> There’s a strong echo here of mobile 20 years ago. From the late 1990s to 2007, we had mobile internet devices that were OK but not great, and slowly improving, we knew they would eventually be much better, and we thought ‘mobile internet’ would be big - but we didn’t know that smartphones would replace PCs as the centre of tech, and connect five billion people. Then the iPhone came, and the timeline broke.
While I think the statement here is generally accurate, the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading.
The pre-iPhone cellphone and "mobile internet device" era was totally different than the current VR/AR era. Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them. There was none of this "If we build it, I hope they'll come" feeling of the current VR/AR era.
Honestly, it saddens me to think that technology used to be about solving problems for humanity and has morphed into more of this "What substances can we sell to the masses that are sufficiently addictive to make our stock price go up?"
I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.
While I think the statement here is generally accurate, the analogy feels so off the mark here to be downright misleading.
The pre-iPhone cellphone and "mobile internet device" era was totally different than the current VR/AR era. Most importantly, people actually used their devices all the time, they just wanted them to be better. There was a reason they called them "Crackberries" - Blackberry fans were on them 24/7, and they got tons of utility from them. There was none of this "If we build it, I hope they'll come" feeling of the current VR/AR era.
Honestly, it saddens me to think that technology used to be about solving problems for humanity and has morphed into more of this "What substances can we sell to the masses that are sufficiently addictive to make our stock price go up?"
I fully understand how much Meta, Apple and others "want to make fetch happen". Many of us are simply just not interested.