alt Hacker NewsAs someone who worked in VR a decade ago, I can tell you that the few use cases that were earning us actual money (as opposed to hype and continuous POCs) were niche apps and tools for specific industries.
A common one is VR visits for real estate companies and travel agencies, for example. Also virtual previews for investors and C-suite execs in meetings where there was a ton of money involved - think someone trying to sell the creation of a whole neighbourhood and this is a fancy version of a powerpoint slide for their pitch.
This tech could probably have saved us a good amount of work, though It's still a head scratcher why Zuck thinks this is the one thing in which to bet the company's future.
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> why Zuck thinks this is the one thing in which to bet the company's future
Lack of imagination and willingness to rely on someone else's judgement - other than the cyberpunk authors he read as a teen?
Earlier today I said a "leader" sometimes would rather an entire team quit than admit a mistake. Others would rather light a billion dollars on fire than admit a mistake.
> A common one is VR visits for real estate companies and travel agencies, for example.
Yes. There's a mini-industry doing this for real estate.[1] Some systems let you place furniture in the 3D model.
Versions of this idea go all the way back to Apple's "Quicktime VR", which was a chain of spherical images through which you could navigate.
It's a long way from a fun metaverse. (Doing a big metaverse at all is difficult. Making it fun is even harder.)
[1] https://go.matterport.com/RealEstate3DTours.html