Meta - No thanks.
I don’t understand how gamers can so vehemently hate Facebook and Instagram, but salivate so heavily over the Meta Quest. A VR system that explicitly requires you to have a Meta account and will send all of your data up to them. All the same things they claim to hate about FB.
As one of those gamers, the answer imho is quite simple: Ignoring the awful data practices of Meta, the Quest 2/3 as a product is great. Over the years, my Q2 kept improving, with constant updates, new features and general performance improvements. I just got a Q3, and the technological jump is enormous. Add to that the absolute lack of (affordable) alternatives, and you have an easy choice: recognize that Meta has done more for the VR space than anyone else, or don’t do VR.
I mean they’re a mega corp willing to lose billions upon billions to own the market. That none of their competitors are willing to bleed money like that isn’t surprising, and buying into such an obviously poisoned platform is not a good idea for the future of the industry unless you want it to be owned by Meta.
I fully agree with you that Meta should not have the quasi monopoly that they have. But what’s the alternative?
As an individual consumer… Not much. Still wouldn’t buy their product as it’s showing support with whatever little power you have.
In a better world there would be market regulations or something to keep a massive company from burning all their money in a market to have an unfair advantage over all others.
Alternative is not to give any money AND data to Meta
I’m sorry, but it’s not. Same as the alternative to a meat-based diet isn’t “have you tried starving?”. Only other inside-out tracking headsets are made by Apple and Pico (Bytedance). Both companies that are as bad as Meta. You can debate whether humanity needs VR/AR, but that’s a different topic. VR in it’s current state is driven by Meta.
There aren’t many viable alternatives, so I do understand it. Valve Index is probably the most free but it’s expensive and starting to become out of date. The Reverb G2 will get no further updates in 2025, and will require you to stay on an old version of Windows (and using Windows in general isn’t great from a data privacy perspective). Any of the remaining alternatives are expensive and/or very niche.
It sucks, and I hope Valve does come out with the rumoured Deckard headset, because we need something that is well supported and not tied to the whims of Facebook or Microsoft.
You don’t like Zuckypoo?
Society’s mechanisms are far too slow and lack the precision to deal with Mark Zuckerberg — a man that acts with a lack of morality that I find putrid — and the complex machine he’s used to torture humans for profit and power. And as I’ve mentioned before, Mark Zuckerberg can never be fired. We’re stuck with him forever. He can — and will — run this company into the ground.
While Elon musk is a greedy and churlish executive, and a disgusting, shameful man, Mark Zuckerberg is something entirely different. He is far from stupid, and unlike Musk seemingly feels no compulsion for anyone to like him. He craves numerical dominance, at any cost. He must force human beings to use Facebook, and once they are there, he must make them move in the way wishes and do the things he wishes all so that he can see the number go up.
I won’t buy anything with Metas name on it. I got my Rift S until it breaks, then I am going to a different brand.
Oculus sold out and left us all out to die. They can bite the curb.
I hate to burst your bubble, but Meta bought Oculus in 2014 and the Rift S didn’t come out until 2019, so you already have a Meta product. I understand if it’s more of a branding concern, and I love my Rift S as well, but it’s still a Meta headset.
Meta didn’t put their garbage software onto Oculus products until after the Rift S came out. Meta is already about to drop support for the Rift S. The hardware was still Oculus branded, and the software was still Oculus software. I also had a DK1 and DK2, but skipped the CV1.
The point is, I am not buying a new Meta headset. The one I have is the last one I get from Meta, and after this one breaks I am going to a different brand.
I was even looking at a quest 3 (yes lemmy ik im undoing my privacy efforts). Did I push some secret metric forward because obviously the world revolves around me ^/s
They’re the only company doing VR hardware properly: standalone, inside-out, cheap.
This future sucks.
Isn’t it just lovely 🫠
Based on the rumors, I find it funny they are calling it “lite” or “S” (which usually means “small”) when it’s supposedly a bit bulkier than than 3. The leaked specs make it seem like it’s just a Quest 2 except for having the same CPU as the 3. Bulkier lenses, smaller resolution, same price as the 2. Is the CPU really that much better that it would be worth getting over a Quest 2 (which they probably will stop selling)?
Of course those are just “leaks” and rumors, so maybe it’s not actually that bad. 🤷🏻♂️
The processor in 3 is a pretty sizeable improvement over 2. A quick and dirty a/b test I did found frames rendered in 13ms on q2 would render in 9-10ms on q3, so that’s a good 20 - 30% faster, even though it’s rendering a lot more pixels.
I think the important bit for meta though is making sure their range of headsets all have decent passthrough. No one is going to develop MR apps, and it’ll never take off, unless the whole user base can use them.
Personally I’d take the better lenses and resolution of the q3 over better passthrough though.
