I’m gonna delete the account after selling my Quest 2 for the Steam Frame
I backed the original Oculus Rift, and felt massively betrayed when they sold to Meta. :(
For years since I’ve been waiting for A VR solution that plays nice with Linux and is at least somewhat privacy-respecting, and I have been absolutely unwilling to buy a Quest device or anything else. I want to play VR but I’m not willing to sell my soul for it. So it’s been an unhappy but conscious boycott from me.
I too then am super looking forward to the Steam Frame because it’s the device I need to get back into VR and feel happy and excited about it, rather than disgusted.
Palmer Lucky turning into a Bond villain wasn’t exactly something I expected when I first saw him pushing the original Kickstarter Oculus
This has been such a depressing trend over the last few decades.
Fresh bright-eyed startup with a passionate creator develops some interesting and innovative product.
Gets bought out by FAANG, turns to shit and stops working properly or gets discontinued, and primarily functions as a spyware device.
That makes it sound like these startups have no choice in the matter. The funny thing is, you don’t have to sell your company to an enormous evil corporation if you don’t want to.
Depends on who your initial investors are and the contract you signed with them. They can and will force a sale if their RoI isn’t met in a specific time-frame, or if the buyout price reaches a certain valuation.
Partly true but Amazon has been known to make dupes of a product and sell it at a loss to drive the competitor out of business. I’m sure that threat lingers in some peoples’ minds.
They probably also promise the management team “you’ll still have creative control after we buy you”. Then turn around and replace each of them one by one
Yeah, I worked for an amazing company for 13 years, a big corporation bought it, and now I have my own business and my soul back. Same shit, “you’ll still have full operating control” and then they moved everything to India.
In capitalism you do. Society demands it.
No, not really. But if you don’t sell you don’t get a lot of money and mostly that’s what people want, that’s why the startup exists.
That’s just the inevitable endgame in a capitalistic society. Most startups’ end goals at inception are to sell out to a corporation.
I think the cure is identifying that it’s all bullshit every time (especially nowadays!) and so not putting any hope in their tech any more. See it for what it is, just another corporate distraction among infinity of such.
I guess this is how I arrived at calling myself an “anti-technology technologist”, because new technology is so reliably the promise that never delivers, an exercise in frustration, disappointment and being ripped-off for shit I don’t even need. Of course I still enjoy tech things but I’m so fuckin over any “next big thing” because it’s invariably such hype, and I’m middle aged and so wasn’t born yesterday like I used to be.
I’d rather be staring at the hills and the river, VR got nothing compared to magic mushrooms anyway so I just don’t care for it. Gimme a joint, a musical instrument and a couple of friends over that, any day! I don’t want to inhabit virtual (or any) corporate spaces even for money, it has nothing at all that I want, and very many things I don’t want.
All encounters with corporations are designed to sap our life-force and pump up their stock prices. Best to limit exposure!
I think the cure is identifying that it’s all bullshit every time
I mean that’s great but it doesn’t stop everyone else from falling for it, and you having to pay the price accordingly.
I guess this is how I arrived at calling myself an “anti-technology technologist”
I just call myself a Luddite at this point. Any technology developed outside of FOSS just completely disinterests me. Everything else is assumed to be malware.
I got into cycling a few years’ back. But of course technology is coming for bicycles too and all my riding buddies are just so amped about it and can’t understand why I want absolutely nothing to do with it.
Fortunately, GabeN shows no interest in selling Valve to anyone.
Yeah they’re largely an anomaly in that regard.
Most people’s goals are to not have to work for a living. Selling a successful startup allows for that to happen. Unfortunately, the startup needs to start making money after someone pays a lot of money for it, and we all know what happens next.
Same, still got the devkit 1 and 2 in my cellar.
Really looking forward to the Steam Frame to finally get standalone VR without Meta involvement.
Have they sent out Dev kits yet? I know a game dev who is making a VR game on steam and he’s had nothing but radio silence from valve.
Haven’t heard anything yet.
It’s infuriating, really.
Add 1 Jan 1970.
Unix/Epoch time👌
At least be exact! 1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z.
Or if they allow it, just 0
I just pick random shit. Pretty sure Steam thinks I’m 113 years old.
Admittedly this did backfire once when a company wanted my birthday to verify my ID to unlock an account. They were surprised I lied and I was surprised people don’t.
I just set mine to the beginning of time: Jan 01, 1970.
Here lies dreadbeef 1970-01-01 - 2038-01-19 01010010 01001001 01010000peperony and chease
on that note I finally deleted facebook. Goodbye meta!
Better late than never!
4-20-1969
1969-04-20
I see ISO 8601, I upvote. Simple as.
Nice.
Ha ha very nice 😏
20-04-1969
24-7-69
I swear once at 2nd grade I saw a doctor write a date like this and then did it only to get a long scolding by my teacher.
I’ve seen that date mentioned before. What is the reference?
Idk, just seemed funny 😅
Oh, I see now. 69. 24/7.
ante diem xx Kalendas Maias de anno MMDCCXXII ab urbe condita
Where’d you get the XX from? I believe that, counting inclusively, it should be 12 days from Apr 20th to Mai 1st, so a.d. XII Kal. Maias
you are correct. I did it for the gag, really, so most people could parse it.
The downvote?
Shitty formatting YYYYMMDD sorts chronologically and alphabetically
And with minor formatting is the actual ISO standard.
Thankfully I haven’t had to use any Meta products for a while now, and as far as Alphabet is considered I’ll turn 126 years old on 01/01/2026 and live where my country’s parliament building is. Because fuck them, that’s why.
My birthday is always January 1st of 2000. It used to be in 20th century but I didn’t want to give away my real age.
It used to be in 20th century but I didn’t want to give away my real age.
I take it you’re turning 125 next Thursday?
I’m guessing their real birthday is probably January 1, 1970; just like every Steam user.
Source if my guess: I was born on January 1 of 1970.
I’ve had an account under a nickname for coordinating dog meetups for ages. One day the account was suddenly blocked without prior notice and the only way they would let me in again is by giving them my ID, which would not help as the account was under my nick and I would never give them my ID anyway. They didn’t even let me delete that effing zombie account without identifying my name as real or even just change the Nick to something FB recognises as real name.
They’ll ghost you even if you do give them everything they ask for. I can’t even make a new account under my real name or anything close to it anymore.
It sucks it’s the only realistic platform for discovering and getting info from interest groups in my area.
the only realistic platform
you know of, I don’t know where you live (nor do I want to) but alternatives do exist and if not you can self host some.
Ah shit you’re right! They’re going to love having their social media on stevesbasement.social. So accessible to the general public!
Your sarcasm and learned helplessness help BigTech. I didn’t say it was easy, I said it was feasible.
I’m not denying it’s technically feasible. I do deny learned helplessness. I have limited energy in life. Using it on making a change I’m not passionate about is a recipe for severe burnout. If i get more involved and find there’s sentiment towards a migration away from FB then I’d spend some energy on building and facilitating that. Barging in and making demands isn’t an effective way to build community. You can introduce ideas and develop them over time to show that it comes from care for and dedication to the org.
So yeah it’s unrealistic on the time scales I’m concerned with.
When you generalize your position about your available time and technical knowledge as the limiting factor for everybody you are not saying it’s impossible for you, you’re saying it’s impossible for anybody and everybody. That’s the problem. It’s like saying “I don’t like this food” versus “It tastes bad!”. For you they are equivalent, for others they are totally different. I’m not saying you, or anybody else, should learn about self-hosting (federated) social platforms then set some up, what I’m rejecting instead is giving up pre-emptively on the behalf of others because it’s giving power back to BigTech.
I haven’t generalized anything beyond the extents of
- my area geographically
- The groups in my area which i interact with
- An individuals weight within a community over time.
I have not said it’s impossible to do for me and have made no claim on the ability for others to do it.
I’ll give you so much as i didn’t append “for me” or “in my situation” to every sentence, but the statements lay within the context provided in the rest of the post.
I can’t even access any Fakebook crap, because I have blocked any Zuckerbot service since a long time. It don’t exist anymore for me in the web.
What’s this extension?
Desktop app Portmaster
People who bought this hardware are dumb fucks.
There really weren’t any comparable standalone alternatives at the time. I just wanted to play some Beatsaber back then.
Paraphrasing the guy who owns the company.
Not that he wasn’t entirely correct.
It’s hardware that can be used with SteamVR or load opensource VR apps directly onto it like DoomVR.
This is almost like someone complaining, “Facebook messenger is asking for my birthdate on the 120hz 1440p monitor that Facebook sold me for half price.” and you reply, “People who bought a PC monitor are dumb fucks.”
It is cheap 3d goggles that display what your PC sends it. Just like your monitor. You don’t have to use Meta’s software. You definitely don’t need to use Meta’s VR Chat app (That’s Horizon that the OP references.)_
Meta is selling VR at a loss like a console where they make up the loss with software game sales. But unlike a Switch/PS5, you don’t have to buy their games. So the real idiot is anyone who wants VR and doesn’t buy a Meta product. Buying a Quest and then using SteamVR causes Meta to lose money.
Setup a fake account. Use a friend’s bday you’ll remember. Its not hard. That’s like saying “people who use email are dumb fucks” since they also ask for bdays.
God forbid people enjoy some vr.
You think that’s all they collect? You bought one, didn’t you?
My kids got one. We don’t have FB accounts. I have pihole setup as my DNS, don’t have cable, use Firefox and ublock, ads mean fuck all to me. I ride the high seas, have been since Napster. I pay for what I like, avoid what I don’t.
I’m old enough that if there is something they don’t know about me, it’s not hard to find. People act like a company knowing their name and address is going to send them to a early grave or something.
You need to find your balance of security and convenience and learn to live your life.
Your…name and address? What century is this?
You keep asking questions and providing nothing. Put up or shut up.
You want my name and address? That seems kind of rude. Why?
In what way did I ask for that?
Even if rooted and used without account via PrivateQuest?
Cassandrafatigue doesn’t know anything about what they are talking about.
Oh, goody! Maybe they’ll send me a present! Can I send them my address, too, so they know where to mail it? Meta is so nice!
Just lie and make up a fake birthday
And a fake name.
And a fake face.
I don’t think they care if its your real birthday. They just want the data. Deny them the data, don’t use the service.
Is garbage data worse than no data?
No. It means you’re still theirs and so badly you’ll even lie for them. And you don’t have the backbone to say no.
I use December 31, 1969. Before Unix time.
December 7, 1941.
How to tell the techs you’re lying without telling the client
…so far, it seems like all the platforms accept january 1st 1900 without issue…
1 jan 1970
…too plausible to make the statement unambiguous…
I do 1/1/1984 but also a good idea
I’m glad that John Carmack is rich and intellectually stimulated, but watching him be wasted building Metaverse VR was like trying to remove my own teeth with a pair of pliers.
yup. absolute waste of a Carmack right there
was like trying to remove my own teeth with a pair of pliers.
That’s oddly specific. Did you try that?Edit: English is not my main language, and I did not think over the meaning of “pliers”.
Come on now, I think everyone’s tried the ol’ teeth-with-pliers trick at least once in their life.
I feel like posting about Facebook on /c/Privacy is like posting a photo of the dictionary definition of surveillance. Like, YEAH. WE KNOW.
Because it is not a post about Facebook but about the VR Headset Quest 2 and/or 3.
Sadly, the Meta Quest is kind of the best deal in the PC VR world.
There’s a reason it’s the cheapest. You pay with your privacy.
Yup, i paid my $1,000 for my index and it was the best purchase I ever made love that thing. I’m definitely getting a steam frame as well not because I don’t love my index anymore but it would be nice to have something that is a little more flexible with the space.
Well there is that but there’s also that they’re just trying to make the Metaverse happen, so to speak. Get as many people as possible onboarded and using the product and making it mainstream before recouping losses. Fortunately that’s a stupid idea with no practical value and it seems they’re starting to realize that so they’ve reallocated the budget to the next stupid thing they’re trying to make happen with no practical value.
It’s more than that. It’s a hostile business move to corner the market and kill off other brands, they absolutely had the money to accomplish this. The brand image? They failed that speech check. Beyond that, there simply isn’t enough interest in VR to make a killing off of a monopoly even if they had one.
It’s a hostile business move to corner the market and kill off other brands
Huh? How do you figure that?
The brand image? They failed that speech check.
What?
there simply isn’t enough interest in VR to make a killing off of a monopoly even if they had one
You and I know that but it didn’t stop Fuckerberg from sinking tens of billions of dollars into it.
A) sell at a loss to take smaller players off the board because they can’t compete at those prices. Because they can’t afford to sell at a loss.
B) speech check is an RPG saying. Basically they’re trying to fool the user but the users didn’t fall for it.
C) correct. He made a mistake thinking he could get people to use VR on a level like WALL-E or ready player one. He tried to make one dystopia happen and failed because we’re not quite at the level of desperation that we need or can acceptably make VR vacations a viable product.
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It is about Facebook. Facebook makes the Meta Quest. It’s a Facebook product. Just like Threads, Instagram, and WhatsApp are. And those Meta glasses that are ugly AF.
Officially it is Meta. Facebook is owned by Meta but the Quest headset is not a Facebook product. I get it, it’s easier to say Facebook for everything owned by Zuk, like saying Google for Youtube instead of Alphabet.
But it is not precise nor true and plenty of comments here are saying “just leave Facebook” while OP did not post about Facebook nor having a social media account there.
And TBH, I think all VR headset are kinda ugly, it’s either big rectangle brick on your head or big round brick on your head.
This is super silly. They changed the technical arrangements of the company names, meta is still Facebook
Facebook is meta, nitpicking this point is absurd
Edit: I’d like to add that obfuscating Facebook/zucc from other products is literally the point of the rebranding and OP is suffering from exactly that, making whoever’s point im arguing with even more dangerous and dumb
It’s not silly at all. There’s a practical reason why they changed their name. Facebook is one of many products from the company. Facebook is Meta but Meta is not Facebook.
The “practical reason” is to distance themselves from the rep they’ve earned as slop-pushing privacy-invading child-abusing culture-destroying ghouls. Why would you go along with that?
I mean, that would make sense if it actually achieved that. But it doesn’t, because that describes all of their products.
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It’s all Facebook. Meta is a company made by Facebook, but it’s all Facebook, or it’s all Meta — same thing.
It might not have Facebook branding, but it’s a Facebook product, or a Meta product. Again, same thing.
I think it’s pretty heavily implied that people are talking about a given tech giant’s entire ecosystem when they say de-google, delete Facebook, Fuck Nestle- I mean, fuck Apple, etc. lol
I believe they were talking about meta’s literal smart glasses being ugly, not their VR headsets. They look really silly, the frame is way too thick.
I actually think the Quests are some of the better looking headsets.
Head in sand levels of cope
A difference without distinction.
