I am already getting heat from users and media outlets who say this policy change proves I was lying when I consistently said this wouldn't happen, or at least that it was a guarantee I wasn't in a position to make. I want to make clear that those promises were approved by Facebook in that moment and on an ongoing basis, and I really believed it would continue to be the case for a variety of reasons. In hindsight, the downvotes from people with more real-world experience than me were definitely justified.
A few examples below so people won't make up their own version of what I actually said:
- I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift.
- You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift
- Nope. That would be lame.
- I promise.
I'd like to believe him, but it is pretty hard to do so given the historic record of acquisitions to date.
For me the heuristic is simple: I won't believe a word a CEO that is selling his company says about what will happen post deal. They are no longer in control and should know better.
I don't want to assume bad intent, but I find it hard to believe that someone could be so naive about the project and the organization controlling it.
It's gotta be hard to be a founder in a situation like this.
> I'm mostly surprised that they haven't done this with Whatsapp or Instagram thus far, but they are doing it for Oculus accounts.
> > As of a few days ago, they're starting the process of moving Instagram DMs to Messenger, requiring a FB account. So, they are.
> > > The people I know in product at Facebook are certain it is an inevitability for their entire portfolio. That's second-party hearsay, so take it as you will, but it's my operating understanding that is their long term (multi-year) goal.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ic4ye1/new_oculus_u...
They aren't done with a wink and a nudge, but everyone knows that they're bullshit, it lets the entrepreneur maintain his public image while letting the carnivore devour its meal in due course.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his [possible billions] depends upon his not understanding it.
I absolutely believe his post here. He was young and naive and believed the lies from the Facebook executives. Completely understandable and I hope this doesn't make people think he's a liar.
If anyone purchased the device relying upon Palmer Luckey's promises, that could be promissory estoppel.
(Not a lawyer, etc etc.)
All that went out the window once the company was bought for 19B, sure both founders left a few years later, but their statements were false after the sale.
If it is not it's only because the current government judicial system is so full of spam-cases and it is so inefficient that it doesn't have room for these things.
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucksIf someone advertised a device as capable of doing X without it in fact being able to do X, they'd be liable for false advertising.
If someone sold you a device, then took it back or destroyed it, they'd be liable for theft or destruction of property.
Nevertheless, if someone sells you a connected device and then completely alters the rules by which the device operates at an arbitrary point in time after the sell, that's perfectly fine.
Have we really given up basic consumer rights that easily?
Well, yes. I don't know if you've noticed, but short-term convenience trumps all other concerns. The market can't really deal with these issues, because they are too subtle and expensive for individuals to work out for themselves. We really do need collective action, by way of regulation, similar to how we recognized as a society that workplace safety laws were not something private businesses were ever going to compete on, and we just needed to force them to comply. And no doubt the same howls of protest let loose then, too, about how "the extra costs will put me out of business", etc. It was then, as it is now, hogwash.
And in fact I would argue this kind of regulation not only important for consumers, but for national security. As more and more individuals lives become dependent on centralized information infrastructure, the more damage espionage (foreign or domestic) can do, not to mention the effect of wide-scale DoS attacks. Imagine a world where all smart devices are bricked...so much of the old infrastructure is gone - phones, phone books, maps, manuals. In some cases you might not even be able to vacuum your house (Roomba owners), or make a POTS phone call.
So yeah, its bad on multiple fronts, and I fear that the correcting event will be catastrophic (like, supply chain catastrophic, leading to starvation).
This has worked for;
- Consumer devices (cloud support dropped within the lifetime of the device, features dropped likely as a cost saving measure to the manufacturer)
- Software (features removed or culled after buying)
- Smart TVs (claiming support for different platforms)
- Gaming consoles (OtherOS on PS3)
This usually hurts the retailer - they don't want to risk going after the manufacturer because they want to sell their products. I've been banned from buying from one store after returning a product and then posting about it publicly, many others returned as well when they realised it was possible - I can assume some took advantage of this fact as a "I paid full price for this 1.5 years ago, it's now worth 50% less, I can return it and buy a better model from somewhere else" endeavour.
Is there anything I can do as a mere consumer to lobby for my rights?
Sonos was a hair short of bricking their old devices a few months ago, then backtracked after getting a lot of fire from their customers.
I'm wondering if this would be true for larger companies / acquisitions though. Would they have done the same if purchased by Google or Facebook?
I bought a bunch of switches because the offered local control and no account needed, now an account is required to set up anything new and local control is apparently going away. I’m now wary of anything that needs a proprietary app at all which would give them the ability to do this in the first place.
You usually agree to a EULA that allows them to do that. If you cannot agree to the EULA then you return the product.
Now, I will give full credit that no one reads those, but Legality doesn't care if you fail to do due diligence.
sometimes things get bricked, other times they get new features for free
teslas couldn't self-drive and then, one OTA update later, they could
companies release security updates
society doesn't know how to regulate OTA; change is sometimes bad for users but not always.
- (2014) Facebook acquires Oculus: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237
- (2016) Oculus's privacy policy sparks concern: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410809
Oculus responds to privacy concerns about user tracking (https://uploadvr.com/facebook-oculus-privacy/) saying
> Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future.
- (2019) If logged into Facebook, Oculus data may be used for ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21770752
From their official statement:
> If you choose not to log into Facebook on Oculus, we won’t share data with Facebook to allow third parties to target advertisements to you based on your use of the Oculus Platform.
- (2020): Facebook accounts are now required.
None of this is particularly surprising, lots of people (even in the press) were calling out how this was going to evolve. But it's still interesting to look back 6 years and see what the initial reactions were and what people were most concerned about.
The takeaways:
- data silos are always temporary
- companies think on a larger timeline than just 2 years in advance
- this kind of thing nearly always gets executed as a slow boil. Facebook didn't buy Oculus and immediately require an account and start advertising to users. But I don't believe for one second that Mark wasn't thinking it at the time.
Or is it just that the end goal is to advertise in VR, and the acquisition was a grasp at a dystopian daydream?
I came to Oculus with eyes wide open knowing it was a Facebook company, but this news still sucks.
However - supposedly your oculus account will be valid until the end of 2022 [0]. At that point you could change to a newer hardware platform from another manufacturer.
[0] https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-facebook-account-required-ne...
I've also spent a bit of money on Rift games. This is angering.
I'll buy one of them from you for $300 or the pair for $500. That seems like the going price? Contact is in my profile, let me know.
Not that he knows. https://theconversation.com/shadow-profiles-facebook-knows-a...
Then your purchases and stuff are lost too, I guess as WebXR matures though maybe there will be some great apps you can just pay directly for on the web, but I feel like if rumors of Apple making a headset they'll just skip WebXR and force the app store... I know other headsets including the Oculus supports WebXR but sorta feels like it's a conflict of interest to their own stores to me so wonder how much more advanced it'll get.
If Apple's device can't run them will that be significant in their adoption?
On topic, it's a reason not to own an FB VR device as I really don't want FB knowing which apps I run (nor do I want Apple knowing which apps I run for that matter)
Your social credit goes down, of course
Don't support Facebook ever, they don't deserve it.
Incidentally here is a comment I made recently about the bullshit they pulled on my wife and I relating to creating a business listing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23959088
Ugh. I guess Facebook is making a play to become the Steam/XBox Live of VR. Why can't we just have gaming peripherals anymore without some kind of platform tie-in?
As someone who prefers to play games alone, it's frustrating. The first five minutes after installing Steam is a constantly stream of "stfu and stop shoving game release/update/sale announcements in my face", "gtfo with the popup messages that a friend is playing a game", "wtf? why are you auto-logging me into the messenger", "no, I don't consent to you building a hardware inventory of my machine and using it for internal stats", and "jfc, please just leave me alone and let me play some games".
It's almost enough to make me buy a shack in Montana and support the post office.
Just imagine eye tracking tech in VR headsets. What a trove of data for advertisers! Did the user see may ad? For how long? Etc.
I hadn't imagined that before writing this, but they could do the exact same thing in the real world with AR. Did you spend some time looking at that car? You are interested in cars. Spending some time in the garden? Watching birds? Running? Etc. What's better than an always-on, always-ouside device which you use as a proxy to see things, and request information? MITM TLS (which Google technically does with Chrome) becomes useless if you just have access to the eyes.
In a world where everyone has a service subscription or a data hose to subsidize their hardware (see: most phones, game consoles, kitchen appliances, "smart assistants"), it's very difficult to be competitive just making hardware.
Given that the Oculus Quest is effectively a flagship phone with a strap attached to it at ~1/10 the sales volume of a flagship phone (rough figures: [0] [1]), it would be very difficult to even pay engineering expenses without a secondary income stream enabled by a) real-identity advertisement targeting/data sucking and b) ecosystem lock-in.
[0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Galaxy-S20-series-sales-number... [1] https://arinsider.co/2020/05/25/data-dive-has-oculus-sold-80...
Steam is already the Steam of VR, btw. They have the flagship title (Alyx) and Oculus exclusives aren't necessarily compelling enough to make it a deal breaker.
This was the whole oculus spirit since the beginning.
I take it you don't have any Razer devices.
And it's incredibly creepy. Movement just feels like an extremely intimate piece of data.
Just don't get why they're doing this at this point, I'd understand if they had iPhone level sales but although the Quest is selling great it's not there yet and it seems a misstep to push everyone into FB from it so soon lots of people will be turned off by the idea. Forcing the tens of thousand Oculus holdouts and saving a handful of engineering salaries surely can 't be worth the bad press and harm to the growing platform
Hope the 4 people who bought Quests after playing mine don’t whinge to me about this.
This doesn't feel like an act of Facebook as a whole. They should be thinking long term, big picture. Zuckerberg seems to have an image of Neuromancer's Matrix in his head, and we ain't there yet. He'd definitely take this step but I wouldn't think he'd do it until he more solidly owns VR.
What I see here is a senior manager type, maybe a VP or a bit below it, who needs numbers that go dramatically up and to the right in the short term and is thinking about their own personal success. They'd be the ones to say "how do we turn this acquisition into Facebook-measurable success metrics so we can prove that we're worth all this spending? Ah, yes, mandate Facebook logins, great idea, do it."
Valve and HTC VR are far superior. Quest is selling great because it's a standalone, but the resolution is poor and it's pretty buggy. Mine crashes at some point in about 33% of sessions. Oculus store has a very limited selection of games, and their recommendation engine is laughably bad ("Did you like Beatsaber? maybe you'll like a roller coaster simulator"). Casting from the Quest barely functions and disconnects frequently. Thank god for Sidequest, or I'd already have upgraded to Valve Index.
In what way do you think Oculus is superior?
I take this as a negative indicator of how things are going for Facebook. I don’t see any synergy with oculus other than that both products have users. Maybe that is enough from a business standpoint, but I feel forcing login to Facebook is going to kill oculus adoption, it isn’t like 6 years ago, there are viable alternatives if you want a VR rig. It just looks and feels desperate to me.
I'm hoping you are right, but I feel like the average consumer is not so privacy aware and wouldn't mind using Facebook as their login. It's probably even more convenient since they already have a Facebook account and don't need to create an additional account for Oculus.
A (very patient) student of mine tried to install the oculsu software on a current thinkpad for 4 days in a row. It always failed for various reasons. She used a current Windows 10 and her computer definitly has the specs. She even reinstalled windows. In the end there was an electron error, which we sent to the support - we never got a reply.
If you can avoid Oculus, do so at all cost.
"The HP Reverb G2 does not require a Facebook account today or in 2023."
https://www.reddit.com/r/HPReverb/comments/ic93cn/for_anyone...
I guess we will wait to see what Apple and Microsoft now do in the space since Facebook and Google both seem to have (inexplicably) bowed out of the race.
> Using a VR profile that is backed by a Facebook account and authentic identity helps us protect our community and makes it possible to offer additional integrity tools. For example, instead of having a separate Oculus Code of Conduct, we will adopt Facebook’s Community Standards as well as a new additional VR-focused policy. This will allow us to continue to take the unique considerations of VR into account while offering a more consistent way to report bad behavior, hold people accountable, and help create a more welcoming environment across our platforms. And as Facebook adds new privacy and safety tools, Oculus can adopt and benefit from them too.
Isn't oculus just some kind of display device? Last time I've checked LG and Samsung doesn't really policy what kind of content I'm using their monitors for.
http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-rea...
This action feels really connected to the coming Horizon virtual world thing -- which coincidentally is also predicted in the blog post linked above.
A week ago, I tried to sign up for Facebook in order to buy some ads[1]. With nothing remarkable about the account or metadata[2], the first page I saw after the signup form was
> Your Account Has Been Disabled. You can't use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, didn't follow our Community Standards.
That page was shown immediately after the signup form. I jumped through their hoops of providing an SMS-able phone number, then a photo, and a few days later got this final result:
> Your Account Has Been Disabled. You can't use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, didn't follow our Community Standards. We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed."
Again, there's no activity on the account because I never saw any FB pages, let alone used it. I'm not concerned - I cancelled my personal account back in 2013 and never looked back, and other than wanting to buy some public-service ads, I still have no interest in it. I sure would care if I had an Oculus, though.
[1]: Because Twitter prohibits or applies extra terms to many types of issue/advocacy ads, and while I applaud their approach, those of us running public-service campaigns get stuck in unpredictable policy enforcement.
[2]: Signing up from a residential Comcast US IP that I'm the only user/client on, using an email address at a domain I own, am the only user on, has been registered for 10+ years, etc.
Isn't this just a phishing scam? This should be illegal.
I purchased these devices with the promise that I would not need a Facebook account, and I do not have one..
Off topic, but my favorites are the Star Wars Vader Immortal Trilogy, Racket Ball, and Ping Pong.
If anything, Facebook's VR effort is just there in case someone else comes up with a VR or AR threat to Facebook.
"Want to print a page on your locally, USB-Connected printer? Log in at hp.com".
‘the occulus is for jumping in a facebook world to visit your family’
I can buy that, if they refund current owners who don’t want that...
At least this gives me enough time to sell my Oculus and buy from another company.
Well, that's a things from the past with hardware it seems. Effective obsolescence through corporate policy.
I deleted FB for a reason and it will stay that way.
A shame that their shitty growth hacking position will contribute more e-waste to the environment unless the headset can be fully jailbroken.
Realistically I’ll probably sell the quest, stick to buying steam games from now on, and buy a headset from a different company as soon as they get a wireless headset.
Complain as much as you want about Steam, at least they are a games store and store only.
I don't know why anyone would buy games from the Oculus store.
I don't want to create a fake Facebook account. I want my own back.
I'm sorry for the following statement. Deal with it. You want shiny new products and technology. You develop new magical technology. You write insightful and groundbreaking scientific papers. Why are you dependent on investors, publishers and giant tech-firms? They exist because of you, because you need them. And they know that. So, please, rid yourself of the illusion that your product/paper can only survive if you give it away to someone with power and influence. You give away power, for money, that's why Facebook, Apple, Google got so powerful in the first place. It's your fault. Deal with it, you can do better than that.
It's bad enough having a Google account and all that encompasses.
It is astonishing that another company would require an account on some other system. Now I don't have a problem with allowing using your Google, Facebook, etc. account as a convenience to authenticate your account on some other service.
Also, forcing people for no real reason to create (or use) an account on a platform they hate is revolting. No everybody wants to use a social network to share with "friends" their gaming habits, or to play local games.
That Oculus had better have some pretty special pixels, if they need a network connection to even be visible.
I'm assume their tethered display devices will still work without an account, assuming you don't want to use their store/apps.
I also now many other people who think the same.
Goodby, I'm happy I hadn't yet time to but an Oculus product.
Quest is a great device, but I don't think my next VR headset will be an Oculus.
I might consider creating a brand new, singleton account to use it, but to be honest my gut reaction is that if they do not have a non-Facebook login, I will just _not_ use it.
Facebook TOS prohibits making multiple personal accounts. So one might assume company one works for then provides a company account as using the civilian account is not really a good thing.
If they mandate using the real civilian one then it’s maybe a good reason to finally ”close” it by removing all friends and photos. It’s just a dev account for oculus then.
The fact that Facebook had not made this move actually had a significant impact on me in assessing their overall "evil" factor for other services. Now that they have, I'm left owning a Quest and looking for another platform to move to over the next few years. I hope the competition steps up because the Quest has really nailed everything important about VR.
he's just a consultant now but you can bet he's been disillusioned by all of this.
Link: https://uploadvr.com/john-carmack-i-intend-to-stay-at-facebo...
I mean, what if a furniture company just decided to break into your house, reupholster your couch and remove some of the pillows? (Or I suppose, install a recording device on the bottom?)
Corporations are not your friends. Unless it is set in legal writing you can't take their promises at heart value. Even if they set it in legal writing it might mean nothing since they always find a way to worm around it. Their ultimate goal is to fuck you over. Their pricing and profit margin are "take as much as possible without them complaining". Games will get more expensive and it has nothing to do with development costs, it has everything to do "because they can so why wouldn't they".
Corporations are not idiots and they know how to do something subversively and over a long period of time so people don't notice the changes. Look at how microtransactions in games became almost a norm nowadays and future generations won't even see anything wrong with it. Look at how using FOMO and other psychological tricks are actually a "good retention method" now instead of being unethical, people don't even complain against it any more, they complain if it is badly implemented and they don't get enough of it. Companies selling your data are getting less and less backlash over it with people using arguments as "oh well they know everything already, I don't care".
I really hate all of this.
There should be a sister site that records all the post-acquisition promises that get nuked
What are the alternatives for a self-contained VR system? I don't want to have to plug into a PC.
* http://www.openhmd.net/index.php/devices/
* https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/ligh...
I'm super done with this company.
The headset itself is expensive but it's the best consumer headset in existence right now. I can play for hours (depending on the game) without feeling like I need to stop. There's no single thing that's dramatically better than other headsets, but just about everything about it is at least somewhat better. Comfort, tracking, visuals, adjustability, and so on.
Anyway, Valve is just night-and-day different from Facebook. In fact they're the ones maintaining support for the Rift on Steam, not the other way around. Valve wants VR to be an open platform, and Facebook wants it to be a part of Facebook, entirely owned and controlled by them.
PS, oculus has been the only piece of hardware I've purchased in the past few years where the drivers caused a blue screen. Thats ignoring all the other bullshit problems with the driver stack they have that can't even consistently enable a pile of USB devices.
Personally it doesn't bother me immensely... however it's annoying that I'd have to review, check and double check all the privacy settings before using the device as I don't expect any of the defaults to keep my activity private.
I'll probably opt for using my Oculus account another 2 years, at which point I'll likely have bought another headset.
The only way around it was to send the verification code via tex. I'm so concerned now that Google will only send verification codes to Android device in the future.
Who uses this data? For what purpose? How can this data give an edge to make money elsewhere?
Is there a real relationship between data collection and ability to sell more things and increase profits? I'm not seeing it.
I didn't even wanted a FB account in the first place, but now I wonder why I can't do that
Not worth vilifying. Not worth accolades for basic rational thought.
Palmer is meh. As other comments have pointed out, don't waste energy on the scapegoat.
Complain about the people in control - Facebook.
The tech industry has gotten rather silly.
It seems that the app platform may be used for managing logins on third party sites. Are they likely to require it for Oculus devices?
Next VR headset will not be Oculus.
That's never going to happen now.
Phew
If I ever move my racing sim rig to VR, it's definitely not going to be an Oculus.
It just doesn't even make sense.
FB is too entrenched in our lives. And for what?
They already ship a mobile phone. https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
> foc-u-lus
Facebook to Oculus Users: Go f* yourself.
I guess it might be time to look at FOSS alternatives for these devices, just to keep basic functionality. I wonder if the bootloaders are locked.
-- from someone waiting for VR to become a commodity hardware, like a monitor.