build a market around this.
> It is absolutely incredible to me that Facebook thinks it still has the social capital to pull a product like this off.
I'm surprised you think they don't. Average people don't know who Meta are and that they own WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook. Their properties have billions of daily active users and WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are _seperately_ two of the biggest messaging platforms in the world.
Most Quest users have never heard of Oculus. Remember the Quest 2 sold 10s of millions of units.
Sorry to tell you, but most people don't have the same concerns that you (and I) have, and even then many people will still put their trust in anyway.
Is the Quest's success more about ignorance of its relationship to Facebook or is it more about it being a low-priced entry VR set for a market segment where privacy doesn't really matter at all to most people? I don't mean that to be dismissive, I'm genuinely not sure if I can make a strong case in either direction. But if the success boils down to "my kid wants a VRChat headset, who cares who makes it", I'm not sure that attitude will carry over to a product category with more social implications.
I don't personally think that the Meta branding is distinct enough from Facebook to pull that trick off in the way that WhatsApp or Instagram does, but I'll admit I could be out of touch. And I think Facebook's continued success has a lot more to do with inertia and lock-in than a lack of general consumer privacy concerns, but I could be projecting there.
I just think my instinct is that any of the social backlash that Google got over Glass is going to be hugely amplified for a Facebook product regardless of whether or not they hide behind the name Meta and that backlash seems likely to shape the narrative and how people find out about the product. But :shrug: maybe I'm wrong.
I actually agree on all points, but still think Meta has the social capital needed to do this.
Price point for VR is for sure a factor for VR uptake and would make a decision more difficult for a privacy concious parent. However critical mass is the key - same as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. If all of your 13 years friends are on the Quest, that's what they want. Just like many of us retain these awful messaging platforms as that's where our friends communicate.
Glass did have a massive backlash. But 2013 was a long time ago. Big single ear bluetooth headphones were mocked, COVID hadn't happened, Netflix wasn't even around (or at least, not in any form recognisable).
I think the Google Glass was a victim of being too early. We have adjusted rapidly to ubiquitous technology around us, people are embracing AR daily. Hindsight will tell, but now or very soon is the time for AR to be embraced by general users.
Fair, that's a really good point. I don't distinguish between the companies and I don't think they're tangibly different in regards to privacy, but definitely agreed that Instagram has a better public image than Facebook does and I could see that making a pretty big difference.
I guess they're launching this under "Meta", they're not using either Facebook or Instagram as the branding. I don't have any data to know whether people are more likely to see Meta and think of Instagram or Facebook.
I guess people buy Oculus still so it's not like Facebook has zero success with its hardware, but I think a big part of that is that it's the lowest-priced option on the market and is aiming at a product category where consumers are not particularly privacy-conscious: ie, games. And from my perspective I look at Oculus with its required account links and all of the privacy and TOS drama that has come out of that hardware, and I just can't imagine buying a hardware product from Facebook at all, let alone a hardware product that has a camera attached to it and requires me to install an app on my phone to use it (which is likely a bigger data-trove for Facebook than the camera is).
It feels like almost any other company would be better equipped to try and build a market around this.