> Why do you think it would look anything like what we currently consider social networking? Why are people so painfully short-sighted?

Why do you think the fact that "next-gen" social networking will look different excuses three massive friction points of VR (buying the VR gear, buying a decent computer, and strapping on an ungainly headset)?

It's not short-sighted to see problems, it's short-sighted to ignore them. Unless you have a reason to think you can. Do you?

> I have said many times that facebook won the social network wars long before google even released google+.

I don't see how that's remotely relevant.

> Anything that comes along to kill facebook will look nothing like what we consider social networking today.

You're wandering in circles, still not addressing the friction problem. VR has huge friction points and dubious value-add outside gaming. Either argue that the friction isn't as bad as we think or argue that the value-add is larger.

"The sensation of 'being there' is so powerful that it will make 'virtual family gatherings' possible in a way that video conferencing and facebook haven't"

That's an argument (albeit not one I'm convinced by). See the difference?

>It's not short-sighted to see problems, it's short-sighted to ignore them. Unless you have a reason to think you can. Do you?

And the history of technology has shown that these "friction points" never last. Why do you think this will be any different? Short-sightedness.

>You're wandering in circles, still not addressing the friction problem.

That statement was to set up the point that Facebook is so forward thinking here that they might be the one to create their own killer. Stop being an ass.

> And the history of technology has shown that these "friction points" never last.

Only the history of technology as understood by someone who puts blinders on to focus on success stories alone. Selection bias.

Do you know when the first hydrogen fuel-cell was built? 1851. Before the American Civil War. It took a century to figure out how to get them to output significant power before they found an application on the Apollo missions. It has been another 50 years and nobody has solved the H2 storage problem yet. AI has a bunch of problems that are like this but on a shorter time scale if you want a CS-related example.

These aren't isolated incidents; the history of technology sees a constant stream of people hurling themselves against Hard Problems and consistently failing to solve them until someone with the right combination of specialization, drive, timing, and strategy cracks the case. The people that succeed invariably attribute their success to "not letting conventional thinking hold us back," but that's a load of feel-good nonsense, as evidenced by the long string of "forward-thinking" failures that everyone likes to ignore.

There may be a steady trickle of breakthroughs coming out the end of the pipeline, but that doesn't mean you can point to a droplet anywhere in the pipe and say "it's about to come out!"

While I don't disagree with any of the facts you've stated here, its mostly irrelevant to the original point of contention. Facebook bought Occulus because they believe in the future of this technology and they believe in the company. If these pain points still persist, they simply will not release a product using it. They did not acquire Occulus for the technology they currently produce, but for what they will produce in the future. It is simply incorrect to evaluate the potential of this pairing by what the technology currently is.

The problem with VR is that the friction point occurs as soon as you have to put something on your face.

This isn't so bad if you're a gamer, or you're at home and wanting to experience some entertainment (similar to wearing headphones). But I can't see this style of VR changing the computing landscape the same way mobile computers have.

So if Facebook comes up with VR that doesn't involve covering your eyes, that's great. But that has little to nothing to do with what they acquired in Oculus.

The fact that every VR example given by Facebook so far sounds super contrived (seeing a virtual doctor, really?) doesn't give me hope that they know where VR can be really effective — a small subset of entertainment.

> Why do you think it would look anything like what we currently consider social networking? Why are people so painfully short-sighted?

Even if it's the same as putting on a pair of sunglasses, it's still too much for me.

If it's a matter of me just closing my eyes and experiencing what I want, then I agree with you. But I don't think that's even the same direction as the VR we are discussing.

Edit: I misunderstood, I thought you were talking about improvements to VR hardware.

However, seeing social networking and VR mesh together — even some hypothetical social networking of the future — seems an odd direction to me. VR is very inhuman in terms of the physical experience, social networking is very brief and notification oriented. I can't see the two a match.

VR is great, I use it and love playing with it. I don't want it to be involved in my social experiences unless it's the following: inviting people around to try cool VR demos while watching what they are experiencing on a large screen, that is fun.

HN is a profoundly conservative community. It's not always obvious, but the horizon here is often very close.