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Mark Zuckerberg Is A Liar, And He's Lying To You About The Metaverse
Here's what I never understand. Whoever is in this guy's will is destined to have grandchildren that own island nations and routinely vacation in orbit. I'm reminded of the scene in The Man Who Fell to Earth when Buck Henry tells David Bowie that he's about to be worth $400 million (1970s, folks) and Bowie says "I need more." Buck Henry's very sensible response is "WHAT THE HELL FOR?" What's the point of scamming even more money? Because you can?
Take this one to the Atlantic, Ed. It’s great.
Also, this sentence on Jobs is a real treat: “These were all things we did before, done on a new device, in a new way, pitched to us by a charming sociopath.”
He's been a charlatan since college
"a hybrid between the social platforms that we see today, but an environment where you’re embodied in it" that's ..... that's real life, mark. you're describing real life.
Zuckerberg and his psychopath friends can F-off with "keeping people safe" BS. Stay TF out of my face.
Spot on once again. I also blame online 'news' outlets pushing writers non-stop to cover every new word that is forced into the tacky tech lexicon. Everyone has to write about it even if we know it's bull. This is a direct result of a web (and, even more so, social media) that rewards 'engagement' rather than quality or substance.
That was amazing. Finally someone calling out the emperor with no clothes...
We're living in a sociopaths metaverse. As long as we accept the BS we're able to exist in it.
you're historically wrong, Ed. I got commissioned for three articles in just the past week about "what even is an iPhone? We just don't know."
> We are starting conversations about our vision for the metaverse early, before some of the technologies even exist.
this is like the guff in the launch of Libra
My emails to Mr Zuckerberg:
Dear Mark,
You don't know me, but we are friends on Facebook, and have quite a few friends in common in the real world, the non-Metaverse. I have written you before, and am writing now as I reckon you need to hear this.
You are in tech, and your tech sucks. Sorry but that's not something I read in the reports of why your stock is tanking.
You have problems in your basic offering (facebook) that you don't fix for months, years, ever. LinkedIn has similar functionality, but they get the details right. (Example number one hundred and twenty five: when people post comments, your system doesn't display them in the order they were posted, so threads don't read as threads. That's basic stuff that some 20 year old coder could fix, but somebody doesn't care.)
Your algorithms are poor. They serve the wrong stuff, for a long time, to the wrong audience. Do you know how much this pisses people off?
I like facebook. Where I live in Africa it is a vital service for many people, essential for many small businesses. I also have an amazing community of intelligent people and they comment and engage deeply. But you take these people as schmucks. When you treat great clients like fools, they leave you.
Seriously, my feed is wonderfully full of brick layers and industry titans, celebs and stay at home parents. Any company would love to have these as happy customers. But your team, through a lack of concern, don't make the simple changes that would make your system less infuriating. Heck they might actually press on an ad if they were reluctant users, trying to spend as little time as possible, but keen to check in with old "friends."
I wrote to you once before when I had a fake page with my name and details on it. Any simple program could sweep your users to work out if a new member had just joined with the same name, same details, and taken images that were the same as the page that had been there for years. You (and as CEO it's always you) did nothing for years.
I wrote again when I was my friend list was full of obviously fake accounts, scant details, always people with three words in their names, and always women with cleavage. Again, an intern could write the code to knock this out. But you did nothing for years, and these annoying spam accounts that could be objectively identified continue to clog my friend request. I might actually add a few more friends if I didn't have to sort through Twixie Twinkle Tits each time I went to my friend requests.
All the analysts in the world will say you are too focussed on the Metaverse, they will talk about competition, they will talk about anyone of the "6 Big Issue for Facebook." But few will say that NONE of these would be a problem if you had GOOD tech.
I know you spent something like $20 million to rebrand recently. rebranding isn't necessarily a bad idea. But repainting the hull doesn't turn a supertanker. That has to happen in the wheel house, from the top, and then be accepted all the way to the pistons turning the screw.
I like your service, I don't want to find another place to do what I do here, but I will have to if you don't get better at your core offering — because less and less people I know are coming to the face book.
The Meta thing may be a great thing. But really to chase a fast moving new thing, and disrupt everything we've ever known, are you sure a fat, slow already-busy-with-its-own-issues company is the right vehicle for this? Why didn't you invest in 50 version of kids in Harvard dorm rooms and Cupertino garages to do it. The least favorable answer is that you wanted to distract from the issues you had in the core business, and when the tide turns against you, people don't look with their generous glasses on.
You made this company about you. You did the announcements, you rode on some jet ski thing, you went to argue with Congress. You made yourself "the guy." That means only one person can fix it. Please do.
With love and appreciation, your "friend,"
Peter Holmes à Court
(Or Peter Holmes A Court on your site because you can't put an accent in your name on facebook. That's not a big deal for me, but its odd that you can call yourself Twixie Twinkle Tits, but you can't use an accent grave despite it being in real people's names from Frenchy places. Example one hundred and twenty six ...)
At the beginning this article says smartphones were viable because they were just a more convenient way to do things that we already do: "We were not learning new things to do--we were making phoen calls, listening to music, and browsing the web. These were all things we did before, done on a new device, in a new way..."
But then later, he criticizes the metaverse for being merely another way we do things we already do on a new device, in a new way. "…'what are you actually descirbing, Mark?' because, depending on how you read this paragraph he's describing apps, virtual reality, gaming, and several other things [that already exist]. One could argue the he is simply describing the internet…"
Ed acts like everyone's confused and trying to figure out what the metaverse is…but is that true? Are people really confused? Maybe I just read enough sci-fi books so that this feels intuitive to me. I don't find the metaverse confusing or complicated. Here it is in one sentence: the internet, but people can move around it in a 3D space. That's it! So yeah, Zuckerburg basically is describing the internet...but "in a new way": in 3D space.
Essentially anything you can do on a computer right now (listen to music, shop, do work, talk to friends, read, watch movies) you'll be able to do there, but, you know, in a 3D space.
Not everything will be better in a 3D space (you don't need 3D to, like, read words on a page or do a spreadsheet) but other things will potentially be better. I'm thinking, e.g., immersive experiences/gaming (playing Breath of the Wild as a first-person Link or being able to be "inside" an X-wing), hanging out with other people in real time, watching sports and performances and rocket launches (things where front-row seats are in short supply in real life), virtually exploring hard-to-reach places (e.g., walking through the Louvre or the White House, standing on top of Everest or the surface of mars).
On the other hand, maybe the real thesis of the article is just criticism of Zuckerburg as a CEO: whether he's really the right person to build a metaverse, whether he can figure out a way to make money off of it, whether he's trustworthy…or if he's just spouting vague moonshot goals without any ability to deliver.
I don't have any problem with that editorial. I agree it's confusing and complicated how any one or more companies are supposed to BUILD a metaverse, sure. It may be that Zuckerburg's attempt fails, and I don't care if it does or not. But the concept/goal itself seems pretty simple to me: Internet in a 3D space. I fully expect it to come eventually, whether or not Zuck is the one to make it happen.
Zuckerberg cannot escape the hellhole planet he's helped create the way that other oligarchs have: through their space companies. His answer is to escape physical life itself and live on the deck of the USS Callister (Black Mirror reference intentional).
Hence... Sociopath.
"a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality."
So ... Venmo? I can see what my friends are paying for with Venmo ("collective virtual shared space"). They can use it to buy things in a real-world location ("physical [...] reality"). They can give their account on Venmo a neat little profile pic ("virtually enhanced"). And experiences on Venmo (money) can be transferred to other platforms (spending money elsewhere).
Fast-forward 4 months: the best Facebook can come up with is this ridiculous 'designer digital outfits' that looks like it came from Filene's Basement. Facebook will lose because it's many things but it certainly isn't very good at anything visual. https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/17/meta-digital-clothing-store-avatar/
I write about marketing for a living, and the unanimous credulity with which the entire industry has bought into the idea of "the metaverse" being "the future" frequently makes me feel like the only sane person (other than perhaps my boss, who is also a sceptic) in a deeply unhinged industry. I was at a conference yesterday where one of the keynote speakers said that he thinks the metaverse will be widely adopted in less than a year. You're kidding, right? Does he use the "metaverse"? Does he know anyone who does? I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, but these people's kids play Fortnite and Roblox - which have somehow become lumped in with "the metaverse" even though they're *online games* - and spend money on virtual items there and so therefore in less than a year we'll all be existing as virtual avatars and buying virtual goods. Why? What problem does this non-existent product solve? But in a year's time when it hasn't happened people will still be insisting it's right around the corner. Despite the complete and total lack of evidence to support this. But Gartner says it's going to generate Xbillion by 2025 so that makes it fact I guess.