Don’t agree with this take. I’m sure Meta would be fine with other vendors taking over the low-end, if that meant there was a vibrant platform they controlled (ie the OS). They will lead with flagship models to push the boundaries of what the OS/tech can do.
Why would they want to sell at/below cost forever? The reason they do this now is to make the platform viable.
The only reason they are focusing on cheaper devices now is to build the platform and try to get more users, to in turn get more data on what the killer usecases will be.
Think of this as a play like Android. Google doesn’t care what goes on in the commodified end of the spectrum, as long as there is one. Google does ship flagship phones (in competition with eg Samsung) and that is fine.
They want their own platform so they can do whatever they want on their apps. They are playing the long game. Read zuck's VR vision letter. He lays it all out:
Meta is the last company in the world that I would allow to have direct access to my gaze tracking data.
The only thing that I can imagine that would be more privacy invasive would be a device that directly reads your brain waves while you are exposed to different stimuli.
I feel exactly the same, but I think we’re very much in the minority with that perspective compared to most consumers, so they could still sell like gangbusters.
And on that note I can’t wait to see Meta’s answer to Neuralink!
My point is that there is more to "VR Headset Market" than just "low end" - low end is one part of the market, but (right now) Facebook has that part locked up.
It may be that there are more places to compete in the VR Headset Market that people on HN don't know about.
Like you said, this is probably something like an Android play. Everyone was talking about the Apple Vision Pro as the VR Market's "iPhone moment" when it came out - maybe Meta Vision OS (or whatever they're calling it) is Facebook's Android moment.
And yeah, Facebook would probably be ok with others taking the low end of the market if they do it well. Right now, Facebook is the only company willing to take a loss on their own platform. So they do.
It is a wonderful indispensable device for a very special market.
Particular Mac users who happen to particularly like the physical and mental ergonomics, and locational and furniture freedom, of arrangeable virtual screens and a beautiful visual isolation chamber on demand.
(And in my case, who have dramatically customized the light shield and straps to be super comfortable for long periods.
I would buy the next version at twice the price if it came out tomorrow. And give up a lot to do it.
But that is a VERY niche market. There are only three of us happy campers, after the return wave. It is definitely not an iPhone - yet.
Personally, I think they should lean into it as a MacBook Pro killer. Make it a first class pro computing device. That is a good rationale for keeping around a high end spec, high priced version.
Then have Air versions when it becomes possible to ship a cheap enough iOS-computing level version for the masses.
I agree. I’m reading this (and now typing this reply) from the Vision Pro, while doing a 2-hour low-and-medium-intensity cardio workout on my elliptical trainer. Hard to overstate how much better this is than the old MBP/iPad plus big-screen TV setup I had.
I would also buy another AVP immediately, if I broke this, or if a better one came out,
But that is… extremely niche. The OS is as bad as iOS 1.0 was — but without the obvious utility to a huge number of people. I’m not sure Apple can pull this off.
But, I have all the Meta headsets, too, and have used them for this purpose. That gives me the perspective to understand that, while on one hand it is indeed “just another VR headset”, there has never been one actually usable for this before. Apple has the lead along a dew different axes. The question is, do they have the stomach to lose money on it for 10 years like Meta has>
(Even if they don’t literally sell it below cost, like Meta, it won’t work out if they don’t keep iterating as hard as they can on the software side. Like the first iPhone, it is simultaneously amazing, unprecedented, and objectively awful in many ways.)
P.S.
I do easy work in here on the gym machines, too. Not just HN-reading. ;-)
BTW the key to getting work done in AVP while running on a machine (or any other active scenario, like housework or walking to the grocery store) is to enable some of the Accessibility features.
The normal dictation feature is so bad it is unusable for more than a sentence fragment. The one enabled via Accessibility is incredibly good, aside from a bit more latency than I’d like (but easy to get used to that), and enables mixed voice dictation and keyboard-typing, without switching modes.
And that's why Meta will fail. The company doesn't have the branding or the technical imagination to create either a mass-appeal or a high-end prestige product. Apple has both, and its best VR effort appeals to a few thousand people.
As long as VR is limited to facehuggers the market will remain niche. VR glasses are a good few years (decades?) off.
In the meantime Apple will eat the high end and probably some of the low end.
So where does that leave Meta?
It doesn't help that Meta is more of an annoyance than brand. I'm not sure anyone actually likes Meta or Meta's products. While they're tolerated to some extent, they're perceived as fundamentally boring or irritating in a way that is deadly for brands.
"Our overall vision for the space is that we will be completely ubiquitous in killer apps, have very strong coverage in platform services (like Google has with Android) and will be strong enough in hardware and systems to at a minimum support our platform services goals, and at best be a business itself"
- Zuckerberg's 2015 VR letter
That’s almost nine years ago. He may or may not have changed his mind.
It would help if Meta said something about that. Ideally for potential third party hardware manufacturers, they’d promise to leave the hardware market once a vibrant ecosystem exists.
Defining “vibrant” then would be hard to impossible, though. The edge cases are easy, but uninteresting. If none of the others are making money on hardware there is no vibrant system. If multiple other parties are making money, they probably wouldn’t care much whether Meta makes some money, too.
For in-between cases, where third parties make some money, Meta will have to choose between staying in the market because others don’t sell enough and Meta leaving the market so that others get more room to sell and thus become profitable.
While the pedantry is whatever to me, they're not misunderstanding the usage of "take" they're pointing out the missing subject of "I". Leaving out the "I" like this turns the sentence from describing a personal opinion to commanding someone else to have that opinion.
I put the pan on the stove.
Put the pan on the stove.
I talk to your brother.
Talk to your brother.
Leaving out the "I" changes the meaning of the sentence here. "I disagree with x" means something else entirely than "Disagree with x."
Why would they want to sell at/below cost forever? The reason they do this now is to make the platform viable.
The only reason they are focusing on cheaper devices now is to build the platform and try to get more users, to in turn get more data on what the killer usecases will be.
Think of this as a play like Android. Google doesn’t care what goes on in the commodified end of the spectrum, as long as there is one. Google does ship flagship phones (in competition with eg Samsung) and that is fine.