Zuck wasn’t marketing VR to the average consumer or even the tech enthusiast. He was marketing it to middle managers who wanted to regain control of their WFH peons. During covid, those types lost a lot of control while the workers continued without much change. Now that back to the office is being forced, the target demographic isn’t interested.
The middle managers don’t even matter in this scenario. No executive wants to buy hundreds or thousands of VR headsets just so their employees can meet in a video game instead of Teams. Actually moving any part of the workplace into VR comes with a massive upfront hardware cost and I have yet to hear anyone articulate a real benefit that justifies such an investment.
I don’t think he had a plan in the beginning. These people aren’t pioneers. They got lucky once, get labeled as a trend setter and then you have to try and maintain that image. VR was going the next big thing, so Zuck bought a company without a plan. Tech companies do that all the time. They see themselves falling behind on something and just buy some random company to appease the shareholders/press.
The VR office thing was just the limits of Zuck own creativity and saw covid as an opportunity to keep their product relevant.
Zuck wasn’t marketing VR to the average consumer or even the tech enthusiast. He was marketing it to middle managers who wanted to regain control of their WFH peons. During covid, those types lost a lot of control while the workers continued without much change. Now that back to the office is being forced, the target demographic isn’t interested.
The middle managers don’t even matter in this scenario. No executive wants to buy hundreds or thousands of VR headsets just so their employees can meet in a video game instead of Teams. Actually moving any part of the workplace into VR comes with a massive upfront hardware cost and I have yet to hear anyone articulate a real benefit that justifies such an investment.
Facebook bought Oculus in 2014.
Yes and?
Facebook was marketing their virtual office space stuff during covid. In the infinite wisdom of Zuck, that’s the best use of the tech today.
My point is …what was the plan before COVID? What did VR have to do with social networking?
Second life!! /sj
I don’t think he had a plan in the beginning. These people aren’t pioneers. They got lucky once, get labeled as a trend setter and then you have to try and maintain that image. VR was going the next big thing, so Zuck bought a company without a plan. Tech companies do that all the time. They see themselves falling behind on something and just buy some random company to appease the shareholders/press.
The VR office thing was just the limits of Zuck own creativity and saw covid as an opportunity to keep their product relevant.