The Metaverse and Mixed/Augmented/Virtual Reality Thread.

Alright with the Vision Pro begin a thing, I feel like this topic warrents its own thread.

First a primer: What is the Metaverse? The term was coined by the book Snow Crash, as had grown into essentially Cyberspace but accessible by humanity in some form that often includes VR. A more recent book, Ready Player One updated the idea into something seemingly less dystopian and Sword Art Online conversely made it more dystopian with the application of Your Mind Makes It Real to deadly levels (both books are IMO terrible power fantasies, but that's besides the point). The concept rose into prominence when Social Netjerk Mark Zuckleburg rebranded Facebook's parent company (not Facebook itself) into Meta and bought out Oculus to that end. From there the idea became big as venture capitalists and grifters got on the act and several aspects began popping up around or in relation to it such as cryptocurrency and NFTs. The popularity of VRChat also likely contributed to the popularity of the idea at large.

I make this thread as previously mentioned because of Apple's Vision Pro device, which seems to be the most poised to bring the idea of the OASIS into reality. Youtuber Moon had delved into the consequences of such an idea.

To summarize the technology has the potential to change society in ways we are not prepared for. From making it easier to push adds down our throats, to making it easier to find distractions while paradoxically making it harder to actually be happy, to making it more trivial for data harvesters to learn every single facet of your life. So on and so forth.

I make this thread to discuss the metaverse, and attempts to meld the virtual with the real in general. The technology, the consequences, and news on the topic.

Virtual reality is basically never going to become a big deal unless the cost drops a huge amount and it becomes way less clunky. Right now, the barrier of entry and use is so high that it’s relegated to being a toy. It’s a really fun toy, but it’s really hard to come up with ways to expand the use being being a toy and having certain specific industrial or medical uses.

Augmented reality is a lot more likely, but very few people are looking into that on a large scale because Google super fucked up with the Google Glass. Those Apple glasses things are not really going to be it because they’re really expensive too and they look weird and a lot of people just straight up won’t find them tolerable to wear for any significant lengths of time. The Google Glass was the right angle for augmented reality stuff, because it turns out that people don’t generally enjoy wearing heavy ski masks all the time.

The metaverse concept itself is still in the realm of being a toy and no one can figure out how to bridge that gap into something serious because, again, the barrier for entry is too high. Like, Dan Olson did a video on Decentraland and one of the first things he pointed out was a “movie theatre”…except that due to the incredibly shitty game engine, even if it was a real theatre, the result would pale in comparison to just streaming a movie on your computer. And that’s a barrier that’s extremely hard to cross and it’s an even harder sell to people who aren’t super online.

Edited by Zendervai on Jul 16th 2023 at 10:34:15 AM

Frankly, unless there are some really radical breakthroughs it's never going to be a main stream thing ever. Aside from the cost and clunkyness, there are just fundamental problems to it.

The first is that a percentage of people simply gets motionsick no matter what. But the nastier addendum is that it's also still really easy to get a specific janky experience that just makes you nauseous, even when you don't get motion sick normally. Watching a movie in 2D or playing a game isn't going to have a major negative effect if your remote or controller or screen bugs out for a moment. A VR glitch can put you out of it the entire day.

The second is that you're going to be limited by physical space and most people just don't have that much of it to begin with. It's a neat idea to have this massive meeting space where everyone is in person. It's an illusion that's immediately shattered if you actually try to explore the 16-man space and bump against the wall because your work-from-home room isn't giant with a 16-man table. And threadmills and such aren't really a substitute either, there's still a notable difference.

There are cool uses for VR, but true mass adoption as is often envisioned? not going to happen.

Honestly i find his other argument much more convincing, which is that nobody actually fits inside the wires. You can't really live in a metaverse. No matter how realistic, it's an idea that's immediately shattered once you have to leave the virtual theater to take a pee in your own home. There's no reason to do all the physical walking and moving about. In fact, this is idea is extremely common in video games and basically all of them end up implementing fast travel or use-anywhere shop interfaces because face it, that's more convenient.

Edited by devak on Jul 16th 2023 at 5:29:16 PM

I actually got a VR headset recently-ish and an omnidirectional treadmill set up last weekish.

I'll say a few things on the topic:

• The term "Metaverse" makes me cringe a little.

• I do think that VR could take off in a big way in the next ten years or so, it just needs to become cheaper. Maybe not as popular as gaming consoles, but pretty close.

• Omnidirectional Treadmills, though? Mass adoption is significantly further away, if it's coming at all. They're large machines you can't just pick up at the store. Assembling them is very difficult. You need to actually have space for them. They can require equipment like special shoes you need to wear that are not one-size fits all.

Overall, I think the concept primarily has values as, well, a gaming system. Trying to use it as a replacement for social media or the like is misguided.

However, as a gaming system, the idea has a great deal of value.

One of the weird issues that VR runs into even as a gaming system is the specs demands. High-res high-refresh rate displays are best for reducing motion sickness, and obviously you need to pair that with some pretty powerful graphics, because that some thing means lag or frame delay is the worst. And then, last I checked, even if you had the computer for that, and afforded the headset itself, it also tends to be that those headsets are the ones that rely on external tracking stations. So you then need to add in plenty of space and plug socket accessibility. Don't have that? Well, got to say goodbye to the displays. And on top of that, a lot of the headsets that do internal tracking also render their own graphics entirely... so if you have a good computer, it doesn't actually matter. <_>

I would believe claims of VR taking off in the next ten years more seriously if it wasn't what they said ten years ago.

But honestly i also think you miss the mark on application. i don't see how threadmills are going to be cheaper than a couple hundred bucks. Part of what makes gaming so popular is accessibility. "real gamers" like to brag about multi-thousand dollar setups, but in reality PC gaming took off because people simply already used it for other stuff, and consoles and mobile gaming have become big since as cheap and accessible. Mobile gaming logic is the same as PC: you already own one for other uses. And consoles have the ease-of-access multiplayer: buy one, plug it in, and it works. You can also play with friends. I just don't see where VR fits into this.

But you know where VR does fit? Speciality industrial applications. Engineering companies can easily shell out a couple grand to get some VR glasses so all the engineers can see the product in 3D and work on it together. no more hassle with 2d images of 3d products. Have problems with a part? put on glasses, show the engineer where the actual problem happens. Need to see how it fits in the entire assembly? just show that.

Other specialty applications? it would be really useful to highlight robot programming in 3D to better analyze what's going on. Design gets easier if you can communicate to others easily what your problem is with your physical product. complex assembly of parts can be made easier if you can just pop on some goggles and get a good visual of what you should make.

I imagine it's also useful in other contexts. Therapy might help a lot if you can just pretend to be on a calming beach for a second. Teaching tasks can help a lot if you can try it out. I've seen a painter's setup where they used VR to teach painters how to spray properly, including digital feedback on hand motion, paths, overlap, etc.

I believe VR is vastly more useful in a company setting due to greater resources to actually make this work.

Gaming VR seems to me to be more suitable for arcades/experience venues than for a home gaming setup. A VR escape room would likewise be a pretty cool thing.

honestly, I just want to play Beat Saber, but I've never really gotten around to getting a headset.

@devak In fairness I would say VR technology has clearly become a lot more widespread in the last 10 years.

With VR Treadmills specifically, I don't see an easy pathway for them to achieve mass adoption. It's not the sort of technology I think can easily be made cheaper, and even if you did there's other practical concerns you'd run into. An obvious limitation is space, for example. I think they'll continue to exist in general but be pretty niche.

VR Headsets, though, I think are the sort of thing that's likely to see more widespread adoption as they become cheaper, more advanced, and the public more generally acclimated to them. I don't think they'll become as common as gaming consoles and gaming P Cs in general, but I think they'll become a lot more common than they are currently.

They're definitely not going to be a common thing in office environments though. Even if you put aside the cost factors, a lot of bosses get incredibly squirrelly when they can't easily see what the employees are looking at at a glance and VR offices kill more of the reasons behind in person offices. (If everyone's using a VR headset, why the fuck do you need a physical office)

Is that why Manhattan office space occupancy is still 30 percent below 2019 levels?

Edited by megarockman on Jul 16th 2023 at 3:05:13 PM

I can genuinely imagine a world where a company says staff can work from home but they have to be connected into a VR simulation of an actual office.