Last fall, Meta-formerly-Facebook unveiled its Meta Quest Pro, a long-rumored, higher-end follow-up to the company's best-selling Quest 2 VR headset. The sleek device, which initially went on sale for an eye-watering $1,500, has really struggled to catch on since then, just as we predicted at the time. And, as Mixed Reality News reports, Meta is […]

Facebook’s VR Headset Not Selling, Literally Giving It Away::Last fall, Meta-formerly-Facebook unveiled its Meta Quest Pro, a long-rumored, higher-end follow-up to the company’s best-selling Quest 2 VR headset. The sleek device, which initially went on sale for an eye-watering $1,500, has really struggled to catch on since then, just as we predicted at the time. And, as Mixed Reality News reports, Meta is […]

  • phx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    277·
    1 year ago

    Meh. If they’ve still got some free ones to give out I’ll take it.

    But in all seriousness, the Quest 2 is pretty good hardware, especially for the price. The problem is that Meta tried to build an ecosystem around monetization and then bring people in, rather than building something that appeals to most people and still allows them to profit. Kinda the opposite of the Facebook model really, which became a defacto online community and kinda kept the monetization a little quieter or behind the scenes for a long time

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      1 year ago

      They could release the best possible VR hardware that puts your body into a dream state and allows you to experience things fully in VR for $99 and I still wouldn’t touch it if meta, fb, or zuckberg has anything to do with it.

    • luciferofastoraEnglish
      111·
      1 year ago

      I wonder: Did the people who successfully pulled off the Facebook strategy get replaced by dumber, greedier ones, did they get overruled by dumber, greedier decision-makers, did they get overconfident and thought their current market position would let Meta get away with it, or did they get lucky in the first place and fail to take any notes on why it worked?

      Corporations tend to run on “if it works, why change?” so mixing up your entire strategy to this degree seems like it must’ve been a deliberate decision. I’m just curious who made that decision, and by what reasoning.

      • LazaroFilm@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        Now they have to show rising numbers to shareholders quarterly. They can’t play the long game anymore. They need results every quarter, even if it sinks the company on the long run.

        • luciferofastoraEnglish
          92·
          1 year ago

          Capitalism was a mistake. The only innovation it breeds is how to exploit things for money.

          • LazaroFilm@lemmy.worldEnglish
            71·
            1 year ago

            It works when the company is growing. But when it has reached 100% of their potential users, the only growth is greed and that’s where it fails.

            • luciferofastoraEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              One of my favourite song lyrics regarding this is “wild growth is called cancer”* - growing is fine, but if you need to keep growing to sate investors’ demands for more and more profit, you end up doing more harm than good.

              The song is in German by a band named “Saltatio Mortis” (Latin: Dance of the Dead) called “Wachstum über alles” (German: Growth above all). You can probably guess the topic from this context.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        or did they get lucky in the first place and fail to take any notes on why it worked?

        Yes.