Seriously, stay away from Oculus. I know they currently have the most versatile/best value headset in the Quest 2, but needing to have a FB account linked to it should be a deal-breaker for anyone who doesn't already have an active FB account (and perhaps even those who do). It isn't just an auth system shared by multiple products. It's Facebook, and the ban-hammer can come down swiftly, especially if, like the author, you are just creating an account to link to your Quest. I'm also not confident, as of right now, that FB is gonna fix this in a meaningful way.
Yes, and if you have trouble getting a refund for your defective device, there’s a bunch of state attorneys general who are interested in anything Facebook right now.
But the issue is that in having his account terminated, he's also losing access to all historical purchases made over the years. The CC company may be willing to accept a charge-back on recent purchases, but what about the application/game purchased four years ago that's tied to the account. It's no longer accessible, but is the CC willing to refund for a purchase made that far back?
I honestly don't know, but if I had to guess it would be no.
"No need for chargebacks, I purchased it from John Lewis in the UK so they wont have any issues refunding me. All my previous Oculus purchases on their store are now unplayable on my CV1 though so I might have to pursue a small claims court claim to get any money back on those."
It's a shame that John Lewis are probably going to have to eat the loss on this; it would be interesting to see what the effect of suing Facebook in the UK small claims court will be.
You'd have thought FB learned from the whole bolting on Google+ to Youtube fiasco.
I won't even start on Facebook in terms of just not wanting to be associated with every other scum-sucker thing that company does ... (Hi Facebook employee, I don't mean you personally, but you know I'm right).
I recently made the mistake of buying an iPad because I was excited to use Side Car with the Apple Pencil to draw in Mac apps.
It turns out I can't use the advertised features of the Apple devices I bought because Side Car requires 2FA with a phone number and my phone service is data only.
Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all. They're just intentionally crippling their expensive devices.
That's pretty fucky, especially since their 2FA doesn't go through SMS for me (it's a system popup). FWIW, there are (or were) other apps which provided similar functionality without going through Apple's hoops.
Man, I really hope this is just a temporary peak of insanity in the industry history and a total change is going to happen soon. You know, there were times in history when horrible, bizarre things were norms, and somehow the societies overcame those. This is our only hope.
> Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all. They're just intentionally crippling their expensive devices.
I believe they just want to make you get used to that so one day you would't even think about using any of your devices/apps without iCloud. Their vision probably is to make all the devices merely interfaces to iCloud and to make "offline usage" sound as ridiculous as using a toaster without electricity.
Your data line still has a phone number. I know on T-Mobile they only block sending SMS on data lines, it can still receive. Maybe your service works like that.
Sounds like that would work for services that send a verification code via SMS and ask you to enter it elsewhere, but not services that demand a reply. Luckily most 2FA is the former, but I've seen the latter with things like verifying flagged credit card transactions (although they have non-SMS alternatives).
With this new MagSafe charger it looks like the end goal is to remove one more port. Plugging in may not be an option soon. The 2nd gen pencil charges without plugging in for instance.
If you can set up a US Google voice number you cold try to receive SMS there or hangouts. Maybe set it with a unique Google email to prevent hacking attempts.
Note that once you have at least one phone number added, you can switch it to be device-based instead, where it will send 2FA codes directly to any Apple device you're logged into (there's a little system popup) and the phone number becomes strictly a backup for if all devices are unavailable. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915
> Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all.
Sidecar is primarily designed for wireless usage, and there's something behind-the-scenes where it's using the iCloud account to sync identity info so that that user doesn't have to manually set up any cross-device authentication stuff.
I don't find this a convincing rationale. I already had to jump through hoops with an authentication code to make my iPad "trust" my Mac before it appeared at all in Side Car.
Now that it does appear, I get a pop-up when clicking on the iPad income, saying I can't use it because the account doesn't have 2FA set up. Nowhere in the advertising for the device was there a disclaimer that a legacy phone number was required to use the features.
FB ownership is definitely an instant deal-breaker regarding the Oculus for me. I've heard that the Valve Index is a good alternative. Does anybody with VR experience have any input on that?
HP Reverb 2 is coming soon with much higher resolution, though lower refresh rate. Whats better depends on if you're planning on playing sims or action games really.
I'm playing tons of simulation games with my Oculus Rift and starting some weeks ago looking around for an upgrade. HP Reverb 2 is certainly an alternative, anything else I should check out? Playing mostly flying simulators, but also racing and space.
I was thinking of maybe upgrading to the new Oculus' but after announcing it will require a Facebook account I started to rethink that. This submission really hit the nail in the coffin and will absolutely not get another Oculus now.
> All the extra angles of FOV are very distorted, and there is a red static constantly fuzzing away in the display.
> Plus, you have to deal with the Pimax company, which has to be one of the most incompetent companies I've ever met when it comes to taking money and delivering product without stepping into the realm of actual fraud. When I bought mine, it was 3 false "it's shipped" announcements, 2 months, and a threat to reverse my credit card charge before I finally received it.
Why would Facebook spin off anything? I see that happening only if congress forces a break up. Spinning Oculus out of FB seems like a low hanging fruit of a forced break up.
Because when facebook bought oculus they claimed that it would never require a fb account and tracking kept at a minimum. That lasted all of maybe six months and finally totally fell apart with the announcement of the 'facebook only' login.
Confirming the confirmation that the Index is a good collection of hardware. I don't have experience with an Occulus or Vibe, but the Index fell squarely into the "works out of the box" territory.
The only thing I really did to improve it was to 3d print a stand for the hand controllers. More an aesthetic choice than anything.
I picked something off Thingiverse, and it's no longer up there. They do have some (IMO better designed) stands on there, however. Many of which support using the magnetic USB-C charging adapters, which I'd personally recommend for the controllers.
Index is awesome but you also need a well spec'd PC, have $999 on hand, and wait a few months for one. I believe the waiting list is 2-3 months now. I missed my reservation the first time, so if you really want one be vigilant in checking your email and Steam account.
Pros
- Knuckles controllers, still nothing like them
- External base station tracking, the only option that opens up full body tracking and makes it easy to do feet based movement
- High Refresh rate
- Good FOV
Cons
- Knuckles still isn't universally supported
- LCD screen and no OLED
- Reverb G2 has a much better screen
- Wires
I would recommend the G2 but its tracking and controllers just aren't as good as the Index, unless you're just going to use it for driving and flying games.
I have experience with the original pc tethered oculus, the htc vive and the valve index.
The valve index is a very nice upgrade over the original htc vive and the original oculus. The 'screen door' effect is all but gone the new controllers are very comfortable and the tracking is stellar. The index is heavier than the original oculus but the way the weight is distributed and the way the strapping works makes it a non issue. My only complaint is also a problem in the 'gen 1' headsets. Reflection off the fresnel lenses can cause some banded 'flare', especially noticeable when most of the screen is very dark but there is some portion of very bright light.
Sadly I have no experience with the 'upstart' headsets from Microsoft, HP, etc.
It's not really an alternative in that sense since it's tethered, needs a computer and a completely different ballpark price wise. If you have the money, a good gaming PC and the possibility to set up a dedicated VR space I would definitely buy an Index or HTC Reverb 2 though.
> I've heard that the Valve Index is a good alternative
They're not even comparable. The Quest is a headset and two controllers you put it on and pick the controllers up, draw a room boundary and you're in. Works in any room in your house, completely stand alone.
Index requires you to install multiple sensors in a specific room in your house, and requires a connection to a desktop PC tower and fiddling around with Steam to play.
I think the FB account requirement is incredibly dumb from Oculus (Don't understand why it couldn't just be a shadow account like Insta/Whatsapp which everyone seems fine with weirdly) but really the product their offering is entirely in a class of it's own for a fraction of the price a normal VR setup costs and a fraction of the hassle.
I think if the market was different and what they were offering wasn't unique I think far fewer people would care and we'd all just buy different headsets.
Selling a loss leader to build mindshare and market share isn't my idea of value extraction as compared to building the base for future value extraction.
If you don't think they're trying very hard though, I'm not sure if you've been following VR particularly much.
Maybe they think the entire market is drying up? The AAA blockbuster everybody thought would make VR mainstream (Half Life) seems to have fizzled with great reviews but not many sales. Maybe Facebook now believes VR will prove to be a bubble and they want to juice it for all they can while they still can.
Not sure this makes much sense. All the top end VR headsets are constantly sold out and require waiting months to get one (Index and soon the HP Reverb G2). People want to play Alyx but they can't.
Also a PC only game is niche enough, no PCVR game will ever make VR mainstream. Really, the mainstream VR game is Beat Saber - that alone has probably sold more VR headsets than any other app or game combined.
The only way to make VR mainstream imo is to offer it at console prices or less and make it standalone, which is exactly what the Quest is doing. It's really unfortunate it requires an FB account. I guess they justify it because Xbox and PS5 both require online accounts too.
>Really, the mainstream VR game is Beat Saber - that alone has probably sold more VR headsets than any other app or game combined.
Ironically, Facebook also acquired Beat Games (who makes Beat Saber) last year and effectively ruined it by intentionally breaking all the mods and custom songs, leaving it a shell of its former glory.
According to steamcharts [1], player counts peaked around July 2019 and have only dwindled since the acquisition (with the exception of two small bumps when the acquisition happened in November). Average player counts are have been cut in half since then, in less than a year.
I have almost 200 hours in Beat Saber, but I haven't played it for almost a year now, now that it's just the same two-dozen songs over and over.
Modders (luckily) keep finding a way. It's just unfortunate for the player that having Facebook as an owner means they need to show more good will in preventing the distribution of custom songs so they don't get held accountable for piracy.
I paid attention to the dev discord servers for a few months after the acquisition when they were churning through new mods when the old ones broke and people gave up on trying to maintain them, but haven't checked it recently. I would expect there's probably working mods still, but it's also probably a lot harder to keep them working over time.
FB's official stance on modding is that they will support mods that don't engage in "piracy or illicit modding, including mods that infringe on third-party IP rights". [1]
That's really sad to see. I also found the included songs pretty boring, and without custom beatmaps and scoresaber it's not really very good. I wonder what FB's strategy is here - why cut out the enthusiasts?
I dunno, I feel like it’s reaching saturation. Those that want VR are getting it, but then there’s those of us who are gamers, but forget it’s even a thing until someone mentions it. I am a gamer myself (have a 2080, sitting out the 3000 series), and I honestly don’t want one nor see how it can make gaming more enjoyable for me. So to me it seems like it’s going the same route attempt #1 did in the 90s, there’s some market but not enough.
Well, you need to be open about new experiences. And until I got my first VR headset I didn't know what I missed. Now I feel that having a powerful GPU and playing a 3D game on a flat screen is such a waste.
It’s the Rift, the problem is more that I like to store it somewhere when not in use because headset + controllers + trackers take quite a bit of space on my desk.
Then have to dive behind the computer to connect a HDMI and 3 USB cables (not enough ports on front).
I have owned about a dozen VR headsets at this point, including the Quest (not the Quest 2) and the Vive Index. The Index is fantastic, but it's difficult to compare to the Quest which is truly in a category of its own.
For headsets, there are several properties that segment the market:
1. Tracking: outside cameras/emitters vs inside-out tracking
2. Tethered vs wireless (including PC powered, but using wireless transmission)
3. PC powered vs standalone device
For each of these, there are multiple vendors to choose from, except for standalone devices. In this case, the Oculus Quest is unique. There's no other competition.
Moreover, the Quest is the only device that can be run without a corresponding high end PC. If you don't have a PC like that, then the cost is prohibitive. There's also the space factor. VR needs space, which is already an issue. With the PC powered headsets, you also need that PC to be close enough to your open VR space. Otherwise, you need to rearrange your living space or invest in a VR dedicated PC.
In summary, the Vive Index is fantastic and arguably the best headset in the market right now, but the Oculus Quest fills a different niche of that market.
(And as to the topic of the article: I'm done with Oculus based on Facebook's policies).
Best headset for sitting is a inside-out, tethered VR headset.
Until recently, the Oculus Rift S would be a great pick for that.
I don't yet have an HP Reverb G2, but I expect good things out of that headset. The HTC Cosmos would also be a good choice.
The Valve Index (yes, I mistyped before) is an awesome headset, but the lighthouse emitter based tracking system isn't great for seated. Not only is it a hassle to setup, but it's easier for your chair or monitor or whatever to block the laser grid from the lighthouse units. And if you're seated, you aren't taking advantage of the highly accurate room-scale tracking the lighthouses provide. I'd stick with the convenience of an inside-out headset if you're primarily doing seated VR.
For example, I tended to prefer my Rift S for sim games (sim racing, sim flight) for all the reasons listed above.
> For each of these, there are multiple vendors to choose from, except for standalone devices. In this case, the Oculus Quest is unique. There's no other competition.
The only VR headsets I've seen so far in stores around here (a major metropolitan city) are headsets with only the lenses, in which you slot your own smartphone as the screen and CPU. Wouldn't these also count as standalone devices in your classification?
Google has killed daydream, Samsung also killed GearVR and their VR video stuff. I don't know if there are others that will still work in this kind of headset, so not sure how relevant is anymore.
These are so crappy in comparison that i wouldn't even call them VR. The Quest is several generations ahead.
Its like comparing a pre-model-T car with a car from 1950. You might argue that for some purposes both are equivalent but that doesn't capture the qualitative improvement that has happened almost everywhere. Everything is improved and some areas feel perfected in comparison.
But it's also $999, requires a beefy gaming PC, and the setup is slightly more involved. But if you already have a beefy gaming PC (I'm a PC gamer, so I already did), don't mind spending 10 minutes attaching the lighthouses to the corners of your room, and of course have the $999 to buy the full kit, it's worth it.
I've had a Rift for 3 years (not a Rift-S). I've used a Quest. I bought an Index in August because of this FB account crap but ending up selling it 2 days later.
I'm not a fan of the Index. First problem, it has horrible black levels. Everything looks like you're in a layer of fog compared to the Rift. Maybe if you've never used a Rift before you won't notice but it was shockingly bad for me.
The headphones are utter crap. I don't get whoever thought headphones that hover 1/2 inch away from your ears would work. Take whatever headphones you have now that you're listening to music on and pull them 1/2 inch away for each ear. The sound goes down, it sounds tinny, less full, bases are missing, etc. The Index sounded exactly like that. Some friends said you have to get them perfectly lined up but if that's true the moment you move your head suddenly in some game they're no longer going to be aligned.
This also means the sound leaks into the room far more than it would with on ear headphones. It's not going to be loud but it is going to be annoying for anyone within a room if they aren't making some louder noise.
Next up, Steam VR is just not as good as Oculus Connect (or whatever Oculus's home screen system is called). In part because Oculus has built in "pull up your desktop and/or multiple windows" at anytime in anytime game and pin them to say up. Apparently there's a 3rd party app that will provide this for Index/Vive but I use that feature all the time. Inside a game want to look up a walkthru just pin in there in my view.
Now for some things that no one will admit to but I will...
The Index Controllers didn't feel as good to me as Rift Controllers. I get they have fanciers sensors. I get they grip your hands. But, probably the #1 use for VR is porn. Controllers that require 2 hands to put on are not good for things that require one had to be free.
I have lots of friends in the industry, I see none of them using an Index and plenty of complaints.
As for Quest/Quest 2, even if there wasn't the FB issue it's like choosing an iPhone instead of a PS5. iPhone has tons of great games but it doesn't have PS5 level games. Similarly Quest has tons of great games, but it doesn't have PC level VR games and it will never have any porn games being locked up by Facebook. (and even if it did, do you really want FB knowing which porn games you're playing?)
I'm praying the HP Reverb G2 gets good reviews and solves most of those issues. It's apparently a month or 2 from shipping so I'm crossing my fingers I can get rid of this Rift.
I have an Index. As long as you have a solid PC, the experience is great—it single-handedly convinced me VR was more than a gimmick. Great quality picture + audio, reasonably ergonomic and I love the controls. Overall, I've been super happy with it.
Downsides to consider:
• You need a solid gaming PC (with a 2070 or better).
• Expensive ($1000 for the kit)
• Connected to the computer by a wire, awkward for "room-scale" VR
• Base stations provide great tracking but require setup (mounting high up in your room) and mean that the setup isn't very portable.
• Limited/janky access to exclusive titles. (You can hack around to get Oculus-only titles to work, but it seems rough and I haven't tried it myself.)
If you're not budget-constrained, I believe the Index will give you the best overall experience.
As more anecdata, I had a pretty satisfactory experience with my Vive on an old R9 290x from ~2013. Some more demanding games would occasionally stutter, but everything was generally smooth (based on the performance graph not dropping below the HMD's refresh rate).
The Index is higher resolution/refresh rate and will require more hardware, but if you just want to get into some VR and dick around, the Vive is more than enough to get started, can be found for <$200 used, and a ton of the popular games (e.g., Beat Saber, SuperHot VR, etc) just really aren't that graphically demanding.
The Vive is also compatible with the knuckles controllers and those can be purchased separately, so you're not totally locked out from some of the more game changing stuff either.
> for anyone who doesn't already have an active FB account (and perhaps even those who do).
This. Unless you have built up sufficiently high profile Facebook fame known inside and out of it, beyond just having a moderately active account, I wouldn’t consider it safe to spend a penny on this.
Really unfortunate that virtually no competitor exists in mobile VR segment.
What do you mean? The HTC Vive, non-pro version only costs $599 with base stations. Where are you getting $900 from?
I agree with the high total cost though. Most people pushing PC VR, will forget about how much a real VR ready PC will cost. It's easy to spend close to $3000 even when people loathed to admit it.
Controllers were always part of that $599 package (at launch, 4 years ago). The only other peripheral most owners consider almost a "must have" would be the Deluxe Audio Strap which goes for another $99.
I was so excited for the CV1 after I loved my DK2, but I now own a Vive. The Facebook acquisition was a deal-breaker, for privacy reasons and it bring patently obvious it would eventually result in this type of garbage.
There's been a lot of talk about antitrust investigations and regulating big tech. I think one really useful step would be to require multiple methods of authentication with devices like this. Oculus shouldn't require a Facebook account to use.
Why do "apps" even need to be installed on it. Isn't it just a sensor array and a couple of displays?
I used to think everyone should learn a programming language just so they can experience its expressive power but more and more I wish they would so they wouldn't get duped by really dumb marketing.
good idea...but less profitable, though Facebook will continue to track these "banned" users as they roam around the network and trade on their information anyway.
So you're saying that modern capitalism has completely supplanted the original reason for starting a company in the first place?
I did not write what I wrote as a parody. Shareholder primacy is the foremost blight on this modern existence and is responsible for an innumerably large portion of the negative externalities that cause so such much suffering today.
I would vote with my wallet, but that will accomplish exactly jack shit. There are few who will stand with me if it means threatening their pathetically precious creature comforts which our modern capitalism so dutifully provides.
Also, it is worth noting that the entire goal of capitalism is to eliminate those options, using "free-market economics" as cover for its seemingly insatiable lust for competitors to gobble up or otherwise drive out of business. Some of the very first things they teach you in b-school, about moat building and competitive advantages and all that other crap, is an outright attack on the marketplace model
less profitable wouldn't matter if the law would dictate that every device needs to support multiple vendors with feature parity and the user/owner of a device is legally entitled to use it in whatever way they see fit.
Yes, this would cause price increase. But a lot of people would gladly pay for it. The ones who don't want to, could accept a "discount" in exchange for becoming a glass citizens.
It seems like they're pushing FB as an authentication method for everything. Try and comment on a local news article (yeah, I know) and it wants to authenticate you with your FB account. Same thing with trying to buy something from a small independent web vendor. "Log in with your Facebook account" is becoming the default everywhere and it sucks.
FB sounds like it's trying to be an multinational version of WeChat by becoming the operating system of life. There are many cultural reasons why this is feasible in China but not in the US (and many other places)
I'd guess for starters that an extreme authoritarian centralized state is already normalized in China. USA is creeping that direction but there's still a ways to go
Facebook sounds more like the communist party, where they are requiring your real name, web activity, or get banned and have all your things taken away (Oculus usage, paid apps, can’t message friends, etc).
I agree that’s not a great state to be in, but think about it from that locals new org’s point of view: comment spam is a major and hard-to-solve problem, and by tying commenting to the real-world identity and enforcement of bots that Facebook provides, the news organizations get to solve that thorny problem for free. Plus news orgs are already using FB to syndicate/share, so it’s really a no-brained for them.
I wonder what the world would look like with a independent, trustworthy, non-advertising-based company/organization which provided a similar anti-spam service for free, with the option to publicly tie to verified identities as well. (For all the flack that real-name policies get, they do reduce spam and hate speech by a big margin, so any service which doesn’t verify identity isn’t really a drop-in replacement for FB as far as that news org is concerned)
> (For all the flack that real-name policies get, they do reduce spam and hate speech by a big margin, so any service which doesn’t verify identity isn’t really a drop-in replacement for FB as far as that news org is concerned)
Did we not see the same studies?
As I recall Google+/YouTube's real name policy came under fire because a large minority of people received substantially more hate speech.
I've been writing about and pushing for a decentralized system that doesn't require centralized services or verified identities - because any centralized system will have biases and flaws, and having real identities tied to your online comments has can have serious real world consequence.
If you want to be authentication for everything then you definitely can't intermingle the authentication part of that (who is this person) with the authorisation part of that (what are they allowed to do). In other words, Facebook deciding I don't have the right to use it's service should have no bearing on whether I have provided evidence that I am who I assert to be, and whether other services should choose to service me.
My sentiment exactly. It’s crazy to think Facebook can simultaneously ban me from their platform and essentially steal whatever $X amount of dollars I spent on the oculus store. What makes it worse is they’re not even letting people who’ve made an oculus account in the past escape from this as they are now forcing ALL accounts to be linked to Facebook in the next couple years.
I think we need full separation of hardware and software. One company makes the hardware, others make the software. And let's not forget that it was like this for a long time (IBM+clones vs Microsoft, OS/2, Linux).
Today, the distinction between hardware and software is murky. Hardware can't even be tested without co-development of software. Even making these things happen in separate departments of the same business, by people who eat lunch together, is inefficient when trying to move fast and create new things. I often have hardware and software development tools open on my computer at the same time.
The Quest 2 is amazing and an important leap for VR. If you care about the state of VR, it must sell well.
Frankly, this is not the hill to die on. If you plan to own a smartphone or really use any kind of service or internet browsing in the modern world going forward you’re going to be faced with these kind of privacy dilemmas. Better to just accept it and move on with your life than to basically live like a Luddite for the rest of your life. Facebook will not be the first or last corporation to ask you to relax your absolute anonymity.
If only there were other companies with competing products which would assuage one’s concerns regarding privacy and/or anonymity and guard against Luddite lifestyles.
“Must sell well...hill to die on” feel a bit extreme, particularly given everything that has transpired in 2020.
Other VR headsets are far more expensive and some require tethering to expensive gaming computers. Oculus Quest 2 has no true competitor at its price point, and some might say any price point.
Mate, if Facebook actually cared about the VR scene they wouldn’t have broken the best VR headset to date by _requiring_ a fb login. Without a fb login the device is broken. If _they_ wanted VR to succeed they wouldn’t have done this. Take it up with them.
This is absolutely the hill to die on. Oculus has competitors. The answer to save VR isn't to buy Oculus, it's to buy other headsets and hope Oculus dies unless they reverse their decision to require a Facebook account.
I wish that was true. If that was the case, I would've bought a headset from a competitor in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, while there are many competitive VR headsets out there, I cannot recall a single other VR headset that works standalone without a PC.
Not even mentioning the price point of Quest and the fact that it can be used for both PCVR and standalone, thus bringing a superset of features of other headsets. No need to set up lightboxes and being able to just buy the headset and play without anything extra is a value proposition that I don't see any other VR headset can provide.
Hopefully, the success of Quest will provide a kick in the ass to other manufacturers to make their own versions. Imo, the standalone+PCVR combo with no lightboxes is the future, with lightbox PCVR-only headsets being reserved for highly niche uses.
> Ethically challenged software engineer working for a major tech company
Well, at least you know yourself, but I don't appreciate this attempt to normalize your moral bankruptcy and ridicule others who haven't sold and don't want to sell their soul.
Maybe one day you'll be forced to confront the consequences of this lack of ethics. Until then, kindly fuck right off.
I have a Gear VR and I've been on the fence about upgrading to a real proper mobile VR setup but thankfully Oculus required this Facebook integration and made this decision a lot easier.
The quest two barely counts as VR. You will only have mobile titles, which are terrible compared to PC. to run quest with PC you need to have a VR ready PC in the first place.
The content on the Quest may not be "desktop fidelity", but my time with the Quest 1 was VERY much enjoyable (especially compared to the Oculus Go), and often preferred over my desktop VR HMD simply for the convenience. And the content was quite good.
By this same metric, the Switch is also plagued with "mobile titles" given it's Android base and Tegra X1 mobile GPU. But most folks DON'T think of it like that, and for good reason: the Switch can keep up just fine in it's own market.
And if the Quest 2 has improved specs in every area over the Quest 1, then it's completely FINE for what it is.
It's just the company behind it fucked up a good thing.
I am sick of verifying my FB account periodically after deleting the account and re-create with same email. Then, the weirdness came up, such as timeline only shows a couple of posts or nothing even I visited friends page and showed recent posts. And first a few months, FB asked me to upload the verifiable ID to unblock my FB account. (What the hell they need my ID ? I already enabled 2FA but kept complaining suspicious activity.)
Blizzard is asking me for government ID before they'll DELETE my account. It makes no sense. I feel like there should be some government agency that is interested in this misuse of their ID's/info, but I haven't found it.
Once upon a time this issue was resolved by not really ever actually deleting anything - just soft-deleting it and moving it off into an archive somewhere from whence it could be restored... unfortunately not-really-deleted stuff was insanely abused by marketing so that consumers no longer trust it and it's become illegal to retain this information after an account closure in some jurisdictions - so now we can't have nice things.
I don't have any addresses, pictures or names associated with my account that my ID can verify. Plus, if someone deletes my account at this point, they'd be doing me a favor :)
I'd guess gaming companies have to have more robust processes than most companies. They have to deal with bullying, siblings, sore losers and scammers (people have mentality that it's a game so it's not a real scam).
If only we had some sort of bureau of protecting consumers - the tech companies are bad but the people I really want to see fines for bad UI are credit companies. Trying to un-enrolled from once free-of-charge credit reporting is insanely difficult.
That's just it... generally speaking, there's no law against using federal IDs in any way that companies desire. There's also no laws against aggregating data that gives corporations too much information about consumers, and no laws governing how such data can be used, a right to deletion, and other protections.
The laws in the US governing privacy and data use have never been updated for the computer age, because the people who have been in power for the whole computer age generally don't understand computers.
I have an active FB account, but I would never use it to log in to anything other than FB via a sandboxed browser profile, and if I had to, I wouldn't use that service.
Yea - I'd be unwilling to use Oculus unless I could specifically tie it to a fake FB account (or no account at all). I barely use my FB account but I never want gaming integrated with social media in a manner I can't control simply due to personal preference and privacy.
I thought about using a fake, Oculus-only account but that's a false sense of separation as FB would see connections from my accounts coming from the same source IP unless I was going to separate them via anonymizing proxy.
We have smartphones now with a pretty wide rollout - I wouldn't be surprised if people that legitimately all share the same computer do have problems getting flags on their account from facebook.
Honestly though, the real answer is who knows - it's entirely proprietary information and all we can do on the outside is observe the fact that is does seem to be a pretty flawed detection system and guess at why that is. Does facebook use sentiment analysis of posts or post frequency to ban users they think are fake? Do they look for similar content of posts from different users to try and detect troll farms? I don't know and FB really doesn't want to talk about it.
While I agree doing anything with a Facebook account is gross, it seems rather, err, trusting to think that Facebook wasn't already linking accounts anyway and are essentially not just getting rid of the system that does that and forcing users to do it for them.
I couldn’t agree more. I had the fun of a 30 day ban on PlayStation because my kid sent something inappropriate to his friend. Now I imagine a scenario like this happening but the consequences are my Facebook account shut down permanently. Definitely a huge turn off.
Realistically if you don't want to manage hundreds of separate logins then what are your options? On the whole it still seems much easier to get reasonable behaviour and human involvement out of Facebook than out of Google.
I agree. It's still a gimmick. It's like the WII basically. Hardcore types chant it's praises and families love to play it for a party game once a year.
Other than that, it collects dust compared to your other better mediums that exist.
Eh, gimmick for some, sure. For others it's a whole new world that they won't leave. For example, got an Oculus for the gimmick and didn't think I'd be so attached to it, but I cannot go back to playing any flight or racing simulator without it again, it's simply not the same. I tried the new FS2020 briefly on launch, but had to go back to X-Plane as FS2020 still doesn't support VR headsets.
Probably not, Quest 2 is basically running mobile hardware right? X-Plane is a fully fledged flight simulator that barely runs on a powerful desktop PC on highest settings. I'm using a Oculus Rift currently.
My understanding is Quest 2 can run Rift games using the optional link cable. But I'm not sure if that means it will take advantage of higher resolution on Quest 2 or whether X-Plane devs have to do something new.
What is irrelevant is if Quest runs with X-Plane or not, even if it doesn't.
The original subject of this thread was if VR is a gimmick or not. I initially replied that yeah, for some it's a gimmick and for others there is really no alternative. Now we're plenty off topic here :)
Quest and Quest 2 can play Steam games like Alyx. Since X-Plane is on Steam, I'm going to tentatively say yes. You just need to buy a PC link cable for the Quest. You can get away with a wireless to PC link... but you'll get more lag
At worst, it's a low key, more immersive Peloton but really it's a new medium. It feels like when the internet and iPhone first came out. Sure it's not perfect and it's easy for pundits to nitpick, but it's definitely a new world changing paradigm for those who can afford it. I feel that affordability is VR's main weakness.
I've been around long enough to see previous attempts at 'VR' and those definitely were gimmicks. However, I think calling even the first generation of contemporary VR a gimmick is an exageration.
There are some legitimately good experiences to be had in VR right now. Beat Saber is fun as hell, and SUPERHOT VR is great, from personal experience. However, the hardware is still a bit clunky and asks a lot of the user, and developers are still working out what how to design for it. Unfortunately that means a lot of titles are, in fact, pretty damned gimmicky.
I think VR shows promise as a way to make cardio exercise fun among other things. It's also one of the only cutting edge areas of gaming design where everyone else is just upping resolutions and frame rate.
The fact that I can pick up a fake class and slosh water in it doesn't change the fact that I'm doing something I can do in real life that is...as equally boring.
Practical: Mostly, particularly if you already have a gaming computer. It's easy to spend more money on a good quality monitor. Enjoyable: Abso-effing-lutely
You can say it about anything, in 5-10 years it'll be better. But in 5-10 years you'll be old and won't be able to fully enjoy. Things are never ideal.
That's unlucky, I'm guessing you haven't played much of it?
Just playing the GTAV VR mod (https://github.com/LukeRoss00/gta5-real-mod) is just something else, whilst not perfect (hell it's a mod on an old game!) it's so fucking sick being in a car chase at 160mph weaving through traffic in VR.
Can VR get a lot better in 5 - 10 years, hell yea, but that's like saying you weren't going to buy an Xbox360 because the Xbox OneX will be out in 10 years.
That looks interesting, I may try it. Got GTA V and an Oculus Go, both of which are collecting dust.
I played NFS The Run just in big screen mode (with a PS4 controller) and it was pretty nice. But other than VRChat and the occasional movie (3D is nice), I don't use the headset at all.
Oh 100% give it a go, it's extremely easy to setup.
For the GO you could set your resolution to 1440x1440 in the config file so you get less jaggies and then tone the graphics detail right down (unless you do have a beast of a PC), it's basically because it has to render the game twice, which it was never meant to do and you want to be sticking to around 90fps.
I will say again, it's not perfect, but for what it is, and the fact someone managed to do this as a mod, you can't complain.
If you are going to do it, install the following two mods:
Facebook bans accounts fairly regularly for hate speech, which pretty much means whatever they want. It seems ludicrous to me that an edgy teenager can have their headset bricked because they posted some spicy political memes.
This also happened to me, had an account 5 years ago, stopped using it, deleted the account on their website. Last week decided to create it again to prepare to eventually link to Oculus.. Instantly banned. Literally on the "Confirm Your Email" page got redirected to violated the community guidelines. And I'm not even from the US..
I think it's good to add to the discussion here for other HN readers that the reason I mentioned it was that some people are suggesting this is a measure put in-place by facebook to reduce election interference (as it's happening right now in the US). That may be the case, it may also not be since everyone (doesn't matter where from) seems to be getting banned alike.
There are similar stories on reddit, with people speculating that the old account actually still existed and the ban was because the new account was imitating an existing account. The idea that they would keep a "deleted" account around seems highly plausible given Facebook's hunger for data.
As far as I understand it, there's three account states you can be in:
- Active = Normal
- Deactivated = Deactivated/Not In-Use/Asked to deactivate
- Deleted = After asking for deletion, wait (don't log in) for a period of 60? days and your account is deleted.
In my particular scenario, I downloaded my data, went through deletion, waited the period and then confirmed the account was deleted (5y ago).
Deactivation is what Facebook directs everybody to, but there is actually a way to completely delete an account too. With an actually deleted account, you have to create a new one, there isn't a reactivation option.
Given that Facebook creates shadow profiles for "users" who have never had a Facebook account, I wonder what "deleted" really means in terms of Facebook's social graph. Is your identity back to being treated as a shadow profile or is there now an empty hole in the graph?
It sometimes happens if you create account from a suspicious IP address, such as VPN or shared computer at school or cafe. They are trying to prevent account takeovers and fake accounts when some dormant users left weak passwords and got in a leak somewhere. But Facebook is also sometimes a bit too proactive in banning new accounts, because they use this as an opportunity to extract more information from you - you can only unban the account by providing phone number, scan of your ID card etc.. That suits them so they like banning more.
Facebook, their "real name" policy, and their ban policy when combined with hardware like Oculus seem like a series of really bad product decisions. Like with combining messengers between Instagram and Facebook, the business reason is probably to make Oculus harder to split off in the event of anti-trust action. Pretty gross.
I recently discovered a similar thing with Twitter: when you sign up with e-mail, they block your account and will unblock it only if you give them your phone number.
There are services online that the big providers can use now that give them this info. I don't have one to hand but I've seen then when I've gone hunting for the answer to that exactly question.
How is it not your real phone number? I currently have no cell service on a device. It only uses WiFi. I have a VoIP app on it. People use it, it rings my phone, I answer it.
People's definition of "real" is so arbitrary in a way that suits them, but it's no less correct than the answer I provide.
Statistical models that say "most accounts we don't ban have these characteristics; most accounts we ban have other characteristics; your account is in the second group so BAN!"
Which is just positively-reinforcing tripe making it harder to do anything remotely outside the "norm" even if your intent is 100% non hostile.
- Political memes in the masses are making fact-based and rational political conversation difficult to impossible.
- Teenagers should not be on social networks.
- Teenagers who aren't old enough to vote who want to post political memes - that's like 10x me less caring whether they're banned from Facebook.
I have no problem with the ban.
However, Facebook should separate out its identity service from its social networking service. It might make more money doing this because more people would stick to its services. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to authenticate with a Facebook account even though Facebook deems me unworthy of participating in its social network.
Hard thing is that even legit political opinion will be banned if there is enough people that is not in line with your vision. Or like in Ukraine where Facebook moderation team is very very pro government with very narrow vision.
Imagine USA moderation of Facebook consists only of pro Trump's fans with power instant ban Your account.
I think the bigger problem is Facebook's policing of bots, especially since this is a big election year. I'm going to guess this was the reason for OP's ban
I had a post taken down for posting a link to a local gay event. Their algorithm cant figure out pro vs hate speech.
So I started migrating the few apps I used FB logins from, (spotify), then stopped using google login because of facebook. Taught me, not to trust these companies with my 3rd party accounts THAT I PAY FOR.
The reason they put is 'hate speech' but I'm basically convinced it's a single, stock error message they show regardless of the reason. How can an account be banned for hate speech 7 minutes after it was created?
Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed.
As well as the "We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" bullshit. For every ban they should be required to issue a very specific clarification on why exactly were you banned and let you to speak to a real person.
Many people still will buy. There is a reason we use representative democracy rather than direct democracy - qualified people should outlaw some bad things the crowd can't resist itself.
Oculus is a niche product, it will be forgotten in a few years just like 3D TVs. Facebook knows it and it would not spend a dime on good customer service, they will just implement something good enough.
Folks often overestimate the power consumers have in meaningfully shaping a market. Consumer protections are rarely gained by simply refusing to do business with market leaders who behave in consumer hostile ways. Regulation really seems to be our best shot at reversing course on what is nothing short of the theft of digital goods from consumers.
Strongly disagree. Using the law in this strong arm manner stiffles innovation.
Yes, the current Oculus / Facebook situation sucks.
However, blanket statements like "Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed." Would ban very legitimate products such as Amazon's physical buttons for restocking supplies.
Sure the Dash buttons are discontinued, but there's definitely an interesting area of products that might be developed in the coming years for other products in this wide domain.
> However, blanket statements like "Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed." Would ban very legitimate products such as Amazon's physical buttons for restocking supplies.
OK, rephrase it slightly and say that it must not require an online account from a specific provider. If I can come up with an API endpoint that I want to use instead of Amazon, and I want to reconfigure my Dash button to use it, I should be legally and technically allowed to do so.
The regulation doesn't need to ban any categories of products, or mandate any features. It just needs to say that if your product depends on online connectivity for a significant part of its functionality, then it must not employ technical measures to prevent interoperability. Hardware that's sold to consumers already needs to meet various compliance standards, such as RF emissions testing; this doesn't seem like a heavy burden in comparison.
Of course, such a policy is very unlikely to be enacted in the US any time soon, but hey, I can dream.
Some people seem to believe Internet is the new electricity. Even if this is so, electricity doesn't have colour - only voltage, amperage and frequency. My toaster doesn't restrict me to use only electricity from a specific power plant. I can power it up even from a car battery, if I tinker with it a little. Similarly, a device like the Dash button should use whatever endpoint that implements the required API, and not be restricted to a specific provider.
Those weren't innovations, those were solutions in search of a problem. Probably contributed to their discontinuation. Also, what "innovation" of the past 20 years has been truly innovative, life-changing, and a net positive for humanity? Pretty much everything that has come out of Silicon Valley has been at best neutral for society (creating new markets and revenue for businesses aren't a positive in my eyes).
We need to stop pulling the "stifling innovation" card. Not stifling innovation has led us to society's cancerous relationship with technology.
Smart+cellular phones, I think clearly fit the category of life changing and world changing. World societies have been greatly improved by wireless access, everywhere.
I once had a Logitech universal remote control that required opening an account to use it. Sent it back, bought an AllInOne, and never since considered purchasing any products from Logitech. Unfortunately most people don't give a shit and just do what the companies tell them.
As well as the "We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" bullshit. For every ban they should be required to issue a very specific clarification on why exactly were you banned and let you to speak to a real person.
GDPR requires that algorithmic decisions get this kind of oversight. GDPR is the way to get redress here.
That would probably a step too far. But also unnecessary.
Make a law that requires them to give you a full refund for all hardware that you can’t use and all software purchased over the lifetime of the account.
That will make them incur a cost that makes it worthwhile for them to be more careful.
Edit: Downstream commenters make a good point. You'd have to put in a formula for "depreciation" of the refund, so you can't just get a refund years later.
> So, after 5 years you can just do something stupid to get banned and get a full refund? Sweet.
If this was the law, then companies would change the way their products work or the way they ban people. Instead of banning, on Facebook, they would prevent the user from posting and interacting with other users. You would in essence get a very nice advert-only feed but not banned.
> So, after 5 years you can just do something stupid to get banned and get a full refund?
Yes. They should be able to ban you from their online platform if you misuse it and don't behave yourself but they shouldn't have a right to brick the device you've bought, no matter what you do.
On the surface, this seems like an elegant solution. However, it also seems to me like it would need exceptions.
Since we are talking about online games, the topic of how to deal with people caught cheating (as in using third party cheating tools) comes to mind. It is typical to ban those people. If a ban was synonymous with a refund, there is little incentive to not cheat.
If the law allowed for exceptions like this (e.g. banned with cause), then it'd be pretty hollow as the company is also the final arbiter of what cause is.
It is possible I am missing something though as this is not something I have put a lot of thought into.
Feels to me like account moderations needs to be handled external to private companies operating a platform... like insurance or a credit history system
The EU actually has such a "conformity" law for goods[0], however I don't see how it would apply in this case. It also takes into account the point raised by the other commenters: "the seller can only refuse if this causes disproportionate costs on him in comparison with the alternative remedy, taking into account the value of the goods or the significance of the lack of conformity"
Presumably the payment method will be banned and getting banned in a old game purposely to get a refund sounds like a lot of work for 60$. I can't imagine that would be significantly abuse.
Sellers should not be able to take away goods after the sell; that's pretty much universally understood as theft.
I would have the law along the lines that Hardware should not be limited or curtailed in usage via any optional on-line related identification.
That way for things that may well suit having linked account - fine, but not curtailing that avenue. Basicly making having it linked to an on line account - optional via consumer choice, as it should always be.
> Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed.
You have just outlawed Roku. An online account is required to make it work, because that's how it was designed to work. It's a rather useless device without the online account.
Well, you could design an open API that others can use, too (server-side, not client side!). So the device can work with competitors, too, meaning it won't require an account at only one company. That would be a compromise - at least in theory others could replace the server parts.
I feel you're ignoring the subtle point - these devices are designed as an extension of their service not as general computing devices. I can easily replace "Roku" with "RSA SecureID keyfob" and have the same conversation - it is not a generic device; it is a targeted hardware extension of their core business model. An "online account" (an account with RSA the company) is required for this keyfob to be of any value other than a LED screen displaying random numbers.
Fundamentally, I don't see a difference there. They are general computing devices, which are then restricted to talk only to a subset of computers, and only on a subset of protocols. Similarly, the RSA SecureID keyfob can be a public/private key, where the private key is secure on the keyfob, used to generate the digits shown, and the public key is printed on the outside. Anyone with the public key can verify that the private key was used to generate it. An "online account" is not required for the keyfob to be of value.
> Fundamentally, I don't see a difference there. They are general computing devices, which are then restricted to talk only to a subset of computers, and only on a subset of protocols.
I would choose to disagree on this concept; from a business perspective, the hardware engineering design going into making the device has a targeted purpose from the outset, and is (cost) subsidized by that company specifically for their service (meaning, they could take a loss on the hardware and make up for it on the Service). Roku and RSA are extracting money for their service, not for their hardware - just like the Amazon Prime TV stick, or imagine if you will a Netflix stick made and sold by Netflix directly. The value to these companies is your service fee month over month, not the hardware they're providing - the hardware is just a delivery vehicle.
That does not mean the devices cannot technically do something other than what their primary intended purpose is; the alternative "TV in a box" projects can run on things like an Amazon Stick with a bit of work (I did it myself to mine, was neat to play with) just that it's not their primary purpose from the OEM. So can you use a RSA key without RSA? Maybe, but that's not what our primary argument is about here. The GP to this thread stated:
> Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed.
This is what I'm discussing - the GP would have the government require a device which is designed to work with a very particular online service be able to work... without their service. "Netflix, your Netflix TV stick which is designed to work with the Netflix service must also be able to work without Netflix service." That is what the GP is proposing be made a law, which I very much don't agree with - it literally ignores the entire point for the existence for certain types of hardware such as a Netflix TV stick.
I don't understand your reply or what you're trying to disagree with; comparing a Yubikey - a product intentionally designed to interoperate with many other services and hardware platforms at it's core - is being compared to a RSA SecureID key which is a singular, targeted Enterprise solution ($$$) which does not intend to interoperate with other competing solutions (TOTP e.g.). RSA SecureID and Yubikey have different core business models.
"We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" is how the Internet has always worked.
The dirty secret of the Internet - going back decades - is that it's concept of moderation mostly relies upon unstated or understated rules half-enforced and adjudicated by volunteers or underpaid contractors with the power of judge, jury, and executioner. This is arguably by design: the vast majority of what moderators are dealing with is spam, which has the properties of being cheap to execute and difficult to filter for. Hence, anti-spam efforts are swift and merciless. More modern efforts to deal with things like foreign election interference and fake news are arguably extensions of this same ongoing effort to summarily hang and execute spammers.
Facebook is not alone in this either: Google's done it from the very beginning and their death penalty stings far harder. There's a few exceptions to this, such as Wikipedia's ArbCom or other collaborative Free Software projects with code-of-conduct rules and moderator transparency. However, even those platforms will summarily execute spammers.
This may be the only way to scale a service that is free to users. But once you are selling a product to paying customers, those customers need to be at a different tier with real customer support.
Those paying customers are already incredibly unlikely to be spammers. They cannot be handled the same way free accounts are.
This is a cultural problem as much as an economic imperative. Apple and Google both run app stores with distribution rules, but Apple will bend over backwards to try and get you in compliance with their rules, while Google will just delete your Gmail. I've also heard far fewer reports of Apple iCloud accounts getting summarily deleted compared to Google or Facebook.
No account would mean anonymous access, wouldn't it? That's fine, but I don't think many people would frequent anonymous communities since moderation would become extremely difficult, unless the presence was tied with the hardware. Tying an an involuntary account to hardware would probably destroy the second hand market.
It seems to me that the U.S. is ripe for an updating of its consumer protection laws. Particularly w.r.t. shrink-wrap license and other attempts to impose unwelcome terms that the buyer didn't know about at the time of the sale.
I imagine our existing consumer-protection laws were passed over the opposition of monied interests. If so, I wonder how close we are to having the political will do to do that again.
At a minimum, a "ban" of the Oculus account should also include an immediate refund of any and all purchases. It's absolutely ridiculously to think they can just keep all that money while depriving a customer of software licenses they paid for!
Not even that is good enough, a ban on an account should have a VERY high bar, and that bar needs to be highly regulated. Right now it's just games, maybe movies, but it could apply to all kinds of software and apps... and this stuff is important. You can't cut a person off from being able to purchase and use their puchased software. It's too important.
Arbitrary account bans already impact more substantive business services. It's not that rare to read of situations where small businesses have had their Amazon stores, Gsuite, Google Ads, or Google Store (publisher) accounts arbitrarily banned with no recourse.
heck I don't understand why Facebook doesn't exclude accounts linked to a headset from bot bans, max 1 per headset of course. If fake new Facebook accounts are worth $400+ to bad actors we are in bad shape.
Indeed, and it would force Facebook have some skin in the game because banning would cost them real money. I'm betting once each ban starts to cost them hundreds of $ they will start to at least put some human eyes in front of it before the ban hammer comes down.
I agree, and I think there's kind of an elephant in the room with respect to all Terms of Service Agreements.
Anybody with a mobile phone (as well as a plethora of other products) has inevitably agreed to dozens of pages of legal doctrine which they don't understand, any probably wouldn't without a competent lawyer on hand. But nevertheless, every minor service update, we all hit "I Accept", despite having no understanding of what we've agreed to.
Is this not massively problematic? What happens if a company actually tries to draw significant action against consumers using the terms of service as their contract?
My guess re. 'how close': approximately 48 quintillion light years away. The US has been corporatist for a long while and is blatantly so since Citizens United - the idea that a consumer protection law would pass in this environment is as 'possible' as the world taking climate change seriously at any point before we are all boiled alive.
Seems most likely that they're trying to flag "suspicious" account creations in the run-up to the US election, and that the left hand that implemented this algorithm didn't speak to the right hand that was launching a new product that required an FB account.
Yeah, I think part of the problem is that Facebook has never had an actual product which people pay for and expect to work. Their whole culture and set of priorities are counter to this.
Unfortunately I get the impression that this is how you get proper support from Facebook or Google. Make a Reddit or Hacker News post, get a few upvotes, and someone with influence inside the company files an "Oops Help My Friend" support ticket or contacts another person with the right authority to take a look.
In the Catholic theology, there's a concept of Saints, who are basically humans that intercede with God on the behalf of ordinary mortals. People will sometimes address prayers to saints in the hope that the prayer will be more effective. Probably similar in other religions too but I'm pulling from memories of catholic school
The 21st century is making me rethink how atheist I truely am. I think by following the moral code of face masks and social distancing, I will spare my family from plague and those who scoff at these codes will get smited. I put my faith and security into these big corps that don't even have an corporeal existance, and work with us through intermediaries like Amazon through ups and Microsoft through gamestop, Google doesnt even have a customer service branch and I had no way but to dig up my old school email in order to prove to them I am who I say I am. I tithe to the market, my funding of corps will pay back in future wealth. I perform rituals with my team chanting a praying that azure will stop acting wonky.
They don't intercede for some authority, though. Bodhisattvas are more like the folks that hold the door open for people and don't leave until everyone else has.
Huh. I grew up Catholic and I never understood the point of praying to saints. I always chalked it up to superstition. Your explanation sort of makes sense,
It is superstition, same here for my Muslim country, people pray at the tombs of dead Imams, though it is shunned by almost all scholars, but ignorance begets superstition.
This is a reason why better education for all is the way forward for humanity.
.. and prior to the reformation, people would pay priests to pray to the saints to intercede on their behalf.
People got so upset about the Catholic church selling the right to bend the divine rules that one guy wrote an extremely angry listicle, made a viral post on a church door, and the rest is history. And centuries of sectarian warfare.
I wonder if there is a way to incentivize the behavior of "I work at a big company and have the ability to help out a stranger with a problem"? Perhaps people who help others with these issues (which are public by nature of being discussed on reddit/twitter/etc) can put it as an item on their resume when looking to switch jobs - something like "I care about the community and people who use the products I help build. I advocated for [this person (with link to public forum)] which ultimately resulted in [this solution (with link to release note if possible)]."
Of course there is a discussion to have about incentivizing the _wrong_ behavior (the need to create publicity around issues that shouldn't exist in the first place / only people with "clout" become the ones who get their issues resolved).
People on HN are not really strangers, we are part of a community. By helping one of us, they help one of their in groups. Not helping might devalue their investment in this place.
HN users are the early adopters that small group of users who have much more influence early on in projects. Care of early adopters makes sense.
I assume that quite often those are marketing & PR people who use special tools to track every mention of a product / company name.
Many companies (especially niche ones) buy those services that basically track the whole internet - so their representatives can comment on issues.
Bigger companies seem not to care that much, apart from maybe twitter? And those few thousand upvote posts on reddit.
There are groups inside Facebook to raise issues like this. I can guarantee this one has already been escalated.
They wouldn't allow just any employee to "fix" these issues. Too often there is a lot of context that is omitted from the shared story, so it's not just a matter of hitting a button to remove a block.
The very fact that regular employees of these companies might have the clout to take bribes for simply giving their attention to something, speaks to the absurdity of how much power we've given the organizations. We're talking about Facebook programmers like they're state senators.
This has happened with me re: Intuit, Microsoft and Adobe as well - all companies with proper support channels - issue resolution/escalation for people with the "right contacts" goes about 100x faster.
What about the 99.9% of the rest who don't have those contacts?
Anecdotal, but.. I got dicked around by Wayfair for almost two months (stalled order, various excuses, well meaning but essentially powerless customer support). In the end all it took to resolve was one tweet at their account. Next day the order cleared.
That is a fantastic comment. I was reading through Google SRE stuff. Lots of good info. Lots of very, very bad ideas too. Lots of it is "at scale, you can't make everyone happy, so don't try." You end up with SLOs and SLIs based on percentages of availability, errors, etc. If 99.99% of requests are good, don't worry about the rest. However, at scale, 0.01 can be literally millions of real, breathing people with feeling and priorities and things to do. When you give away your product for free, these are good trade offs. When you sell your product, the same assumptions may not apply.
I cannot afford to ignore 0.01% of incoming requests because we charge per request. At a certain point, yes, money and pros and cons yadda yadda yadda. It just feels that, once again, people are saying, "but Google does it!" -- and that does not mean you should.
100% is unachievable, especially at Google scale. Your car or coffee shop or whatever also fails 0.0x% of the time. Heck the energy net in western countries doesn't reach 99.999% uptime and I would call it very dependable.
I'd say the biggest problem it the non-existent support. It's fine if 0.01% fails, as long as there is human troubleshooting or help available if necessary.
I think you are very confused about how availability is tracked. If a class of users is always getting an error this would be investigated. There is literally no way, at any scale, to guarantee 100% availability.
>I think you are very confused about how availability is tracked. If a class of users is always getting an error this would be investigated.
Oh, please, you are confused. I worked at Google, most teams just don’t have metrics like this.
While I don’t think it’s acceptable, reality is that it’s expensive to compute such metric, i.e. you need to slice you monitoring stream per each user, has privacy implications, and often it’s unclear what action should be taken.
Alright, so he bought it 4 years ago. Bu in the EU you have 2 years to start an RMA if a product is not working as expected under normal use. I reckon one would be able to turn it in to their retailer to get a new Oculus.
I believe this is an urban myth. Can you cite the appropriate EU regulation or directive that makes this true? If a directive what about the implementation in the UK?
However I see no reason that you couldn't sue the manufacturer if they arrange to break your product even after six years. That would be a tort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort) and unrelated to your rights under your contract of sale.
Facebook is easily the worst company in big tech, with zero regard whatsoever for privacy or consumers. I can no longer support Oculus since it requires FB authentication.
I recommend creating a separate account if you have no other options.
I bought a Go years ago and recently I got a screen locking the entire device until I logged into Oculus. I selected the option to not connect my Facebook account, but continue to use my Oculus account. There was a sunset date on this option.
I've never bought anything from the Oculus store. I honestly only use VR for Skybox and movies I download to a file server.
Are there any alternative OSes for the GO? Honestly I'd rather just get off the stock OS if I just had a way to play my movies.
I'm very excited about VR. I bought the GearVR, then the first Oculus Rift, and most recently the Quest 1.
Now, instead of buying the Quest 2 (which is unquestionably the best-value headset available today) I'm waiting for a competitor to enter the space.
Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform. If you decide to leave that platform, or if that platform decides you aren't providing enough invasive information about yourself and decides to leave you, you've got an expensive paperweight. No warning or recourse. No thank you.
The devs working on this are generally not the devs who are decrying the harmful effects. In reality, when you work on such projects you tend to isolate yourself from criticism.
Or, quite possibly, they have no other choice. Some devs have the freedom to walk away from a job that they find morally detestable. But many can't refuse or leave because they're under contract and can't afford the break-contract fee, or they're visa holders whose visa is tied to their employment, or they have a family to take care of and can't afford the time spent job searching. It's unfortunately not hard these days for any sufficiently funded business to find developers for morally questionable or outright unethical business models
The cases where people actually have no options (H-1B who had no idea what kind of business social media is and thus needs the job to stay in the US) are pretty rare.
Yes there are people who think they need a big house in the bay area or need a Tesla, but that doesn't mean they have no other options but to work at Twitter or Facebook.
I was talking less about people who are Facebook employees and more about people who are Accenture / Cognizant / Infosys / etc employees or contractors, who get subcontracted to do work at Facebook or wherever else. They just have to convince a fresh college grad or visa applicant to sign say a 2-year contract, and that person may not realize quite what they're signing until they're put on a project
Edit: I wasn't trying to disagree with you if it sounded like I was. I meant this as "in addition to what you said" not "instead of what you said"
I know many such developers who work at these companies helping build these products and who hate these policies; they don't work on whatever feels most direct like the evil feature itself, but they don't seem to have an issue working for the company helping build parts of the UI or networking or whatever.
Moreover, even if they were the same devs, they're all working on such small parts of a bigger product that no one person or team is responsible for any of the compounding decisions that lead to this.
To be clear, I think the FB/Oculus devs are doing impressive work. I get value out of FB (that's why I still have an account) and Oculus is the primary driver of progress in VR today.
However, I don't believe it's a user-friendly product decision to tightly couple FB's VR hardware to its social media platform. It's yet another push towards a walled garden, much like Google's AMP and Apple's app store.
"Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform...or if that platform decides you aren't providing enough invasive information about yourself"
Yep, they managed to convince me not to order Quest 2. And I already own Quest 1 and Index. Hope Valve is going to ship stand-alone headset, at least their incentives are aligned.
Don't worry, you will get bored with your Oculus Quest after a month anyways. Me and my kids were using our Oculus a lot at the beginning, having great fun. Now it just sits there, although we could use it any time and even have a few great games on it.
Anyways, this has nothing to do with your issue. Facebook should be ashamed for treating paying customers like this.
I don't get it. He contacted Oculus support, Oculus support asked if he had followed these 4 steps for reactivating his account, and then... what? At that point gave up and posted on Reddit to complain?
Yeah, this sucks. But mistaken account deactivations probably happen a lot - how to handle them is one of the FAQ questions on Oculus. It happened to me with my PlayStation 4 account too; someone in Germany mistakenly signed up using my email address somehow and in the resulting confusion I got locked out of my PlayStation games for a bit. It sucks but support will eventually fix it.
I tried to do the math on the Quest 2 hardware, and they definitely cut corners to bring the cost down, but not to the point where I think they have an attractive margin. (On the $300 headset, but the accessories/storage increase definitely have a decent margin). They’ll also get some margin on software sales presumably.
That’s important because I believe the revenue generating model is entirely from data. Even if I’m wrong, it’s Facebook, so we know they’re after data for profit.
And consider the kind of data that VR is capable of collecting. It’s biometric data at its core. If you take the data involved in VR, tie it to a person under the real-name policy, and give it to some crafty software engineers, you can get some crazy intimate results.
As much as I love VR (I even backed the Oculus kickstarter at the time), I can't justify spending money developing for a system that can brick the devices of my users on a whim.
They shot themselves in the foot by having this FB account requirement.
I got so excited by the news about Quest 2, I was certain would by it, until I learned that "Quest headsets best accommodate IPDs between 56 and 70 mm, or about 95% of adults". My IPD is 74 - no luck this time.
Much of the backlash regarding the acquisition has centered on Facebook's business model — data mining and advertising. This isn't a concern for Carmack, who says he "just can't get very worked up about it ." While he appreciates the need for privacy, "the idea that companies are supposed to interact with you and not pay attention has never seemed sane to me ... I rather like the recommendations that Amazon gives me on each visit. Educate me. What terrible outcome is expected from this?"
So actually he was fine with this from the start? And while he is moving on to AI and whatnot, he is still currently employed by Oculus, which leads me to believe this is his stance today.
I don't know how to feel about it. Even if you look past the privacy issues, he has engineered a product with hardware DRM! It just a shit product.
It’s VIP tunnel vision. Rich people with celebrity status never suffer the negative effects of those systems. In fact, it actually benefits them because the system knows they’re rich and actively favours them because they’re considered more valuable than the rest of us.
Of course he doesn’t get worked up because if his assistant calls for support on anything they get routed to the VIP support system and a team of people spring into action to solve the problem for him.
People like Carmack don’t have to use the shitty systems they’re building, so they don’t care. He’s just another rich asshole IMO.
The idea that I could have an account with hundreds of games I purchased be taken away from me without reason, or without recourse is absurd. Facebook, or really anything holding licensed content needs to be regulated.
If you get banned from the Steam community for spamming/harassing/being awful your game library is still there. Even if you get banned for cheating in a game, you only lose access to that game and not the rest of your library.
I lost full access to my account when a friend gifted me a CD key he bought from someone on Ebay. I think it was originally bought with a stolen credit card, so a chargeback was issued, which then meant my whole account was locked out.
Support did restore it, eventually. I got the impression it was a one time mercy. This was back in 2010 so their policies may have changed.
"This account has been disabled as a gift subscription that you recently accepted in your account has been reported as fraudulent. The subscription has been removed. We will make an exception in your case and reactivate the account at this time. Please refrain from accepting Steam gifts from unknown sources in the future."
Putting risk on buyers of "stolen goods" is normal, so I wasn't upset at Steam for that part. But having the entire account impacted is another story.
As @asymptotically3 said, community banning doesn't take away your games, and in-game banning only blocks you from that specific game's multiplayer. In the past you could risk account suspension if you chargebacked purchases or redeemed stolen keys, but even that got changed years ago to just remove the specific game/license from your account instead.
Only large-scale fraud would get you banned, and even then I doubt they would disable your account entirely and not just disable future purchasing.
I too have the Quest 1, absolutely love it, and would have immediately purchased the Quest 2 if FB had not gone back on their explicit promise to never require an FB account.
Someone PLEASE make a privacy-first (i.e. "NORMAL") headset with similar specs to the Quest 2 - you can charge more for all I care.
It seems like unfortunate timing - Facebook's cracking down on fake accounts before the election right as the Quest 2 launches. I'd guess that a lot of the people signing up for Facebook just for the Quest don't follow the same patterns as a typical user, so the algorithm flags them and removes them. I'm sure they'll get reinstated once Facebook manually reviews, but it's definitely a major annoyance.
Sidenote, I got my quest 2 yesterday and from a hardware standpoint, it's blown me away coming from PSVR. Too bad the Facebook nonsense keeps it from being a must have product.
> It seems like unfortunate timing - Facebook's cracking down on fake accounts before the election right as the Quest 2 launches.
No, this isn't new, more people are just seeing it now since they just expanded the market of users.
It has been like this for years: If you go out of your way to create an account disconnected from a social graph so that it doesn't creepily alert people that would have saved your number/email and uploaded all their contacts in the past, Facebook will ban the account within 10 minutes.
Somebody's inevitable rebuttal: "Yeah but my grandma just made an account and didn't get banned"
Okay, good for you. The described reality here is also valid.
To make it not ban the account you can upload a contact photo and try to friend request multiple people in a social graph. The time limit is very short and you will otherwise very quickly get instabanned or stuck in a security verification loop where the verification never comes.
This is just creepy Facebook behavior for their data mining operation, now masquaraded as "ensuring quality of accounts". This is the same behavior as when they use insecure SMS one time passwords instead of client side code generation, and then use that phone number to add it to the social graph.
Their behavior is very consistent and there is no one individual there responsible for it and even understands the use case.
In this case, this is just another byproduct of Facebook employees living in the warped reality where everyone loves the Facebook product and has it. They honestly believe it there and you should see how confused and affronted they will act when you tell them you don't have an account.
This description makes alot of sense and further convinces me that Facebook especially needs some steep regulation to curb that behavior... or disappear.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 280 ms ] threadI honestly don't know, but if I had to guess it would be no.
"No need for chargebacks, I purchased it from John Lewis in the UK so they wont have any issues refunding me. All my previous Oculus purchases on their store are now unplayable on my CV1 though so I might have to pursue a small claims court claim to get any money back on those."
You'd have thought FB learned from the whole bolting on Google+ to Youtube fiasco.
I won't even start on Facebook in terms of just not wanting to be associated with every other scum-sucker thing that company does ... (Hi Facebook employee, I don't mean you personally, but you know I'm right).
It turns out I can't use the advertised features of the Apple devices I bought because Side Car requires 2FA with a phone number and my phone service is data only.
Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all. They're just intentionally crippling their expensive devices.
> Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all. They're just intentionally crippling their expensive devices.
I believe they just want to make you get used to that so one day you would't even think about using any of your devices/apps without iCloud. Their vision probably is to make all the devices merely interfaces to iCloud and to make "offline usage" sound as ridiculous as using a toaster without electricity.
Apple Wireless Direct Link - https://owlink.org/wiki/
Note that once you have at least one phone number added, you can switch it to be device-based instead, where it will send 2FA codes directly to any Apple device you're logged into (there's a little system popup) and the phone number becomes strictly a backup for if all devices are unavailable. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915
> Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all.
Sidecar is primarily designed for wireless usage, and there's something behind-the-scenes where it's using the iCloud account to sync identity info so that that user doesn't have to manually set up any cross-device authentication stuff.
Now that it does appear, I get a pop-up when clicking on the iPad income, saying I can't use it because the account doesn't have 2FA set up. Nowhere in the advertising for the device was there a disclaimer that a legacy phone number was required to use the features.
I was thinking of maybe upgrading to the new Oculus' but after announcing it will require a Facebook account I started to rethink that. This submission really hit the nail in the coffin and will absolutely not get another Oculus now.
> All the extra angles of FOV are very distorted, and there is a red static constantly fuzzing away in the display.
> Plus, you have to deal with the Pimax company, which has to be one of the most incompetent companies I've ever met when it comes to taking money and delivering product without stepping into the realm of actual fraud. When I bought mine, it was 3 false "it's shipped" announcements, 2 months, and a threat to reverse my credit card charge before I finally received it.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24496969
Apple’s investment in Privacy is going to pay off so big.
I wonder if Facebook can spin off a company that includes Oculus and competes with Apple on Privacy.
I’d guess no.
The only thing I really did to improve it was to 3d print a stand for the hand controllers. More an aesthetic choice than anything.
Pros
- Knuckles controllers, still nothing like them
- External base station tracking, the only option that opens up full body tracking and makes it easy to do feet based movement
- High Refresh rate
- Good FOV
Cons
- Knuckles still isn't universally supported
- LCD screen and no OLED
- Reverb G2 has a much better screen
- Wires
I would recommend the G2 but its tracking and controllers just aren't as good as the Index, unless you're just going to use it for driving and flying games.
The valve index is a very nice upgrade over the original htc vive and the original oculus. The 'screen door' effect is all but gone the new controllers are very comfortable and the tracking is stellar. The index is heavier than the original oculus but the way the weight is distributed and the way the strapping works makes it a non issue. My only complaint is also a problem in the 'gen 1' headsets. Reflection off the fresnel lenses can cause some banded 'flare', especially noticeable when most of the screen is very dark but there is some portion of very bright light.
Sadly I have no experience with the 'upstart' headsets from Microsoft, HP, etc.
They're not even comparable. The Quest is a headset and two controllers you put it on and pick the controllers up, draw a room boundary and you're in. Works in any room in your house, completely stand alone.
Index requires you to install multiple sensors in a specific room in your house, and requires a connection to a desktop PC tower and fiddling around with Steam to play.
I think the FB account requirement is incredibly dumb from Oculus (Don't understand why it couldn't just be a shadow account like Insta/Whatsapp which everyone seems fine with weirdly) but really the product their offering is entirely in a class of it's own for a fraction of the price a normal VR setup costs and a fraction of the hassle.
I think if the market was different and what they were offering wasn't unique I think far fewer people would care and we'd all just buy different headsets.
I honestly have no idea though. I don't get why they're in this space as it doesn't appear from the outside that they're trying very hard.
If you don't think they're trying very hard though, I'm not sure if you've been following VR particularly much.
Also a PC only game is niche enough, no PCVR game will ever make VR mainstream. Really, the mainstream VR game is Beat Saber - that alone has probably sold more VR headsets than any other app or game combined.
The only way to make VR mainstream imo is to offer it at console prices or less and make it standalone, which is exactly what the Quest is doing. It's really unfortunate it requires an FB account. I guess they justify it because Xbox and PS5 both require online accounts too.
Ironically, Facebook also acquired Beat Games (who makes Beat Saber) last year and effectively ruined it by intentionally breaking all the mods and custom songs, leaving it a shell of its former glory.
According to steamcharts [1], player counts peaked around July 2019 and have only dwindled since the acquisition (with the exception of two small bumps when the acquisition happened in November). Average player counts are have been cut in half since then, in less than a year.
I have almost 200 hours in Beat Saber, but I haven't played it for almost a year now, now that it's just the same two-dozen songs over and over.
[1] https://steamcharts.com/app/620980#1y
(Are custom songs really broken? Haven't tried in a month or so)
I paid attention to the dev discord servers for a few months after the acquisition when they were churning through new mods when the old ones broke and people gave up on trying to maintain them, but haven't checked it recently. I would expect there's probably working mods still, but it's also probably a lot harder to keep them working over time.
FB's official stance on modding is that they will support mods that don't engage in "piracy or illicit modding, including mods that infringe on third-party IP rights". [1]
[1] https://www.oculus.com/blog/welcoming-beat-games-to-facebook...
Joking aside. What headset have you got that takes more than a few minutes to connect?
Then have to dive behind the computer to connect a HDMI and 3 USB cables (not enough ports on front).
For headsets, there are several properties that segment the market:
1. Tracking: outside cameras/emitters vs inside-out tracking
2. Tethered vs wireless (including PC powered, but using wireless transmission)
3. PC powered vs standalone device
For each of these, there are multiple vendors to choose from, except for standalone devices. In this case, the Oculus Quest is unique. There's no other competition.
Moreover, the Quest is the only device that can be run without a corresponding high end PC. If you don't have a PC like that, then the cost is prohibitive. There's also the space factor. VR needs space, which is already an issue. With the PC powered headsets, you also need that PC to be close enough to your open VR space. Otherwise, you need to rearrange your living space or invest in a VR dedicated PC.
In summary, the Vive Index is fantastic and arguably the best headset in the market right now, but the Oculus Quest fills a different niche of that market.
(And as to the topic of the article: I'm done with Oculus based on Facebook's policies).
Until recently, the Oculus Rift S would be a great pick for that.
I don't yet have an HP Reverb G2, but I expect good things out of that headset. The HTC Cosmos would also be a good choice.
The Valve Index (yes, I mistyped before) is an awesome headset, but the lighthouse emitter based tracking system isn't great for seated. Not only is it a hassle to setup, but it's easier for your chair or monitor or whatever to block the laser grid from the lighthouse units. And if you're seated, you aren't taking advantage of the highly accurate room-scale tracking the lighthouses provide. I'd stick with the convenience of an inside-out headset if you're primarily doing seated VR.
For example, I tended to prefer my Rift S for sim games (sim racing, sim flight) for all the reasons listed above.
The only VR headsets I've seen so far in stores around here (a major metropolitan city) are headsets with only the lenses, in which you slot your own smartphone as the screen and CPU. Wouldn't these also count as standalone devices in your classification?
[I've had the Google cardboard, DayDream and the Samsung Gear headsets.]
Its like comparing a pre-model-T car with a car from 1950. You might argue that for some purposes both are equivalent but that doesn't capture the qualitative improvement that has happened almost everywhere. Everything is improved and some areas feel perfected in comparison.
Do you mean the Valve Index or the HTC Vive?
But it's also $999, requires a beefy gaming PC, and the setup is slightly more involved. But if you already have a beefy gaming PC (I'm a PC gamer, so I already did), don't mind spending 10 minutes attaching the lighthouses to the corners of your room, and of course have the $999 to buy the full kit, it's worth it.
I'm not a fan of the Index. First problem, it has horrible black levels. Everything looks like you're in a layer of fog compared to the Rift. Maybe if you've never used a Rift before you won't notice but it was shockingly bad for me.
The headphones are utter crap. I don't get whoever thought headphones that hover 1/2 inch away from your ears would work. Take whatever headphones you have now that you're listening to music on and pull them 1/2 inch away for each ear. The sound goes down, it sounds tinny, less full, bases are missing, etc. The Index sounded exactly like that. Some friends said you have to get them perfectly lined up but if that's true the moment you move your head suddenly in some game they're no longer going to be aligned.
This also means the sound leaks into the room far more than it would with on ear headphones. It's not going to be loud but it is going to be annoying for anyone within a room if they aren't making some louder noise.
Next up, Steam VR is just not as good as Oculus Connect (or whatever Oculus's home screen system is called). In part because Oculus has built in "pull up your desktop and/or multiple windows" at anytime in anytime game and pin them to say up. Apparently there's a 3rd party app that will provide this for Index/Vive but I use that feature all the time. Inside a game want to look up a walkthru just pin in there in my view.
Now for some things that no one will admit to but I will...
The Index Controllers didn't feel as good to me as Rift Controllers. I get they have fanciers sensors. I get they grip your hands. But, probably the #1 use for VR is porn. Controllers that require 2 hands to put on are not good for things that require one had to be free.
I have lots of friends in the industry, I see none of them using an Index and plenty of complaints.
As for Quest/Quest 2, even if there wasn't the FB issue it's like choosing an iPhone instead of a PS5. iPhone has tons of great games but it doesn't have PS5 level games. Similarly Quest has tons of great games, but it doesn't have PC level VR games and it will never have any porn games being locked up by Facebook. (and even if it did, do you really want FB knowing which porn games you're playing?)
I'm praying the HP Reverb G2 gets good reviews and solves most of those issues. It's apparently a month or 2 from shipping so I'm crossing my fingers I can get rid of this Rift.
Downsides to consider:
• You need a solid gaming PC (with a 2070 or better).
• Expensive ($1000 for the kit)
• Connected to the computer by a wire, awkward for "room-scale" VR
• Base stations provide great tracking but require setup (mounting high up in your room) and mean that the setup isn't very portable.
• Limited/janky access to exclusive titles. (You can hack around to get Oculus-only titles to work, but it seems rough and I haven't tried it myself.)
If you're not budget-constrained, I believe the Index will give you the best overall experience.
As a counterpoint, I am using Index together with 1070 Ti and the performance is flawless.
The Index is higher resolution/refresh rate and will require more hardware, but if you just want to get into some VR and dick around, the Vive is more than enough to get started, can be found for <$200 used, and a ton of the popular games (e.g., Beat Saber, SuperHot VR, etc) just really aren't that graphically demanding.
The Vive is also compatible with the knuckles controllers and those can be purchased separately, so you're not totally locked out from some of the more game changing stuff either.
This. Unless you have built up sufficiently high profile Facebook fame known inside and out of it, beyond just having a moderately active account, I wouldn’t consider it safe to spend a penny on this.
Really unfortunate that virtually no competitor exists in mobile VR segment.
I agree with the high total cost though. Most people pushing PC VR, will forget about how much a real VR ready PC will cost. It's easy to spend close to $3000 even when people loathed to admit it.
I used to think everyone should learn a programming language just so they can experience its expressive power but more and more I wish they would so they wouldn't get duped by really dumb marketing.
However, capitalism doesn't leave consumers with no options - vote with your wallet!
I did not write what I wrote as a parody. Shareholder primacy is the foremost blight on this modern existence and is responsible for an innumerably large portion of the negative externalities that cause so such much suffering today.
I would vote with my wallet, but that will accomplish exactly jack shit. There are few who will stand with me if it means threatening their pathetically precious creature comforts which our modern capitalism so dutifully provides.
Also, it is worth noting that the entire goal of capitalism is to eliminate those options, using "free-market economics" as cover for its seemingly insatiable lust for competitors to gobble up or otherwise drive out of business. Some of the very first things they teach you in b-school, about moat building and competitive advantages and all that other crap, is an outright attack on the marketplace model
That really works with monopolies! /sarcasm /are-you-serious
Yes, this would cause price increase. But a lot of people would gladly pay for it. The ones who don't want to, could accept a "discount" in exchange for becoming a glass citizens.
Actually, it wouldn't. Facebook makes obscene profits. Rather than be uncompetitive, they'd keep the same price.
If we gave Facebook the choice of stopping stealing from people like this, or getting shut down, they'd do this in a second.
In a sane society, Facebook would have been shut down years ago, after the 2016 election.
I wonder what the world would look like with a independent, trustworthy, non-advertising-based company/organization which provided a similar anti-spam service for free, with the option to publicly tie to verified identities as well. (For all the flack that real-name policies get, they do reduce spam and hate speech by a big margin, so any service which doesn’t verify identity isn’t really a drop-in replacement for FB as far as that news org is concerned)
Did we not see the same studies?
As I recall Google+/YouTube's real name policy came under fire because a large minority of people received substantially more hate speech.
https://adecentralizedworld.com/2020/06/a-trust-and-moderati... - With this, a site or users of the site can choose many trusted moderators from the network and as the system grows it gets better over time.
I did receive a notice that in 2023 the Oculus Account would be deprecated however.
The Quest 2 is amazing and an important leap for VR. If you care about the state of VR, it must sell well.
Frankly, this is not the hill to die on. If you plan to own a smartphone or really use any kind of service or internet browsing in the modern world going forward you’re going to be faced with these kind of privacy dilemmas. Better to just accept it and move on with your life than to basically live like a Luddite for the rest of your life. Facebook will not be the first or last corporation to ask you to relax your absolute anonymity.
If only there were other companies with competing products which would assuage one’s concerns regarding privacy and/or anonymity and guard against Luddite lifestyles.
“Must sell well...hill to die on” feel a bit extreme, particularly given everything that has transpired in 2020.
Isn't the opposite true? If I care about the state of VR as a product free of social media lock-in, I want Oculus to fail hard.
This is absolutely the hill to die on. Oculus has competitors. The answer to save VR isn't to buy Oculus, it's to buy other headsets and hope Oculus dies unless they reverse their decision to require a Facebook account.
I wish that was true. If that was the case, I would've bought a headset from a competitor in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, while there are many competitive VR headsets out there, I cannot recall a single other VR headset that works standalone without a PC.
Not even mentioning the price point of Quest and the fact that it can be used for both PCVR and standalone, thus bringing a superset of features of other headsets. No need to set up lightboxes and being able to just buy the headset and play without anything extra is a value proposition that I don't see any other VR headset can provide.
Hopefully, the success of Quest will provide a kick in the ass to other manufacturers to make their own versions. Imo, the standalone+PCVR combo with no lightboxes is the future, with lightbox PCVR-only headsets being reserved for highly niche uses.
??????
Well, at least you know yourself, but I don't appreciate this attempt to normalize your moral bankruptcy and ridicule others who haven't sold and don't want to sell their soul.
Maybe one day you'll be forced to confront the consequences of this lack of ethics. Until then, kindly fuck right off.
I will put my money somewhere else.
The content on the Quest may not be "desktop fidelity", but my time with the Quest 1 was VERY much enjoyable (especially compared to the Oculus Go), and often preferred over my desktop VR HMD simply for the convenience. And the content was quite good.
By this same metric, the Switch is also plagued with "mobile titles" given it's Android base and Tegra X1 mobile GPU. But most folks DON'T think of it like that, and for good reason: the Switch can keep up just fine in it's own market.
And if the Quest 2 has improved specs in every area over the Quest 1, then it's completely FINE for what it is.
It's just the company behind it fucked up a good thing.
The laws in the US governing privacy and data use have never been updated for the computer age, because the people who have been in power for the whole computer age generally don't understand computers.
Honestly though, the real answer is who knows - it's entirely proprietary information and all we can do on the outside is observe the fact that is does seem to be a pretty flawed detection system and guess at why that is. Does facebook use sentiment analysis of posts or post frequency to ban users they think are fake? Do they look for similar content of posts from different users to try and detect troll farms? I don't know and FB really doesn't want to talk about it.
Other than that, it collects dust compared to your other better mediums that exist.
Because I am
> ask if it ran the flight simulator
I didn't. I said I use Rift with X-Plane.
What is irrelevant is if Quest runs with X-Plane or not, even if it doesn't.
The original subject of this thread was if VR is a gimmick or not. I initially replied that yeah, for some it's a gimmick and for others there is really no alternative. Now we're plenty off topic here :)
Then why ask if the quest runs it?
There are some legitimately good experiences to be had in VR right now. Beat Saber is fun as hell, and SUPERHOT VR is great, from personal experience. However, the hardware is still a bit clunky and asks a lot of the user, and developers are still working out what how to design for it. Unfortunately that means a lot of titles are, in fact, pretty damned gimmicky.
Practical: Mostly, particularly if you already have a gaming computer. It's easy to spend more money on a good quality monitor. Enjoyable: Abso-effing-lutely
Just playing the GTAV VR mod (https://github.com/LukeRoss00/gta5-real-mod) is just something else, whilst not perfect (hell it's a mod on an old game!) it's so fucking sick being in a car chase at 160mph weaving through traffic in VR.
Can VR get a lot better in 5 - 10 years, hell yea, but that's like saying you weren't going to buy an Xbox360 because the Xbox OneX will be out in 10 years.
I played NFS The Run just in big screen mode (with a PS4 controller) and it was pretty nice. But other than VRChat and the occasional movie (3D is nice), I don't use the headset at all.
For the GO you could set your resolution to 1440x1440 in the config file so you get less jaggies and then tone the graphics detail right down (unless you do have a beast of a PC), it's basically because it has to render the game twice, which it was never meant to do and you want to be sticking to around 90fps.
I will say again, it's not perfect, but for what it is, and the fact someone managed to do this as a mod, you can't complain.
If you are going to do it, install the following two mods:
https://www.gta5-mods.com/misc/world-of-variety https://www.gta5-mods.com/vehicles/realistic-top-speed-for-g...
It completely changes how alive the world is.
This also happened to me, had an account 5 years ago, stopped using it, deleted the account on their website. Last week decided to create it again to prepare to eventually link to Oculus.. Instantly banned. Literally on the "Confirm Your Email" page got redirected to violated the community guidelines. And I'm not even from the US..
Accessing Facebook from outside the US is likely, through a combination of bad signals, why you tripped the ban hammer. Unfortunately.
Whether it’s a good idea or not, geolocation is a common factor that these models take into account.
- Active = Normal - Deactivated = Deactivated/Not In-Use/Asked to deactivate - Deleted = After asking for deletion, wait (don't log in) for a period of 60? days and your account is deleted.
In my particular scenario, I downloaded my data, went through deletion, waited the period and then confirmed the account was deleted (5y ago).
Lost access to all info within the account, and other things also. Why not just prevent signup in the first place?!?!
People's definition of "real" is so arbitrary in a way that suits them, but it's no less correct than the answer I provide.
Which is just positively-reinforcing tripe making it harder to do anything remotely outside the "norm" even if your intent is 100% non hostile.
- Teenagers should not be on social networks.
- Teenagers who aren't old enough to vote who want to post political memes - that's like 10x me less caring whether they're banned from Facebook.
I have no problem with the ban.
However, Facebook should separate out its identity service from its social networking service. It might make more money doing this because more people would stick to its services. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to authenticate with a Facebook account even though Facebook deems me unworthy of participating in its social network.
Imagine USA moderation of Facebook consists only of pro Trump's fans with power instant ban Your account.
So I started migrating the few apps I used FB logins from, (spotify), then stopped using google login because of facebook. Taught me, not to trust these companies with my 3rd party accounts THAT I PAY FOR.
As well as the "We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed" bullshit. For every ban they should be required to issue a very specific clarification on why exactly were you banned and let you to speak to a real person.
Oh, your driver's license is only available as an app for a device you just got permabanned from. I guess you're not a citizen anymore.
My health care provider is now asking users to move away from physical credentials to use an app. I am livid.
Yes, the current Oculus / Facebook situation sucks.
However, blanket statements like "Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed." Would ban very legitimate products such as Amazon's physical buttons for restocking supplies.
Sure the Dash buttons are discontinued, but there's definitely an interesting area of products that might be developed in the coming years for other products in this wide domain.
OK, rephrase it slightly and say that it must not require an online account from a specific provider. If I can come up with an API endpoint that I want to use instead of Amazon, and I want to reconfigure my Dash button to use it, I should be legally and technically allowed to do so.
The regulation doesn't need to ban any categories of products, or mandate any features. It just needs to say that if your product depends on online connectivity for a significant part of its functionality, then it must not employ technical measures to prevent interoperability. Hardware that's sold to consumers already needs to meet various compliance standards, such as RF emissions testing; this doesn't seem like a heavy burden in comparison.
Of course, such a policy is very unlikely to be enacted in the US any time soon, but hey, I can dream.
Some people seem to believe Internet is the new electricity. Even if this is so, electricity doesn't have colour - only voltage, amperage and frequency. My toaster doesn't restrict me to use only electricity from a specific power plant. I can power it up even from a car battery, if I tinker with it a little. Similarly, a device like the Dash button should use whatever endpoint that implements the required API, and not be restricted to a specific provider.
Wouldn't impact its intended use case at all. Other than the fact that it could now be used for something useful I guess...
Those weren't innovations, those were solutions in search of a problem. Probably contributed to their discontinuation. Also, what "innovation" of the past 20 years has been truly innovative, life-changing, and a net positive for humanity? Pretty much everything that has come out of Silicon Valley has been at best neutral for society (creating new markets and revenue for businesses aren't a positive in my eyes).
We need to stop pulling the "stifling innovation" card. Not stifling innovation has led us to society's cancerous relationship with technology.
But if you can ban me from using a piece of hardware that I bought then you should be required to refund me and pay shipping for the return.
GDPR requires that algorithmic decisions get this kind of oversight. GDPR is the way to get redress here.
Make a law that requires them to give you a full refund for all hardware that you can’t use and all software purchased over the lifetime of the account.
That will make them incur a cost that makes it worthwhile for them to be more careful.
Edit: Downstream commenters make a good point. You'd have to put in a formula for "depreciation" of the refund, so you can't just get a refund years later.
Ensuring it can be used without an online account is actually reasonable.
If this was the law, then companies would change the way their products work or the way they ban people. Instead of banning, on Facebook, they would prevent the user from posting and interacting with other users. You would in essence get a very nice advert-only feed but not banned.
I don't see how that doesn't indicate that outlawing a requirement for an account is so much more preferable.
Yes. They should be able to ban you from their online platform if you misuse it and don't behave yourself but they shouldn't have a right to brick the device you've bought, no matter what you do.
Since we are talking about online games, the topic of how to deal with people caught cheating (as in using third party cheating tools) comes to mind. It is typical to ban those people. If a ban was synonymous with a refund, there is little incentive to not cheat.
If the law allowed for exceptions like this (e.g. banned with cause), then it'd be pretty hollow as the company is also the final arbiter of what cause is.
It is possible I am missing something though as this is not something I have put a lot of thought into.
For the cheating exception, I don't think it would be a problem. Most of those games have subscriptions, so there wouldn't be a lot to refund.
I like jedberg's depreciation idea, too. Maybe a combination of these answers all scenarios.
The bigger problem is that no individual would have any realistic hope of successfully suing facebook to prove unjust account termination.
[0] https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer-topics/buyin...
Sellers should not be able to take away goods after the sell; that's pretty much universally understood as theft.
That way for things that may well suit having linked account - fine, but not curtailing that avenue. Basicly making having it linked to an on line account - optional via consumer choice, as it should always be.
You have just outlawed Roku. An online account is required to make it work, because that's how it was designed to work. It's a rather useless device without the online account.
I would choose to disagree on this concept; from a business perspective, the hardware engineering design going into making the device has a targeted purpose from the outset, and is (cost) subsidized by that company specifically for their service (meaning, they could take a loss on the hardware and make up for it on the Service). Roku and RSA are extracting money for their service, not for their hardware - just like the Amazon Prime TV stick, or imagine if you will a Netflix stick made and sold by Netflix directly. The value to these companies is your service fee month over month, not the hardware they're providing - the hardware is just a delivery vehicle.
That does not mean the devices cannot technically do something other than what their primary intended purpose is; the alternative "TV in a box" projects can run on things like an Amazon Stick with a bit of work (I did it myself to mine, was neat to play with) just that it's not their primary purpose from the OEM. So can you use a RSA key without RSA? Maybe, but that's not what our primary argument is about here. The GP to this thread stated:
> Hardware requiring an online account to work must be outlawed.
This is what I'm discussing - the GP would have the government require a device which is designed to work with a very particular online service be able to work... without their service. "Netflix, your Netflix TV stick which is designed to work with the Netflix service must also be able to work without Netflix service." That is what the GP is proposing be made a law, which I very much don't agree with - it literally ignores the entire point for the existence for certain types of hardware such as a Netflix TV stick.
My YubiKey works just fine without an RSA account, go figure
The dirty secret of the Internet - going back decades - is that it's concept of moderation mostly relies upon unstated or understated rules half-enforced and adjudicated by volunteers or underpaid contractors with the power of judge, jury, and executioner. This is arguably by design: the vast majority of what moderators are dealing with is spam, which has the properties of being cheap to execute and difficult to filter for. Hence, anti-spam efforts are swift and merciless. More modern efforts to deal with things like foreign election interference and fake news are arguably extensions of this same ongoing effort to summarily hang and execute spammers.
Facebook is not alone in this either: Google's done it from the very beginning and their death penalty stings far harder. There's a few exceptions to this, such as Wikipedia's ArbCom or other collaborative Free Software projects with code-of-conduct rules and moderator transparency. However, even those platforms will summarily execute spammers.
Those paying customers are already incredibly unlikely to be spammers. They cannot be handled the same way free accounts are.
I imagine our existing consumer-protection laws were passed over the opposition of monied interests. If so, I wonder how close we are to having the political will do to do that again.
Anybody with a mobile phone (as well as a plethora of other products) has inevitably agreed to dozens of pages of legal doctrine which they don't understand, any probably wouldn't without a competent lawyer on hand. But nevertheless, every minor service update, we all hit "I Accept", despite having no understanding of what we've agreed to.
Is this not massively problematic? What happens if a company actually tries to draw significant action against consumers using the terms of service as their contract?
Staying away from anything facebook related.
Yeah, I think part of the problem is that Facebook has never had an actual product which people pay for and expect to work. Their whole culture and set of priorities are counter to this.
God help us all .
Same but with our Jenkins builds, which appear to be entirely non-deterministic. "Perhaps the praying will help," I think to myself as I create my PR.
I mean. It still is.
This is a reason why better education for all is the way forward for humanity.
People got so upset about the Catholic church selling the right to bend the divine rules that one guy wrote an extremely angry listicle, made a viral post on a church door, and the rest is history. And centuries of sectarian warfare.
(Seriously, most of the 95 theses are about indulgences: https://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html )
Of course there is a discussion to have about incentivizing the _wrong_ behavior (the need to create publicity around issues that shouldn't exist in the first place / only people with "clout" become the ones who get their issues resolved).
[At a party] A: What do you do? B: I work for $BIGTECH. A: You suck dude. I bought one of their products and it never worked once.
People on HN are not really strangers, we are part of a community. By helping one of us, they help one of their in groups. Not helping might devalue their investment in this place.
HN users are the early adopters that small group of users who have much more influence early on in projects. Care of early adopters makes sense.
Bigger companies seem not to care that much, apart from maybe twitter? And those few thousand upvote posts on reddit.
They wouldn't allow just any employee to "fix" these issues. Too often there is a lot of context that is omitted from the shared story, so it's not just a matter of hitting a button to remove a block.
Also, "I helped a member of the public defeat my organisation's policy" is a negative on the resume not a positive. Sadly.
When the coin in the coffer rings / An account from bannination springs!
What about the 99.9% of the rest who don't have those contacts?
I cannot afford to ignore 0.01% of incoming requests because we charge per request. At a certain point, yes, money and pros and cons yadda yadda yadda. It just feels that, once again, people are saying, "but Google does it!" -- and that does not mean you should.
I'd say the biggest problem it the non-existent support. It's fine if 0.01% fails, as long as there is human troubleshooting or help available if necessary.
If 100% of users are experiencing 0.01% random errors it probably isn't worth bothering about.
If 0.01% of users are experiencing 100% errors than it is much more important.
[1] https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi20/presentation/hauer
Oh, please, you are confused. I worked at Google, most teams just don’t have metrics like this.
While I don’t think it’s acceptable, reality is that it’s expensive to compute such metric, i.e. you need to slice you monitoring stream per each user, has privacy implications, and often it’s unclear what action should be taken.
https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds for example says (from a seller's point of view) that "Customers have up to 6 years to make a claim for an item they’ve bought from you (5 years in Scotland)."
However I see no reason that you couldn't sue the manufacturer if they arrange to break your product even after six years. That would be a tort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort) and unrelated to your rights under your contract of sale.
I am not sure about the UK and how they implement the directives. But in Denmark it is most definitely not an urban myth.
I recommend creating a separate account if you have no other options.
I've never bought anything from the Oculus store. I honestly only use VR for Skybox and movies I download to a file server.
Are there any alternative OSes for the GO? Honestly I'd rather just get off the stock OS if I just had a way to play my movies.
Now, instead of buying the Quest 2 (which is unquestionably the best-value headset available today) I'm waiting for a competitor to enter the space.
Imagine if your desktop monitor would only turn on when synced to an active account on a social media platform. If you decide to leave that platform, or if that platform decides you aren't providing enough invasive information about yourself and decides to leave you, you've got an expensive paperweight. No warning or recourse. No thank you.
We are rapidly heading towards this future and SV devs are decrying it on HN while helping implement it in the background to pad their wallets.
Yes there are people who think they need a big house in the bay area or need a Tesla, but that doesn't mean they have no other options but to work at Twitter or Facebook.
I was talking less about people who are Facebook employees and more about people who are Accenture / Cognizant / Infosys / etc employees or contractors, who get subcontracted to do work at Facebook or wherever else. They just have to convince a fresh college grad or visa applicant to sign say a 2-year contract, and that person may not realize quite what they're signing until they're put on a project
Edit: I wasn't trying to disagree with you if it sounded like I was. I meant this as "in addition to what you said" not "instead of what you said"
However, I don't believe it's a user-friendly product decision to tightly couple FB's VR hardware to its social media platform. It's yet another push towards a walled garden, much like Google's AMP and Apple's app store.
Eh...I'd hand that title to Valve.
I believe $300 inside-out tracking wireless headsets are much more likely to push VR out of the "trough of disillusionment" and into the mainstream.
Welcome to your new Samsung SmartTV.
Anyways, this has nothing to do with your issue. Facebook should be ashamed for treating paying customers like this.
Yeah, this sucks. But mistaken account deactivations probably happen a lot - how to handle them is one of the FAQ questions on Oculus. It happened to me with my PlayStation 4 account too; someone in Germany mistakenly signed up using my email address somehow and in the resulting confusion I got locked out of my PlayStation games for a bit. It sucks but support will eventually fix it.
That’s important because I believe the revenue generating model is entirely from data. Even if I’m wrong, it’s Facebook, so we know they’re after data for profit.
And consider the kind of data that VR is capable of collecting. It’s biometric data at its core. If you take the data involved in VR, tie it to a person under the real-name policy, and give it to some crafty software engineers, you can get some crazy intimate results.
They shot themselves in the foot by having this FB account requirement.
https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/30/5563440/john-carmack-face...
Much of the backlash regarding the acquisition has centered on Facebook's business model — data mining and advertising. This isn't a concern for Carmack, who says he "just can't get very worked up about it ." While he appreciates the need for privacy, "the idea that companies are supposed to interact with you and not pay attention has never seemed sane to me ... I rather like the recommendations that Amazon gives me on each visit. Educate me. What terrible outcome is expected from this?"
So actually he was fine with this from the start? And while he is moving on to AI and whatnot, he is still currently employed by Oculus, which leads me to believe this is his stance today.
I don't know how to feel about it. Even if you look past the privacy issues, he has engineered a product with hardware DRM! It just a shit product.
Of course he doesn’t get worked up because if his assistant calls for support on anything they get routed to the VIP support system and a team of people spring into action to solve the problem for him.
People like Carmack don’t have to use the shitty systems they’re building, so they don’t care. He’s just another rich asshole IMO.
Support did restore it, eventually. I got the impression it was a one time mercy. This was back in 2010 so their policies may have changed.
"This account has been disabled as a gift subscription that you recently accepted in your account has been reported as fraudulent. The subscription has been removed. We will make an exception in your case and reactivate the account at this time. Please refrain from accepting Steam gifts from unknown sources in the future."
Putting risk on buyers of "stolen goods" is normal, so I wasn't upset at Steam for that part. But having the entire account impacted is another story.
Only large-scale fraud would get you banned, and even then I doubt they would disable your account entirely and not just disable future purchasing.
Someone PLEASE make a privacy-first (i.e. "NORMAL") headset with similar specs to the Quest 2 - you can charge more for all I care.
This would work really well for SideQuest, since that would give them greater control over new features they can ship.
Sidenote, I got my quest 2 yesterday and from a hardware standpoint, it's blown me away coming from PSVR. Too bad the Facebook nonsense keeps it from being a must have product.
No, this isn't new, more people are just seeing it now since they just expanded the market of users.
It has been like this for years: If you go out of your way to create an account disconnected from a social graph so that it doesn't creepily alert people that would have saved your number/email and uploaded all their contacts in the past, Facebook will ban the account within 10 minutes.
Somebody's inevitable rebuttal: "Yeah but my grandma just made an account and didn't get banned"
Okay, good for you. The described reality here is also valid.
To make it not ban the account you can upload a contact photo and try to friend request multiple people in a social graph. The time limit is very short and you will otherwise very quickly get instabanned or stuck in a security verification loop where the verification never comes.
This is just creepy Facebook behavior for their data mining operation, now masquaraded as "ensuring quality of accounts". This is the same behavior as when they use insecure SMS one time passwords instead of client side code generation, and then use that phone number to add it to the social graph.
Their behavior is very consistent and there is no one individual there responsible for it and even understands the use case.
In this case, this is just another byproduct of Facebook employees living in the warped reality where everyone loves the Facebook product and has it. They honestly believe it there and you should see how confused and affronted they will act when you tell them you don't have an account.
This is just a byproduct of that sentiment.