[HN Gopher] Facebook account now required to login to Oculus dev...
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Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices
Author : superted
Score : 827 points
Date : 2020-08-18 17:12 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.oculus.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.oculus.com)
| soulofmischief wrote:
| So how do I get my money back, since my Oculus Rift is now
| completely useless to me unless I allow myself to be spied on?
|
| I purchased these devices with the promise that I would not need
| a Facebook account, and I do not have one..
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| You can't, because you can continue to use your device without
| a Facebook account for two years... which just so happens to be
| the statutory warranty period in the EU.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| How convenient... At least I made it a point to only purchase
| VR games from Steam.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I'm in the same position as you, and from what I can tell
| we should be fine, though we may have to put up with some
| nagging from the damned Oculus store.
|
| > [Re: 20203] If you choose not to merge your accounts at
| that time, you can continue using your device, but full
| functionality will require a Facebook account.
|
| Which I read as "you won't be able to use the store anymore
| or receive driver/software updates for Oculus". I'm ok with
| that. By 2025 I'll either not be doing any VR or will want
| a new rig anyway.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Anyone remember the site https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
| - it records all the startup acquisition letters.
|
| There should be a sister site that records all the post-
| acquisition promises that get nuked
| redbeed wrote:
| Good that i bought a index.
| atarian wrote:
| Palmer Luckey, the original creator had this to say over on
| /r/oculus: I am already getting heat from users
| and media outlets who say this policy change proves I was lying
| when I consistently said this wouldn't happen, or at least that
| it was a guarantee I wasn't in a position to make. I want to make
| clear that those promises were approved by Facebook in that
| moment and on an ongoing basis, and I really believed it would
| continue to be the case for a variety of reasons. In hindsight,
| the downvotes from people with more real-world experience than me
| were definitely justified. A few examples below so
| people won't make up their own version of what I actually said:
| - I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook
| account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift. - You
| will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift
| - Nope. That would be lame. - I promise.
|
| Source:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ic4ye1/new_oculus_u...
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| Don't people realize they're complaining at a billionare and
| have basically no leverage at all? This backlash should have
| come BEFORE Palmer got PAID, not YEARS LATER. I don't think
| Palmer even goes on reddit anymore.
| ponker wrote:
| These promises are made from acquirers to acquirees so that
| they can save face, and tell everyone that they received these
| promises so that they have a rebuttal to accusations of being a
| "sell-out."
|
| They aren't done with a wink and a nudge, but everyone knows
| that they're bullshit, it lets the entrepreneur maintain his
| public image while letting the carnivore devour its meal in due
| course.
| [deleted]
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Facebook has historically be truly crappy in this regards. The
| Instagram founders had a similar story, but rather than publish
| a half-apology, they left the company (walking away from quite
| a bit of money in the process.
|
| It's gotta be hard to be a founder in a situation like this.
| jacquesm wrote:
| As a CEO of a company that is being sold _you can not make any
| binding statements about the future of the company you will no
| longer own_. This is really management 101 and Palmer Luckey
| does not strike me as an absolute beginner here, he knew how to
| get funded, how to execute and had a ton of people telling him
| this would happen. Of course he and FB had a pretty strong
| incentive to ensure that there wouldn 't be an immediate break-
| off risk to the acquisition, and of course there was plenty of
| evidence from other acquisitions that this is how the world
| works.
|
| I'd like to believe him, but it is pretty hard to do so given
| the historic record of acquisitions to date.
|
| For me the heuristic is simple: I won't believe a word a CEO
| that is selling his company says about what will happen post
| deal. They are no longer in control and should know better.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Palmer Luckey does not strike me as an absolute beginner
| here
|
| Which is why smart founders can still get away with making
| these statements during the acquisitions so they can continue
| to grow their company post close (which means their post
| close bonus also stays in tact) and then leave after their
| golden handcuffs are done (usually 2-5 years).
|
| > For me the heuristic is simple: I won't believe a word a
| CEO that is selling his company says about what will happen
| post deal. They are no longer in control and should know
| better.
|
| For me, its on the other side of the coin. If I'm a founder
| and someone gives me billions of dollars for both acquiring
| my company and an additional bonus to pump the company I'm
| 100% incentivized to do everything possible to ensure
| that...even making forward statements that I don't genuinely
| believe are going to happen.
|
| For everyone else - don't trust anyting an acquirer says -
| follow what they do.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| > As a CEO of a company that is being sold you can not make
| any binding statements about the future of the company you
| will no longer own.
|
| That's objectively not true. There are countless stories of
| companies unwittingly buying liabilities and lawsuits that
| they didn't know about or fully appreciate.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >As a CEO of a company that is being sold you can not make
| any binding statements about the future of the company you
| will no longer own.
|
| Agreed, but that's no different that ANY corporate statement
| on anything. Things change. A policy or statement may be true
| this year, but may not be true next year.
|
| GitHub made many nice statements post-Microsoft acquisition,
| and you know what, Microsoft execs may even believe all of
| them today. In 5 years though - who knows.
|
| >Of course he and FB had a pretty strong incentive to ensure
| that there wouldn't be an immediate break-off risk to the
| acquisition, and of course there was plenty of evidence from
| other acquisitions that this is how the world works.
|
| That could be part of it. It could also be the case that FB
| just didn't make any decisions pertaining to this aspect of
| Oculus at that point in time. It could also be the case that
| FB had many different factions within its org that pushed for
| different things - one faction wanted to use FB login,
| another did not and the former faction won after a while.
|
| This is less nefarious than people are making it out to be.
| alehul wrote:
| While your points are reasonable and I'd normally agree with
| them, Palmer as a person seems to be the opposite of this.
|
| Look at his exit from FB and his funding of Trump groups in
| 2016.
|
| His life, in its successes and failures, has often been the
| result of what appears to be optimistic naivety.
|
| He believed BigCo FB would keep their word to him on FB login
| not being required. He believed FB wouldn't essentially fire
| him for his political opinions as well.
| draw_down wrote:
| Could they not have written a clause into the acquisition
| that stipulated this? I agree with you, I just don't know if
| this is _completely_ impossible. If a founder was truly
| serious about something like this (and if they had the
| leverage etc) they could probably make it happen.
| rboyd wrote:
| I think Brendan Iribe did most of the management and
| fundraising. I like Palmer, but my impression was he hacked
| together a series of prototypes in the garage and ended up
| with a device that showed enough promise to bring in Iribe
| and Carmack.
|
| (I think he really did believe at the time that Facebook
| wouldn't Facebook it up.)
| LegitShady wrote:
| The whole company was built off semi legally stolen valve
| tech due to valve naivete when the employees who advocated
| sharing the tech with oculus for free all got hired by
| oculus/Facebook.
|
| Bad egg from the start from how they acquired tech and
| employees, to their exclusive policy on launch and their
| artificial compatibility issues with other headsets today,
| getting worse when selling out to Facebook is no surprise.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Then he shouldn't have been CEO. Sorry, but that title
| comes with a bunch of responsibilities, both to your
| shareholders, your team _and_ your customers /users.
| satyrnein wrote:
| He wasn't, at the time of the sale.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Fair enough, even so, as founder non-CEO you have even
| less standing to make such claims, and at that level you
| don't get to claim innocence. Incidentally, he then
| started a defense contractor, also not something where
| 'naive' is a pre on your resume. I don't know what the
| share division was at the time, but I am going to assume
| here that Iribe served at the pleasure of Luckey.
|
| In the end it is nitpicking; the effect is much the same.
| satyrnein wrote:
| Actually, it appears Luckey was never CEO; I guess I
| remembered that wrong. I'm sure you're right that Luckey
| was likely the biggest shareholder by a fair bit.
|
| In any case, Luckey was a 20-year old kid who got some
| lenses to point in the right direction to give a decent
| FOV. He had a good Kickstarter, hired a CEO, and two
| years later he sold to Facebook for billions. Should he
| have made those promises? Probably not. Should any of us
| have taken his predictions seriously about what Facebook
| would do in 6 years, which is 50% longer than Luckey's
| adult life at that point? Also probably not.
| daenz wrote:
| >In hindsight, the downvotes from people with more real-world
| experience than me were definitely justified.
|
| I don't want to assume bad intent, but I find it hard to
| believe that someone could be so naive about the project and
| the organization controlling it.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| He was pretty young and didn't have professional experience
| at large companies. I think naivety is a reasonable
| explanation.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| He was also homeschooled, so it's kind of a triple whammy
| as far as naivety goes
| macspoofing wrote:
| >I don't want to assume bad intent, but I find it hard to
| believe that someone could be so naive about the project and
| the organization controlling it.
|
| Let's not assume bad intent and recognize the reality that
| things change. That any corporate statement or policy is not
| true in perpetuity. It's very possible that at the time FB
| really did believe it. It has been 6 years since the
| acquisition after all.
| fossuser wrote:
| I think he was 17 (or close to that) when starting the
| original kickstarter.
|
| Carmack also wanted to sell because he had built businesses
| before and wanted to focus on the technology without having
| to deal with survival.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if Luckey believed that would be the
| outcome. I think Zuck's strategy as CEO was also less clear
| then. Today it would be obvious, back then though, I'm not so
| sure.
| chme wrote:
| > I think Zuck's strategy as CEO was also less clear then.
| Today it would be obvious, back then though, I'm not so
| sure.
|
| I think Facebooks business strategy how to make money was
| pretty clear at that time as well. Just remember the
| [Facebook
| Home](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Home) Android
| launcher that allowed the company unprecedented access to
| the data on the device. https://gigaom.com/2013/04/04/why-
| facebook-home-bothers-me-i...
| xorcist wrote:
| Are we talking about the same company?
|
| The one whose business idea it is to lock up all the
| world's information?
|
| The one that, together with Quora and Instagram, shove a
| login screen in your face when you haplessly click the
| wrong link? When all you really wanted some some local
| business opening hours or contact information?
|
| The one that already owns your contact information, and
| aren't afraid to tell you so, because they tricked any one
| of your friends into letting their app suck their contact
| book dry?
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| I think performing mental gymnastics to avoid bad intent is
| silly. Many people have actual bad intentions. "The divide
| between good and evil cuts through the heart of every man"
| liability wrote:
| People often become conveniently naive when offered a lot of
| money.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I don't believe him at all. If it is true, then that's
| surprisingly dumb of him. I'd respect him more if he just
| admitted he sold out for a life-changing amount of money.
| Heck, I probably would have done it too.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Without assuming bad intent, I think it's safe to say people
| will tend to think in line with what makes them comfortable
| with the massive amount of money they are about to get.
| exolymph wrote:
| Why do you find it hard to believe that someone could be so
| naive?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| probably because a giant tech behemoth buying up a small
| company and giving it the good old Borg treatment is a tale
| as old as time.
|
| Let's be real, the reason he was wilfully naive is because
| they send him a big fat check, just like they did to the
| Whatsapp founders, in the same year I think.
|
| I just wish they would at least be honest and say it
| instead of this whole "I thought our dreams would come
| true" talk.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| He hasn't managed to give all his money away to a wallet
| inspector yet. That's about the level of naivete needed to
| believe in a promise FB of all people tells you to get you
| to sell your company to them.
| daenz wrote:
| A combination of his past successes with Oculus, Facebook's
| track record, and his extraordinarily high confidence that
| the thing lots of people were afraid would happen, wouldn't
| happen
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| His success was largely as an engineer hacking together
| prototypes and as a hype man, pulling in the interest of
| bigger names like John Carmack.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Not to mention his demonstrated history of putting his
| foot in his mouth. This is _hardly_ the first time he was
| later proven wrong on something he originally promised.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4gfpjk/palmer_lu
| cke...
| [deleted]
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It was 6 years ago in 2014. Facebook has done a lot of stuff
| since then to reveal it's true colors.
| coldpie wrote:
| Plus, Luckey was 22 in 2014. That's plenty young to be
| naive (though that does nothing to excuse his behavior
| since then).
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Facebook was also still taking a hands off with
| acquisitions like Instagram the time.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Bad intent was certainly behind his funding the shitposting
| of dirty Pro-Trump memes.
| [deleted]
| MattGaiser wrote:
| To close the deal, I suspect that many assurances were
| offered by Facebook. Why do we assume that he lied instead of
| someone at Facebook?
| someHnUser wrote:
| If I'm reading most of these comments correctly it's that
| it doesn't matter if he was lied to, he should have known
| that this is how the world works.
|
| "should have known" is what most of these comments are
| talking about. As a thought experiment assume he was lied
| to, most of these comments are talking about the ignorance
| and whether it was sincere. Was he this naive or is it easy
| to be this naive (i.e. self imposed ignorance) when there's
| a deal to be made.
| Aerroon wrote:
| Maybe he assumed that his new position would allow him to
| veto or persuade the rest of Facebook to not make such a
| move? I could certainly see somebody being naive enough on
| that front.
| bambax wrote:
| He was lying then. He's lying now.
| aeturnum wrote:
| What are we looking for from CEOs? I feel like, if a CEO had
| made such flatly incorrect promises about something with direct
| financial implications (sales, costs, the industry in general)
| they would be seen as failing at their job. Luckey seems
| comfortable simply pointing out that he didn't make the mistake
| people have accused him of. It's enough to say he made another
| (perhaps lesser) mistake. There's nothing in the statement that
| reckons with his previous understanding of FB or Occulus and
| what else he might have gotten wrong. It feels disappointing to
| me.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Exhibit _n + 1_ on why when you 're acquired you're not in a
| position to promise anything to anyone despite any assurances
| from the acquirer. Or, from the consumer's side, why those
| promises should carry no weight.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| is it such a big deal to create a fb account though? Can't
| you just use a fake name if you don't care about having a fb
| account?
| hansvm wrote:
| Last I tried (1-3yrs ago? don't quite remember), no. They
| needed a phone number, so I added a VOIP phone number and
| was informed that I needed a phone number tied to a real
| phone. I went out and bought a cheap phone so I could make
| the bloody account, and while I could make and receive
| calls just fine Facebook still treated it as if it weren't
| a "real" phone.
| KuiN wrote:
| Given how pervasive Facebook tracking is, I'd bet on your
| pseudonymous account being linked to your shadow profile
| very quickly. There is no anonymity when Facebook is
| involved.
|
| I'd also strongly object to moving the needle even the
| tiniest amount on Facebook's metrics. They wouldn't force
| users to do this unless it benefitted them; that's plenty
| enough reason for a lot of people.
| TT3351 wrote:
| fwiw, facebook has gotten upset with me when i've tried
| this exact thing, usually demanding a phone number or
| email, and refusing contact info i've already provided for
| other sock accounts. sometimes they'll lock my socks for
| not acting "human" (never posting anything, no profile
| picture, etc). just gives me an excuse to care less about
| facebook in all honesty
| ForHackernews wrote:
| In short, no. Facebook has gotten very good at catching and
| deleting "fake" accounts. Back in the day, I worked on an
| application that used Facebook's Graph API and I needed to
| create some bogus accounts for testing, but they were
| consistently blocked within days.
|
| Using some combination of behaviour analysis, flagging new
| and/or cookie-less browsers, and (I suspect) human review
| FB have gone to great lengths to try and assure their
| customers that all humans have one and only one account
| under their true legal name and biographical details.
| slim wrote:
| unless you flex your cryptoanarchist power and enshrine
| strong encryption into your architecture. what WhatsApp did.
| make it costly for the new owner to change their minds.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| They still managed, though. Facebook has the technical
| ability to just walk around all of your encryption.
| slim wrote:
| not past conversations thanks to forward secrecy
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Except they control the app that shows you those
| conversations. Unless you deleted them, they have the
| technical ability to see them.
| duxup wrote:
| We see this time and again but ... you SOLD, you're not the
| captain anymore.
|
| If the new captain doesn't make the promise, you can't give
| it much weight, and if it is Facebook, probably no weight
| even if they did :(
| vsareto wrote:
| Facebook made that promise by approving it on an ongoing
| basis. They just changed their mind.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Facebook deals in contracts, not promises and even if it
| was contractually agreed upon, what would you do about
| it? Sue? At a guess you'd count the money one more time,
| shrug and maybe send a short apologetic note about how
| terrible you feel about it. And then count the money
| again.
| vsareto wrote:
| I'm absolving Palmer of making a promise he couldn't keep
| because of Facebook. Palmer is correct here and shouldn't
| be getting the blowback that he is.
|
| Obviously Facebook can do what they want within the
| terms.
| throwaway_98554 wrote:
| Unless he put the promise in the sell contract, in which
| case he can sue Facebook and stop them from doing this
| nasty move, he should be getting all the blowback he's
| getting and more.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Even if it is in the contract the court would not
| necessarily side with you unless you can show that you
| were somehow wronged because of this. "They made me look
| bad" may not be sufficient.
| vijayr02 wrote:
| IANAL but I don't think that's the test. If a person
| commits to not doing something as part of a valid
| contract that's all that matters.
|
| The point you make may be relevant for deciding damages,
| but even here there is a concept of Liquidated Damages
| [0] which is essentially the damages amount set at day 1
| so the question of ascertaining the extent of wrong does
| not arise.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidated_damages
| jacquesm wrote:
| If he got it just verbally then I can't see him having a
| case, they can claim they didn't say it and that will be
| hard to prove, it might still work but that's very thin
| ice.
|
| If he got it written into the contract then it is clear
| that he does not intend to pursue it.
|
| If it was written into the contract _and_ he pursues it
| then he will need to show that _he_ has suffered because
| the contract was not executed and I fail to see how he
| could make that case and do so with enough teeth that it
| would matter to FB enough to reverse course.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| Palmer made the promise knowing full well he would pull a
| "See, not in my hands, I can't do anything". It's all
| just a PR move.
| flavmartins wrote:
| Is he the one to blame? No.
|
| Does he deserve the blowback? Probably not.
|
| Was it an extremely naive promise to make given
| historical experience and the company that acquired you?
| Absolutely.
| [deleted]
| jacquesm wrote:
| He _knew_ it was a promise _he_ could not keep because he
| was giving up control. You simply can not make promises
| like that it is beyond stupid to make promises about how
| a company will be run in the future when you are no
| longer at the helm.
|
| He should have known he couldn't promise that. He could
| not have known Facebook would do what they did but he
| should have been at least smart enough to know the limits
| of his own influence.
| asddubs wrote:
| it really seems a little willfully naive. if it's not in
| a contract, obviously any promise facebook makes is going
| to be on an "isn't inconvenient to do" basis
| beezischillin wrote:
| He was 22 years old when Facebook bought Oculus. I assume
| he expected to stay a part of it and maybe things were
| different if he did. It's his fault, of course, but I
| think he was just naive.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| > I assume he expected to stay a part of it and maybe
| things were different if he did. It's his fault, of
| course, but I think he was just naive.
|
| You can be naive, but naive doesn't mean you go online
| and argue that people who know better are wrong, which is
| what he did.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I don't know Palmer and until 5 minutes didn't know his
| name. I don't dislike him, I'm sure he's a nice guy and
| great person, and I think the product and achievement is
| impressive. But:
|
| I respect him for eating humble pie now.
|
| I absolutely do not respect yet alone _absolve_ him of
| not doing so _originally_. _Why_ would one? There 's
| nothing NEW that came to the table: Facebook can do what
| they want now, and crucially that was the case at the
| time of those promises.
|
| Founders _literally_ sign away their right to make these
| promises. Whether they 're made out of ego, faith, hope,
| naivette, inocence, or just riding that payday high and
| feeling king of the world - acquired founders need to
| stop making them and we need to stop believing them; and
| holding accountable / not absolving is a step in that
| direction. They're not evil people, they don't need to be
| doxxed or torched... but it's a certain level of wrong to
| make promises you absolutely positively cannot deliver
| upon, and good will does not make such ignorance OK :-/
|
| Sorry if that came harsh; I feel bad for Palmer... but
| hey, should we not feel worse for those who believed him
| and acted upon that belief??
| taneq wrote:
| I completely agree with your assessment, except... Palmer
| was a _kid_ and they just made him a multimillionaire.
| There's no way he was in a headspace to rationally
| evaluate anything, let alone evaluate the long term
| weaseliness of a large corporation.
| usrusr wrote:
| You are missing an important they in the list of why
| these empty promises are made: keeping up the value of
| the property. There's an implicit, and often also an
| explicit (e.g. in the form of the founder becoming an
| employee) agreement that the seller won't talk down the
| value of what they just sold. Claiming that all will be
| well, despite Facebook, was very much in the interest of
| Facebook. Including the fact that the promise was made by
| someone who'd most likely be gone before the promise
| stopped being true.
| sitkack wrote:
| Harshing on Palmer might feel like the right thing for
| folks, but they should be harshing on Facebook right now.
| Palmer has little to no agency and by focusing on the
| scapegoat, we ignore the avenues for change that are
| available right now.
|
| Ultimately, energy spent on Palmer distracts from getting
| Facebook to modify its behavior.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| Why did he make a promise knowing full well it would not
| be kept? But but but FB... No. Both are in the wrong.
| Palmer AND FB.
| lisper wrote:
| > Founders literally sign away their right to make these
| promises.
|
| Well, they don't _have_ to. He could have insisted on
| writing this condition into the acquisition contract. But
| he obviously didn 't. The most charitable reading of this
| is that he was just naive and didn't know that this was
| an option or that it would be necessary in order to
| enforce such a promise, but that seems unlikely.
| Acquiring this knowledge is no harder than posing the
| question to his M&A attorney. Hence...
|
| > I absolutely do not t respect yet alone absolve him of
| not doing so originally. Why would one?
|
| I think you made the right call here.
| sharkweek wrote:
| My moral compass would get real wobbly if I had (insert
| some unfathomable number here) in my bank account
| following an acquisition.
|
| Probably not a great thing to confess to but I doubt I'd
| find myself caring what my acquirer was doing with their
| new real estate.
| jacquesm wrote:
| As would most people, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it.
| The big mistake is to try to pull the wool over the
| users' eyes knowing full well he would lose control over
| that and so was in absolutely no position to promise
| anything.
| SirYandi wrote:
| If you take GP at face value he didn't intentionally pull
| the wool over people's eyes. He was just rather naive.
| jacquesm wrote:
| GP has since started a defense contractor. I highly doubt
| this is a naive person.
| staunch wrote:
| That's a non sequitur and your viewpoint is vindictive,
| uncharitable, and unreasonable.
|
| Palmer Luckey was in his very early 20s and had never
| been involved in an acquisition before. He acknowledged
| his mistake and his explanation makes complete sense.
| Even much more experienced people are prone to making
| this kind of mistake in the honeymoon period of an
| acquisition.
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Promissory estoppel is a real thing and companies can be
| legally liable for promises that another party relies
| upon.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| If that promise wasn't in the actual contract then it
| wasn't "Facebook" who made it, it was someone at
| Facebook. Individual employees aren't typically in a
| position to be making those types of promises anymore
| than the company being acquired is.
| IncRnd wrote:
| I've upvoted you, since you are correct. I was absolutely
| amazed that you had been downvoted.
| jacquesm wrote:
| So, let's assume it was in the actual contract. What is
| he going to do about it? Sue? Annul the deal?
|
| No? Than it doesn't matter. The whole idea that because
| something is written into a contract that that
| automatically means that that his how things will be in
| the indefinite future is an illusion, and I've seen
| plenty of people burned that way. A contract only matters
| if (1) you are prepared to sue over it and (2) you will
| know what kind of remedy you want if you win the suit.
|
| In this case the state of (1) is 'no' and the state of
| (2) doesn't matter because of (1).
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| Why the focus on what _he_ would do? The promises were
| made to Oculus 's current and potential customers. That's
| who would sue and it's fairly clear that they would want
| money... e.g. to go buy a HTC Vive.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| "In this case" there is no provision in the contract
| which says Facebook needs to keep Oculus accounts
| separate, so there's nothing to sue over. If that
| provision _were_ in the contract, then yes I 'd expect a
| lawsuit. Or at least some form of arbitration or
| settlement. Ideally the contract itself would specify
| what happens if that condition is violated.
| csomar wrote:
| I don't think that is legally feasible but I don't have
| enough experience in this. He sold the company, aka
| shares. The contract should determine how the sale happen
| but afterward, it's afterward.
|
| A contract needs to be legal, and legal means what the
| law allows in the context. Does the law allow putting
| such provisions? I've been burnt by this in a rental
| agreement. Think about it this way: if we have a contract
| between both of us, where you agree that I'm going to
| kill you, I'm still going to jail. Having a contract
| doesn't make killing legal. This also applies to the rest
| of contracts. The provisions need to respect the law.
|
| But the guy didn't have a contract, sold a patent-heavy
| company for $3bn (probably an army of lawyers involved)
| that netted him around $700mn. I'd just call this saving
| face.
| jacquesm wrote:
| At best an attempt at saving face.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Was it just a verbal agreement or written in the contract
| though.
| nolok wrote:
| The one time facebook did that in a written way was with
| whatsapp and it made them lose in europe (germany
| specifically I think) where they had to cancel their plan
| to share data between the two entities.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Immaterial.
| dqpb wrote:
| One could theoretically put it in a contract, but I doubt
| anyone would risk the sale over this kind of detail.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I suspect they do a lot to make you think you are the
| captain though to help get you to sell.
| mobilemidget wrote:
| And I bet some nice fat clause in the contract that
| prevents him from creating a new (and even better) VR
| headset?
| Insanity wrote:
| Probably for some time
| bob33212 wrote:
| They usually follow through for some amount of time. This
| is because it takes time to figure out how they are going
| to absorb you. If they changed everything on day 1 it
| would be a cluster fuck. A simple example would be if
| Orcl bought a company that was 100% on SAP for
| financials. If all your SAP people walk out the door the
| first week how are you going to file the next quarter
| financials. So they claim that nothing is going to change
| and that the SAP people have nothing to worry about.
| esotericimpl wrote:
| Yes
| vmception wrote:
| The same thing applies to the gullible idealists that believe
| in B-Corporations
| the_other wrote:
| Can you unpack that a bit?
| triceratops wrote:
| If you stop smoking you'll feel better but it's not going
| to do anything to reduce smoking in the world overall.
| The only thing that can reduce smoking is the law: taxes,
| restrictions on where smoking is permitted, and so on.
|
| You should still stop smoking (for your own good) but
| that alone won't change the world.
| sam1r wrote:
| That makes sense but the same argument could apply to
| voting....
| wolco wrote:
| It does reduce smoking by one smoker.
| triceratops wrote:
| A statistically insignificant reduction to the world
| population of smokers. Without laws to prevent tobacco
| marketing to minors, the cigarette industry could add
| 100x as many customers in a day.
| ISL wrote:
| Not for that smoker. They'll (statistically) live longer.
| triceratops wrote:
| You're restating a point I already made:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24203338
|
| _You should still stop smoking (for your own good)_
| wolco wrote:
| Anything you do is statistically insignificant when
| compared to the world's population.
|
| But if one person in an average household quits that is a
| 25% reduction.
|
| In the end that person and those around benefit.
| triceratops wrote:
| You're restating a point I already made:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24203338
|
| _You should still stop smoking (for your own good)_
| dylan604 wrote:
| so does someone dying from lung cancer caused by a
| lifetime of smoking. tears in the rain
| DominikD wrote:
| I assumed that the B in b-corp stands for bullshit, but I
| checked. And the explanation is bullshit (label given to
| some companies which claim to care about stuff that
| matters), so unfortunately I was right and so was
| vmception: you can't believe in stuff because it's
| certified.
| tinodotim wrote:
| +1 - what's wrong with b-corps and what's better?
| jjj1232 wrote:
| Winner's Take All by Anand Giridharadas has a few
| chapters dedicated to B-corps. The issue isn't that the
| b-corps themselves are bad, but that relying on a few
| good companies to fix the problems in the world isn't
| going to work, because the bad actors will always more
| than make up for it.
|
| Taking climate change as an example: 100 b-corps going
| carbon-neutral aren't going to offset the damage Exxon
| causes to the environment.
|
| You can say we just need to wait until consumers change
| their behavior and let the market sort it out, but isn't
| that exactly what we've been trying and failing to do? At
| this rate it's all but certain that climate change won't
| be solved via market solutions.
|
| What's better is forcing the bad actors to stop doing
| bad. Fighting to pass a carbon tax regulation or a green
| new deal is what we need, and bandaids like b-corps are
| often a distraction that tricks people into thinking we
| can consume our way out of the problem.
| saxonww wrote:
| B Corporations do not have a legal status like a Benefit
| Corporation (or C or S corp), it's just a certification
| you buy.
| vmception wrote:
| which changes nothing either way if they were a Benefit
| Corporation.
| vmception wrote:
| Basically people use B-Corps and similar concepts to make
| other people that are uncomfortable and skeptical of
| general capitalism feel comfortable by pretending there
| are safeguards built into the corporate structure
| preventing whatever they are uncomfortable with.
|
| Charters can easily change, anything can be
| reincorporated at whim anywhere.
|
| Also its typically just Shariah-Compliant investing
| rebranded for an Islamaphobic audience. S&P has a shariah
| index right across the border in Toronto Stock Exchanfe
| since forever while similar enterprisers push B-Corps and
| Public Benefit Corporations domestically as if they've
| "figured out" the code to sustainable for profit ventures
| through charter. Shariah in this context is very
| compatible with what these kind of investors and
| consumers are looking for, but they don't know it as they
| probably conflate it with human rights abuses.
|
| People are just gullible, hope I unpacked that enough.
| usrusr wrote:
| I see exactly one merit in B-corporations: the status
| makes it _legal_ for management to to decide in favor of
| conscience over greed. It doesn 't force them to decide
| conscience over greed, they can be just as profit-
| oriented as a regular corporation, but they can. At least
| management won't be sued by shareholders for rejecting a
| an unethical but legal profit opportunity. It's not the
| big difference some may expect, but it can be an
| important difference nonetheless (just like it can be no
| difference at all)
| [deleted]
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there is at least one MLM aka pyramid
| scheme that is bragging about being a B-Corp which they
| use to try and ensnare new victims. That's all you need
| to know to understand that the "B" in B-Corp stands for
| bullshit and steer well clear of any that explicitly brag
| about that status (if your business truly acts in a
| manner that makes the world better you wouldn't need to
| buy a bullshit certification to prove it).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Exhibit n + 1 on why when you're acquired you're not in a
| position to promise anything to anyone despite any assurances
| from the acquirer.
|
| You are in a position to promise something where you have
| contractually retained control, or at least contractually
| secured an enforceable promise from the purchaser.
|
| Otherwise, you are in the same position as Joe on the street.
| sneak wrote:
| I mean, this is really a condemnation of any data privacy
| practices whatsoever claimed by any company, as they may at
| any point in the future sell the entire company and databases
| with it.
|
| The only privacy claims one _may_ wish to take seriously are
| those that occur simultaneously with promises _never_ to sell
| the company.
|
| I used to use a location tracking app called Moves, which was
| a neat 24/7 location tracking lifelogging tool. Facebook, the
| very last people I would like to have that data, bought them,
| and presumably integrated it into my shadow profile.
|
| Special thanks go to to the founders of Moves: Zsolt Szasz,
| Jukka Partanen, Juho Pennanen, Aapo Kyrola, and Aleksi
| Aaltonen. Hope you got paid selling private data that belongs
| to the users that entrusted it to you.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > I used to use a location tracking app called Moves
|
| Same. Nothing since has managed the same usefulness
| (although I suspect this is because iOS has somewhat
| neutered tracking apps - e.g. both OwnTracks and Gyroscope
| have significant issues tracking my phone.)
| novok wrote:
| Have you tried arc?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| The only truly private data practice is not keeping any.
|
| The only winning move is not to play
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I mean, this is really a condemnation of any data privacy
| practices whatsoever claimed by any company, as they may at
| any point in the future sell the entire company and
| databases with it.
|
| Yes! That's why you should be very very careful who you
| give your data because you are exactly one acquisition away
| from the same effect as a breach. _Fortunately_ the GDPR
| affords some protection here, if the data was collected for
| one purpose it can not suddenly be used for another.
|
| As for never selling the company: there is one other
| option: you could give users the option to destroy their
| data just prior to the transfer. Of course no acquirer
| would be interested but that is another way of dealing with
| it.
| hapless wrote:
| Good luck enforcing GDPR against any of the malign actors
| you should most wish to enforce GDPR against
| jacquesm wrote:
| Facebook and everything associated with it is doing
| everything they can to be and remain GDPR compliant.
|
| Facebook has already been fined under the GDPR so it
| looks like that enforcement is working.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| ... What? No, they aren't.
| https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/ Clearly less than
| "everything they can".
| jacquesm wrote:
| Did he complain to the local DPA?
|
| If not that's an excellent example and it may lead to FB
| being held to account.
|
| DPA's typically do not go on fishing expeditions, you
| have to alert them.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Facebook is not GDPR compliant at all. The only reason
| they appear to be is that there is no enforcement of this
| regulation so nobody is actually looking at what they're
| doing.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is plenty of enforcement of this regulation:
|
| https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
|
| Facebook has already been fined, and if they cross the
| line again they will be fined again, and quite possibly
| much higher.
|
| If you know for a fact that Facebook is in some way or
| other currently not GDPR compliant then I would invite
| you to contact your local DPA.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Wait, wait, wait a minute. In the same comment, you are
| claiming that Facebook is GDPR compliant, and that
| Facebook was fined for violating the GDPR. It sure seems
| like there is a major contradiction between those two.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Errm. No. In the same comment I am claiming that Facebook
| has already received a warning fine and that thus they
| stand to lose a lot if they are found to be in violation.
| I am not saying they are GDPR compliant because I can not
| know that with 100% certainty, but I'm sure they are
| doing what they can to not cross that line knowingly.
|
| Facebook, Google, Apple & Microsoft are arguably the
| companies that stand the most to lose from GDPR
| enforcement, you can bet that they are well aware of
| this.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| _I mean, this is really a condemnation of any data privacy
| practices whatsoever claimed by any company, as they may at
| any point in the future sell the entire company and
| databases with it._
|
| unless they have clear penalties for themselves in their
| EULA, and no clause that says they can change anything they
| want at any time. So yeah I guess you're right.
| ragnese wrote:
| And, in my opinion, that is exactly the position you SHOULD
| take. Stop giving up your data to any company. Even if your
| favorite company is nice now, they'll get hacked, they'll
| get sold, the CEO will get replaced, etc. There is no
| cloud, just someone else's computer.
| [deleted]
| ISL wrote:
| One can demand such promises from the acquirer in the form of
| a contract that states, in effect, this:
|
| a) If acquirer does X, the seller, Y, has the option to
| repurchase the company for $1. b) Any future acquirer must
| agree to the same contract. If it does not, Y must be
| extended the option to repurchase the company for $1 before
| the sale.
|
| I don't think anything less could constitute a true promise
| that the acquirer would avoid X.
| monadic2 wrote:
| Contracts are only binding up to a certain amount of
| capital. You can only make the violator bleed so much.... i
| don't see contracts as threats to any of these large
| corporations.
| IncRnd wrote:
| That's trivial to get around. X can dump liabilities into
| the company, and Y would never reacquire it.
| colechristensen wrote:
| And that is trivial to get around, instead of a $1
| clawback for the company, a $1 clawback for all acquired
| IP, trademarks, etc including any related developed under
| the same or derivative marks and companies.
| staplung wrote:
| I don't know enough about Palmer Luckey to make any kind of
| statement about him or his decisions but as Upton Sinclair
| said:
|
| It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his
| [possible billions] depends upon his not understanding it.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Palmer Luckey was just kicked out of a Facebook game developer
| group, because so many people found his presence objectionable
| and threatening, due to his divisive political support for
| Trump, and his secretly funding the shitposting of abusive
| dirty false memes.
|
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/palmer-luckey-the-facebook-nea...
|
| >Palmer Luckey: The Facebook Near-Billionaire Secretly Funding
| Trump's Meme Machine
|
| >Palmer Luckey--founder of Oculus--is funding a Trump group
| that circulates dirty memes about Hillary Clinton.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/19/15366500/palmer-luckey-tr...
|
| >Palmer Luckey reportedly hid $100,000 donations to Trump
| behind Chrono Trigger references
|
| >Oculus founder Palmer Luckey donated $100,000 to fund Donald
| Trump's inaugural celebrations through shell companies named
| after elements from classic video game Chrono Trigger, The
| Washington Post and Mother Jones report. News of the donation
| broke today, almost a month after Luckey announced he was
| leaving Facebook, but the money was handed over on January 4th
| -- when he was presumably still under contract with the social
| media company.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| also interesting from that reddit thread were these comments:
|
| > I'm mostly surprised that they haven't done this with
| Whatsapp or Instagram thus far, but they are doing it for
| Oculus accounts.
|
| > > As of a few days ago, they're starting the process of
| moving Instagram DMs to Messenger, requiring a FB account. So,
| they are.
|
| > > > The people I know in product at Facebook are certain it
| is an inevitability for their entire portfolio. That's second-
| party hearsay, so take it as you will, but it's my operating
| understanding that is their long term (multi-year) goal.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ic4ye1/new_oculus_u...
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| He absolutely knew that this was a very real possibility and
| made the statements anyways to save face at the time. He was
| probably hoping no one would care when it eventually happened.
| cpeterso wrote:
| Hopefully Palmer Luckey has more foresight into how technology
| can be used in unintended ways now that he is building
| autonomous defense and surveillance system at Anduril
| Industries.
| jacquesm wrote:
| My preliminary and not very careful analysis reveals that he
| doesn't give a fuck about anybody except for #1.
| kmonsen wrote:
| He specifically left facebook so he could "shitpost for
| Donal Trump:
| https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/23/13025422/palmer-luckey-
| oc...
| subsubzero wrote:
| These same type of statements were made by the whatsapp
| founders regarding ads on whatsapp(they said they will never
| happen etc.)[1]
|
| All that went out the window once the company was bought for
| 19B, sure both founders left a few years later, but their
| statements were false after the sale.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Yep: you cannot promise anything beyond your control.
| fiatjaf wrote:
| That kind of promise from Facebook should be enforceable on
| court.
|
| If it is not it's only because the current government judicial
| system is so full of spam-cases and it is so inefficient that
| it doesn't have room for these things.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| Honestly, it might well be actionable for purchasers of
| existing hardware. They can legitimately point towards a
| public statement made by a company agent authorised by his
| employer and that they bought the device on that basis.
|
| The problem is that if Facebook had to pay out $20 million to
| make this go away they'd consider that to be entirely a cost
| worth paying.
| TedShiller wrote:
| Just make a fake FB account exclusively for this purpose. If
| you're forced to use a FB account at least don't link it to
| your actual profile. I have a separate fake FB account for
| every service that requires FB.
| woeirua wrote:
| Until they make you download the FB app to use it, and then
| they get access to everything you do on your phone and follow
| you around the internet. So sacrifice your privacy, or
| sacrifice the Oculus. I know which one I'm going to choose.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| This is great advice until Facebook blocks your secondary
| accounts, which might end up costing you access to any
| data/saves/content tied to your oculus or whatever linked
| services. Just look at how much destruction Google causes
| people and businesses by closing down all of their accounts
| for even accidental associations with flagged accounts.
| [deleted]
| stinky613 wrote:
| I tried doing that just moments ago and it wouldn't let me
| proceed without providing a phone number.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Fine, they can have the number of the burner phone that
| spends its time in my desk drawer with a dead battery, and
| is used for nothing but jumping through privacy-invading
| hoops.
| legulere wrote:
| Better send it back and ask for a refund. They intentionally
| broke something they advertised with.
| cdubzzz wrote:
| What phone number do you use for each account you create?
| TedShiller wrote:
| You can use the Burner iOS app for a temporary number
| cdubzzz wrote:
| Interesting. Just downloaded the app and the first thing
| it asks for is my number (which makes sense, I suppose).
| Without digging too deep -- is there cost associated
| here?
| AaronFriel wrote:
| To the extent that Facebook made those promises to someone
| authorized to disseminate them, I wonder if they've opened
| themselves up to refund claims well beyond original purchase
| dates.
|
| If anyone purchased the device relying upon Palmer Luckey's
| promises, that could be promissory estoppel.
|
| (Not a lawyer, etc etc.)
| dylan604 wrote:
| Did you click "Agree" to the new ToS? We told you of the
| changes and you agreed. Go fly a kite! --Facebook
| nightcracker wrote:
| I would argue that he was and still is lying. He had the power
| to make good on his promise in the form of contractual terms
| during the sale, but didn't.
| nrp wrote:
| Most of the folks on this thread are commenting from the
| perspective of 2020, but Facebook had pretty significantly
| different reputation in 2014, especially around M&A. They had
| recently brought in both Instagram and WhatsApp without
| meddling in either their product stacks or their leadership
| teams. It's easy to claim now that this was all naive, but at
| the time it was plausible that these organizations and brands
| would remain fairly independent and autonomous within the
| Facebook umbrella.
| ehnto wrote:
| I have to disagree, many assumed there would be some kind of
| hamfisted integration even in 2014. The only surprising thing
| is how long they held off.
|
| I had huge concerns regarding FB's purchase of Oculus at the
| time and I wasn't the only one. It was the single reason I
| did not buy an Oculus. It wasn't that I thought they would be
| brazen either, I just assumed they would be hoovering data up
| behind the scenes, and trading data between Oculus and FB.
|
| If this announcement had occurred in 2014, it would not have
| been surprising, I think the concerns were clear from the
| outset to most of the community. The only people who were
| starry eyed were those who just wanted Oculus funded well and
| were happy to take the word of the founder.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Facebook's reputations in 2014 or 2020 don't matter. This is
| what happens and how the world works.
| [deleted]
| kevingadd wrote:
| afaik they also betrayed similar promises made to the
| WhatsApp founders, to their dismay.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/30/17304792/whatsapp-jan-
| kou...
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| The people here are very on point and no doubt said the same
| thing in 2014 if they were privacy minded at the time. Most
| are under no delusion that "we will not do _______ , either
| now, or in the future" as empty promises. They were right
| then and they're right now. Facebook has obviously been in
| the business of selling its users out from the very beginning
| and no one who lives in this reality would have accepted such
| a promise from them as anything other than a nicety.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It doesn't really matter though, does it? No matter what the
| history of Facebook he wasn't in a position to make those
| promises, period.
|
| You can only make promises about what you control.
| gambler wrote:
| No.
|
| This development was _trivially predictable_ right when
| Facebook acquired Oculus. Which is why I bought Vive instead.
|
| You don't need to be a genius to see stuff like this ahead of
| time. All you have to do is refuse to be gaslit and be honest
| about the high-level drivers of corporate decision-making.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I also spent an extra $100 to buy a Vive instead of a Rift.
| I didn't predict this exact action but I didn't trust
| Facebook to keep their fingers off of it
| jimmaswell wrote:
| $100 doesn't sound worth not having to use a facebook
| account to me. you can just make a bogus one with no info
| on it.
| kmonsen wrote:
| Can you? Don't you need a credit card attached?
|
| Still possible but most people will not that far to hide
| information from facebook.
| rvnx wrote:
| Same problem with Fitbit and Nest and Google :(
| tolbish wrote:
| Thank you for putting this revision of history into words.
|
| The problem with refusing to be gaslit is that our social
| structures condition us into being agreeable. That's not to
| say we should seek to be contrarian, but we should be more
| vocal about how money shapes behaviors.
| shazow wrote:
| Here's a blog post I wrote in response to the acquisition
| when it happened in 2014: https://medium.com/@shazow/re-
| facebook-acquires-oculus-f8589...
|
| I was far from the only one who was saying this at the time.
| I don't believe Facebook had a significantly different
| reputation in 2014.
|
| I also have a follow-up draft from 2016 that talks about how
| the things predicted in the blog post have already begun.
| rmrfstar wrote:
| > Facebook had pretty significantly different reputation in
| 2014
|
| That's not really true. Hipster antitrust wasn't a thing yet,
| so people weren't talking about it at your neighborhood
| Starbucks. But serious people were talking about it. Look at
| the conflicts of interest disclosures for prominent antitrust
| scholars... they were busy during that period.
|
| Also, the infamous "Zuckerberg destroy mode" email is from
| 2012.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| The fact that it was actually discussed back then, people
| were asking about it and that Luckey was assuring them that
| it won't happen (even despite of the fact that he wasn't
| going to be in charge anymore) clearly shows that Facebook's
| reputation wasn't as "significantly different" back then than
| how you paint it.
| kps wrote:
| > _Facebook had pretty significantly different reputation in
| 2014_
|
| Dumb fucks.
| ABoldGambit wrote:
| You'll be downvoted because HN etiquette not because people
| necessarily disagree with your sentiment
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Dumb Fucks is Mark Zuckerberg quote about his users that
| leaked in 2010.
|
| Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at
| Harvard
|
| Zuck: Just ask
|
| Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
|
| [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that
| one?
|
| Zuck: People just submitted it.
|
| Zuck: I don't know why.
|
| Zuck: They "trust me"
|
| Zuck: Dumb fucks
|
| Really, comment got flagged?
|
| https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
| [deleted]
| est31 wrote:
| I think GP is downvoted because of a misunderstanding. I
| think GP wanted to highlight the "dumb fucks" quote of
| Zuckerberg, where he refers to people uploading data to
| his platform with that term. That quote became public in
| 2010, almost half a decade before 2014.
| https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg#Quotes
| jameshart wrote:
| That sentiment is of course not, originally, attributable
| to _kps_ though.
|
| Regarding people who ascribe benign intent to Facebook,
| it was first expressed by one M Zuckerberg. In 2004. And
| first reported by Business Insider in 2010.
| Karunamon wrote:
| In 2004, yes. 16 years ago. I'd hate to be judged for
| immature statements I made nearly two decades ago.
| liability wrote:
| Whether or not it's fair to judge people for things they
| said 16 years ago when none of their subsequent actions
| or statements give any reason to believe they're a
| different person today isn't germane to the point, which
| is that Facebook/Zuckerberg's poor reputation are _not_
| new.
| Karunamon wrote:
| I guess I tire of that (second hand, mind) quote being
| brought up as if it's relevant to anything today.
| liability wrote:
| That's my point though; it may be irrelevant in many
| cases, but it _is_ relevant to the matter of how long
| Zuckerbeg has had a poor reputation. Such a question
| obviously calls for the examination of old stories and
| quotes.
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| Mmm... nah.
|
| From the 2014 HN thread[0]
|
| >Please login using your Facebook account to continue.
|
| [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469242
| kmonsen wrote:
| Palmer is a first class jerk and other things I would maybe get
| banned for saying, but this is as good and honest an apology as
| I think he can give. Things change, and it has been many years
| since he said this.
| aHorseNamedSeve wrote:
| A lot of people forget just how young Palmer Lucky is.
|
| I absolutely believe his post here. He was young and naive and
| believed the lies from the Facebook executives. Completely
| understandable and I hope this doesn't make people think he's a
| liar.
| monadic2 wrote:
| Are the devices any good?
| cosmojg wrote:
| Fortunately, OpenHMD exists: http://www.openhmd.net/
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Pretty much exactly what I was afraid of when they were first
| acquired, and what they initially promised they wouldn't do.
| Looks like the success of the Quest has emboldened the
| reinholders. That as of this posting, 100% of the comments are a
| variation of 'WTF', it's pretty telling they felt they could get
| away with it regardless.
| twox2 wrote:
| I just changed my mind about getting an Oculus.
| [deleted]
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| How to immediately lose a segment of your customers? Hmmm ah yes,
| require FB for login! Way to go!
| rapnie wrote:
| Guess the extra PII + the ad space are more valuable to them
| than a slight decrease in hardware sales.
| rcarmo wrote:
| OK. I had planned to get an Oculus Quest for Christmas (since it
| is reasonably accessible, flexible and probably the best all-
| around headset out there right now), and how my gut feeling is...
| No. Just no. I don't want to have Facebook on anything.
|
| I might consider creating a brand new, singleton account to use
| it, but to be honest my gut reaction is that if they do not have
| a non-Facebook login, I will just _not_ use it.
| dreen wrote:
| I already had to tie it to a Facebook account in order to record
| video on Quest, unfortunately.
|
| Quest is a great device, but I don't think my next VR headset
| will be an Oculus.
| yial wrote:
| Well, as someone who has been social media free since 2015 this
| really just encourages my feeling that I must not need one. (Even
| though I want some VR setup )
| grillvogel wrote:
| you are literally posting on social media right now
| hardsoftnfloppy wrote:
| Lol fuck this shit I'm out
| john4534243 wrote:
| I have invested heavily learning react and react native and i
| don't have(or want) facebook account. I will remind this incident
| in the future before investing time in any thing related to
| facebook.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Isn't react open source though? Why would you care about the
| source of it if it serves your purpose? Facebook doesn't make
| any money off react or as far as I know use it for political
| leverage. Can you point out why you'd quit using a technology
| because the person/company behind it is "bad" ? The Nazis
| improved rocket technology tremendously during WW2 and we
| didn't toss that knowledge because the Nazis invented it.
| dTal wrote:
| The analogy would work better if the Nazis were still around
| and handing out rockets for free, to make it easier for them
| to hire engineers who know about rockets, so that they can
| launch better rockets at people.
| john4534243 wrote:
| Its not just about the react being opensource. Its the
| philosophy that drives the ecosystem. Facebook can come up
| with a react component for VR on the browser which work's
| really well only with facebook account.
| slenk wrote:
| Welp...I now have an Oculus Rift S for sale.
| dilly_bar wrote:
| Zero chance I'd buy an Oculus now.
| [deleted]
| bane wrote:
| I'm reminded of this blog post from 2014. The predictions made
| here so far have basically all held true 6 years later.
|
| http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-rea...
|
| This action feels really connected to the coming Horizon virtual
| world thing -- which coincidentally is also predicted in the blog
| post linked above.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/facebook-horizon/
| eugeniub wrote:
| Well this is horrifying. I bought a Quest for a relative. He
| loves it, but he doesn't have a Facebook account, and has no
| interest in signing up. I have a Facebook account, but I don't
| use it, and I certainly don't want to connect my Oculus account.
| I guess we'll both have to sell our Quests. That means we'll lose
| all of our game purchases.
|
| I came to Oculus with eyes wide open knowing it was a Facebook
| company, but this news still sucks.
| ozten wrote:
| It may not take effect until 2023.
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| That's exactly why I went for the Rift S instead and bought all
| my games through Steam. So I can sell that piece of plastic and
| get something not feom Oculus.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| How hard is it to create a facebook account?
| tobrien6 wrote:
| Just make a burner Facebook account. You can do so with a
| burner email. Annoying, but not horrifying.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| No. I'm not going to give them what they want. There needs to
| be a lawsuit.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Alupis wrote:
| Sometimes Facebook requires a photo ID to be submitted before
| "approving" a new account. Seems to happen when they suspect
| the person isn't real (fake name, or whatever).
| klyrs wrote:
| FWIW it's quite simple to make fake IDs that pass FB
| verification. Not that I support making FB accounts, even
| fraudulent ones. I'd like to see a class action privacy
| suit, because in conjunction with their real names policy,
| FB is forcing identity disclosure simply to use hardware.
| shazow wrote:
| I just tried and failed:
| https://twitter.com/shazow/status/1295835462360338436
|
| I used a realistic sounding name, I tried several email
| addresses that were rejected as blocked, eventually I
| landed on an email that worked and my account got
| immediately disabled.
|
| I'm sure I could eventually succeed, but I don't believe
| that it's fair to brush this off as something that
| anybody could do easily.
| klyrs wrote:
| Your tweet indicates that you were stopped by the
| "government ID required" hoop. I've been there. I'm no
| graphics design wizard, but I foiled this by (1) taking a
| photograph of my actual government ID, (2) copying
| letters around to spell the name I'm known by, (3)
| applying some noise and blur filters (4) downsampling,
| and (5) redacting all PII except name & face.
|
| I imagine that you could use a plausible but fake name
| and a plausible but fake "random person" image, but I'm
| not interested in actually interacting with that website
| enough to try.
|
| You might try a clean OS & browser install, to avoid
| trackers, and maybe if you've been banned a bunch
| already, use a VPN (or stop using a VPN) or use Starbucks
| wifi or something.
| emerongi wrote:
| My grandpa accidentally used a phone number to register
| when he was trying to log in. His original account got
| promptly locked and for months they would periodically lock
| it. He had to provide ID proof every time.
|
| I don't use Facebook, but I totally recognize how valuable
| it is for my grandpa. Sadly, Facebook does not allow any
| mistakes to be made on its site, which is what older people
| tend to do when faced with new tech.
| encom wrote:
| Not possible. I tried doing that once, and Facebook demanded
| I give them my phone number, which I obviously denied.
| verbatim wrote:
| You can make a burner email account that doesn't track you
| around the web, and other places.
|
| Is it possible to do that with a Facebook account?
| ilogik wrote:
| if you're not logged into it in the browser, it can't
| follow you around
| Alupis wrote:
| Not entirely true. If you've logged in at all, and didn't
| purge your cookies and local storage, they might still be
| tracking you everywhere you visit.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| third party cookies allowed means they can follow you
| around logged in or out. They can also follow you around
| by your fingerprint (IP+various browser info bits that
| uniquely identify you)
| vmception wrote:
| When you make a facebook account disconnected from a social
| graph (new email, or unused phone number) facebook shuts down
| the account.
|
| Their position is clear. They're fucking creeps masquerading
| _any_ user experience they create as anti-spam.
| spike021 wrote:
| Is this confirmed? I made a second account at one point
| with a new email and have had zero issues with both.
| Although I rarely log into the first one, maybe once a
| month or so.
| aspaceman wrote:
| It's still connected to the graph if you have another
| account accessed from the same IP. They know there's a
| connection from that account to yours.
|
| Don't create a burner account. Facebook's TOS is to lock
| burners and require an ID to unlock, so you'd be locking
| all your games out of access.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| You can sue them. I think this is what it will take. I've
| got an orphaned GOG account that they are not responding
| to me about, and I am definitely entitled to access those
| games.
| aspaceman wrote:
| True. It's all within your rights. I'm just trying to say
| they really don't like burners and won't make it easy to
| go that route. (If I had to guess)
| Arnavion wrote:
| They're going to lose their games if they don't make any
| account anyway. So if they feel strongly about not making
| a proper account, they might as well try with a burner
| one and see how long it lasts?
| spike021 wrote:
| Again, I've had and technically logged into both accounts
| concurrently for at least the past 3-5 years. So unless
| this only applies to new accounts, I have yet to have
| either one locked out.
|
| That's why I was wondering if it's officially confirmed
| somewhere.
| vmception wrote:
| This isn't a 3-5 year old phenomenon.
|
| I don't think there are many people that are cognizant in
| how to break their social graph.
|
| I've seen a few other hackernews comments corroborating
| it over the past year. But it isn't a common case so
| Facebook gets away with it.
| [deleted]
| 0xdeadb00f wrote:
| Facebook has banned multiple burner account of mine, so I
| suppose it is confirmed.
| e12e wrote:
| Just rewatching "Person of Interest" and came across
| "Finch" casually remarking that he invented social
| networking in order to increase the quality of data gleaned
| from his totalitarian surveillance machine... (specifically
| to fill in the social graph data...).
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| It makes sense... we've sold our data for the ability to
| tell 'Alexa set a timer'
| eternalban wrote:
| The society at large was akin to natives of an
| undeveloped land being preyed upon by an advanced
| civilization. They were offered glass beads and trinkets,
| "a mirror to amuse yourself with, your highness!". And
| society at large behaved precisely as the historic
| natives.
| actuator wrote:
| I think for some service which for some reason had just FB
| signup I made a burner FB account and locked in all the
| privacy settings, I was thrown out of the account in under
| an hour. It kept asking for phone number which I didn't
| want to give.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Create a social graph of creeps only
| elorant wrote:
| In which case you buy a verified fake account and move on.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| They don't. You can have stand alone accounts. All you need
| to do is follow a few things like a beer company, car
| comapny or some other faceless corp.
|
| Job done. raise the noise floor.
| vmception wrote:
| Yeah, if you forget to do that within a day you are
| locked out forever.
| jameslk wrote:
| I've had a burner FB account for years and have never had
| an issue. What's your source for this?
| cptskippy wrote:
| I tried, in vain, to create a FB account using my work
| email address sometime after 2010 and FB demanded
| verification by SMS.
|
| I ended up using my personal email address because that's
| how they want it.
| ibdf wrote:
| I made a burner account to be able to login into certain
| sites that requires fb login. After 2 months without a
| phone number they disabled it, and since my email was also
| a burner they removed it. I had then to create an actual
| email account, and give them my phone number (I don't have
| a burner number) to be able to activate the account again.
| Besides my phone number, nothing else is real in there,
| even my profile image is from one of those "this person
| does not exist" sites.
| juergbi wrote:
| So they're effectively saying you can't use Oculus gear if
| you don't have any friends (on social media).
| em-bee wrote:
| not good enough. maybe if you only play solo games, but once
| you play with others facebook will get enough data to get an
| idea, if not identify who you really are. you may get tagged
| by your friends or family, connected to a location, etc, many
| ways to leak personal information. the only way to stay safe
| is to not log in to facebook
| bencollier49 wrote:
| If you're in a country with half-decent consumer protections,
| you ought to be able to return the device, as it no longer
| functions as sold.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Which country is that?
| ObsoleteNerd wrote:
| Australia for one. I returned my Ring camera when they
| removed the customisable motion detection zones and it no
| longer worked as advertised (to this day, many months
| later) on their own website.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| I've had a Rift for several years now. I haven't had a Facebook
| account in far longer.
|
| I've also spent a bit of money on Rift games. This is angering.
| data4lyfe wrote:
| I'm interested in buying it from you if this is actually the
| case.
| rolph wrote:
| so here i am wondering if facebook would be challenged by a
| constant flood of anonymous [off graph] accounts constantly
| flooding in. how many 3card monte accounts per second would be
| required to keep the account verifier demon flooded
| Akronymus wrote:
| > ... but he doesn't have a Facebook account,...
|
| Not that he knows. https://theconversation.com/shadow-profiles-
| facebook-knows-a...
| wlesieutre wrote:
| If you make a Facebook account and never touch the Facebook
| aspect of it, is there any material difference between that and
| an Oculus account?
| acdha wrote:
| Can you do so without accepting their terms of service? They
| use every data source they can to build profiles for people
| so accepting the ToS is going to approve use of your
| information for as much as they can get away with.
| codezero wrote:
| I'm sure this just changes which pipe usage data goes down,
| but this means Facebook directly gets to use your VR
| usage/purchases to market to you, and they will follow you
| around the web, because they know. I think that's the main
| reason folks generally dislike FB connect in the first place,
| but I don't want to speak for everyone :)
| kelnos wrote:
| How is that different from an Oculus account, though? FB
| could keep the accounts separate but still funnel data in
| from Oculus to FB (as I'm sure they'd already been doing).
| If you create a throwaway FB account just for your Oculus
| device, the only material difference is which DB the entry
| is in.
| bluntfang wrote:
| when you sign up to facebook i bet their ToS is much
| different than Oculus'
| codezero wrote:
| That's my point around changing the pipes. I think it's
| still meaningfully different though, because there are
| probably some first party benefits of going directly
| through FB, but that's speculation.
| abraae wrote:
| > this means Facebook directly gets to use your VR
| usage/purchases to market to you, and they will follow you
| around the web
|
| Only if you use or log into your bogus FB account.
| codezero wrote:
| Having your IP address is identifiable enough (combined
| with all the other joys of big data) to Facebook and its
| marketing wing, so don't feel too confident, but if you
| don't care, then that's kind of the point.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Wondering if creating burning accounts for everything
| would prevent any tracking. Basically
|
| - create burner gmail
|
| - create burner oculus name/account
|
| - create burner Facebook account
|
| - always use a VPN
|
| It seems like you could completely remain anonymous and
| provide Facebook with data they could never correlate to
| a real person.
| rightbyte wrote:
| What do VPN help if you have Facebook firmware on your
| computer? You also need to never play with friends with
| the Rift online, or let them borrow your Wifi, etc. If
| you have Facebook apps or hardware you leak
| fingerprinting bits. The Rift has bluetooth for the
| controllers right? Better put it in a Farradays cage
| because your neighbors will rat on you to Zuckerberg.
|
| There is no having a tiny bit of Facebook. If you give
| them a finger ...
| xlii wrote:
| Did you try to make a burner Facebook account? I tried
| doing this since my client needed something to be
| verified through FB and I don't have an account.
|
| After initial login I was asked to verify myself by
| either providing ID (sic!) or a phone number.
|
| Well, seems that after 2023 I'll just trash my Quest.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Whoa really? I deleted my Facebook in 2014, so I had no
| idea they actually did ID verification. If this is the
| case I guess you could spin up a burner number on Twilio,
| but this seems like a lot of work to go through. I have a
| Quest and will likely try these steps, but no way will I
| ever give Facebook my real identity.
| christoph wrote:
| Yep, I've had exactly the same thing happen to me. You
| might be able to delay it slightly if you use an email
| address they have in their records from other users (i.e.
| an email address some of your friends have stored for you
| in their contacts they've shared with Facebook). Set up a
| new gmail / Hotmail account they have no trace of
| existing before, the red flags go up and it will almost
| certainly get you to verify with some form of government
| ID, real phone number or possibly both.
|
| I've supported Oculus since DK1 through every single
| iteration of hardware. This change by Facebook has just
| killed the brand entirely for me. I simply won't sign up
| / back into Facebook (killed my account around 2011 as I
| found it overwhelmingly toxic and have never looked back)
| to use a piece of hardware I already purchased.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| I mean at this point... seeing ads on VR instead of
| toothpaste might be a win
| wlesieutre wrote:
| If you're logged into the account on your computer, sure.
| Just make sure you either make all purchase on-device, or
| log into Oculus in a private window.
| callmeal wrote:
| You'll need a separate ip address for each device then
| correct?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Not sure, does facebook just assume that everyone
| connecting from behind a NAT is the same person?
|
| That seems like it could go poorly, like if one person in
| a household had been buying a secret birthday present or
| an engagement ring or researching divorce lawyers and
| then the targeted ads were associated to everyone in the
| house.
| deminature wrote:
| The definitely assume it's the same person. I get
| advertising clearly targeted at other people on my
| internet connection (eg. ads for property in a certain
| suburb, when I don't even actively look at property while
| another family member does).
| mlindner wrote:
| Facebook tracks you even when you're logged out btw.
| [deleted]
| e12e wrote:
| I'm not sure if you mean "an oculus account owned by Facebook
| anyway" - but in general terms I'd be somewhat surprised if a
| "real" game/software/service company (eg: Nintendo, gog.com)
| kept quasi-/il-legal shadow profiles that they actively tried
| to pair with your account.
| Fjolsvith wrote:
| What if you are not allowed to make a FB account due to their
| TOS? Not everyone can be on FB.
| Funes- wrote:
| Forcing users to violate their personal moral principles,
| upon which the decision of never using anything related to
| Facebook rests, is a big enough difference for many--myself
| included.
|
| EDIT: I didn't know that Facebook bought Oculus some time
| ago, back in 2014--for some reason I thought it happened far
| more recently. I would make the case above for someone who
| had bought an Oculus device before Facebook's acquisition and
| now would be forced to use its platform, then. I don't have
| anything to do with Facebook, personally. I don't even use
| WhatsApp, so there's that for my moral integrity.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Then you already have a problem with using an Oculus device
| regardless of what sort of account you can sign in with,
| they've owned Oculus since 2014
| Funes- wrote:
| That's right, I didn't know. Well, rephrase that to a
| less radical standpoint, then: "upon which the decision
| of not wanting to use Facebook rests".
|
| In any case, I personally have never owned an Oculus or
| anything related to Facebook.
| mankyd wrote:
| At the point that you've given money to facebook when you
| bought their product, haven't you already done that?
| Funes- wrote:
| >haven't you already done that?
|
| Fortunately, I haven't.
| saxonww wrote:
| A better question: why does a VR headset require an account
| at all? Should my monitor require an account? Should my
| keyboard?
|
| It's a peripheral, not a platform.
| atonalfreerider wrote:
| As a VR developer I'm really sad to hear this news. I've always
| been against the walled garden approach. I feel like it's only
| a matter of time before they block SideQuest.
|
| However - supposedly your oculus account will be valid until
| the end of 2022 [0]. At that point you could change to a newer
| hardware platform from another manufacturer.
|
| [0] https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-facebook-account-required-
| ne...
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| He'll still lose access to all games he owns on the Oculus
| store.
| jedberg wrote:
| You don't have any contact info in your profile, but if you're
| serious, I already have a Facebook account that I use daily so
| I don't care much.
|
| I'll buy one of them from you for $300 or the pair for $500.
| That seems like the going price? Contact is in my profile, let
| me know.
| vernie wrote:
| A tad hyperbolic, don't you think?
| jhomedall wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. I purchase a Quest a while back (unaware
| of the Facebook affiliation), and really enjoy it. I can't see
| myself using it again after this, however.
| yalogin wrote:
| Ha this is inevitable. Facebook would not leave the device alone
| obviously. Oculus opens ups brand new data set and user base to
| sell ads. Not just that facebook has done something that google
| couldn't do, they created another successful product beyond their
| cash cow.
| jugg1es wrote:
| The comments on the original article seem to indicate that only
| facebook thought this was a good change haha.
| benbristow wrote:
| I'm amazed so many people care. Not having a Facebook account for
| me is social suicide. Helps that Messenger is a very good
| messaging app and Facebook the main site is a good timewaster.
| Make a throwaway one if you really despise Facebook so much.
| C19is20 wrote:
| No.
| ozten wrote:
| This looks like a great opportunity for pine64 to make a wireless
| 6DOF headset (Quest clone)
|
| They already ship a mobile phone.
| https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
| neonhat wrote:
| LOL good luck with that.
| mabbo wrote:
| I just bought a new gaming PC powerful to be usable with an
| Oculus. I have some cash handy from a stock sale as well. I was
| _really_ considering one.
|
| That's never going to happen now.
| jiofih wrote:
| Good thing the Reverb G2 is right around the corner!
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Genuinely think VR would be dead by now and considered a flash in
| the pan fad if it wasn't for the software and hardware Oculus has
| done. Valve and HTC just really didn't invest the time and money
| seriously in the platform and think HL:Alyx only shipped because
| Oculus dragged the format forward and showed the potential.
|
| Just don't get why they're doing this at this point, I'd
| understand if they had iPhone level sales but although the Quest
| is selling great it's not there yet and it seems a misstep to
| push everyone into FB from it so soon lots of people will be
| turned off by the idea. Forcing the tens of thousand Oculus
| holdouts and saving a handful of engineering salaries surely can
| 't be worth the bad press and harm to the growing platform
|
| Hope the 4 people who bought Quests after playing mine don't
| whinge to me about this.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| When the actor seems irrational, you should step back and ask
| "who is the actor and what are their motivations?"
|
| This doesn't feel like an act of Facebook as a whole. They
| should be thinking long term, big picture. Zuckerberg seems to
| have an image of Neuromancer's Matrix in his head, and we ain't
| there yet. He'd definitely take this step but I wouldn't think
| he'd do it until he more solidly owns VR.
|
| What I see here is a senior manager type, maybe a VP or a bit
| below it, who needs numbers that go dramatically up and to the
| right in the short term and is thinking about their own
| personal success. They'd be the ones to say "how do we turn
| this acquisition into Facebook-measurable success metrics so we
| can prove that we're worth all this spending? Ah, yes, mandate
| Facebook logins, great idea, do it."
| ccvannorman wrote:
| Any news on jailbreaking Oculus devices so that I don't have to
| play this silly game with hardware I own?
| oxymoran wrote:
| Death to Facebook
| Shorel wrote:
| When will Carmack jump ships and go to join Valve?
| sharken wrote:
| It seems he will not if this article from 2018 is to be
| believed. But he is also a Gamer and a reasonable guy, so he
| might have a change heart.
|
| Link: https://uploadvr.com/john-carmack-i-intend-to-stay-at-
| facebo...
| criddell wrote:
| I thought he was working on AI now?
| sharken wrote:
| Indeed: https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/john-carmack-
| steps-down-at...
|
| https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=254763258
| 5...
| soulofmischief wrote:
| https://www.engadget.com/2019-11-13-john-carmack-agi.html
|
| he's just a consultant now but you can bet he's been
| disillusioned by all of this.
| asldkjaslkdj wrote:
| I was starting to look into VR and I guess this crosses Oculus
| off the list. I don't intend to ever have a Facebook account.
| evo_9 wrote:
| This was the reason I bought an HTC Vive instead of a Rift; I
| never trusted that this would hold. I recently considered buying
| a Quest. I won't ever consider that again.
|
| Don't support Facebook ever, they don't deserve it.
|
| Incidentally here is a comment I made recently about the bullshit
| they pulled on my wife and I relating to creating a business
| listing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23959088
| ehsankia wrote:
| The SteamVR ecosystem is just so much nicer. I trust them far
| more than any of the alternatives. OpenVR for example has lead
| to many fantastic tools.
| evo_9 wrote:
| I didn't know much about Steam before I bought the VIVE and
| yes, it's actually a very nice platform. One thing that isn't
| apparent - you can return any game for a full refund within a
| certain (fair) amount of time owned and/ or you don't exceed
| some (also fair) time-of-play amount.
|
| It makes me more likely to try a game on a whim knowing and
| if it's not for me I can refund it without hassle. Great way
| to handle it, I currently own close to 100 VR titles and have
| refunded at least 20+ that just weren't for me.
| ASlave2Gravity wrote:
| I've only completed a few projects with Steam/Open VR and the
| Vive, and found it a little harder to deal with. It's mostly
| wrapping input APIs, and different friends / invite systems.
|
| But Vive don't have anything on the quest to the best of my
| knowledge. We ship a lot of stuff on Quests and dev on them
| is really quite nice (with Unity).
|
| The worst part was having to make a workspace Facebook
| account or whatever that thing was called, right as the Quest
| was just coming out. All the docs were hosted behind a login.
| Nightmare.
|
| I don't know if Oculus could have done it without Facebook
| money though. It seems to me the world at large wasn't giving
| VR enough attention. We're finally seeing proper B2B adoption
| now and shit like this with Facebook accounts is going to
| make things a lot harder. It's kinda tricky sometimes getting
| hardware into banks or the NHS or any place that has funky or
| strict hardware procurement. This is just another barrier for
| all that.
|
| I've not read the dev emails that have come from Oculus yet.
| But Oculus are meant to be rolling out their new 'Business'
| backend for remote deployments soon. Hopefully this isn't B2B
| side too.
| Cynosaur wrote:
| What makes me angry is that people won't learn anything from
| this. The next time something like this happens, people will
| defend it to the end and call people who warn about it "paranoid"
| or "cynical".
|
| Corporations are not your friends. Unless it is set in legal
| writing you can't take their promises at heart value. Even if
| they set it in legal writing it might mean nothing since they
| always find a way to worm around it. Their ultimate goal is to
| fuck you over. Their pricing and profit margin are "take as much
| as possible without them complaining". Games will get more
| expensive and it has nothing to do with development costs, it has
| everything to do "because they can so why wouldn't they".
|
| Corporations are not idiots and they know how to do something
| subversively and over a long period of time so people don't
| notice the changes. Look at how microtransactions in games became
| almost a norm nowadays and future generations won't even see
| anything wrong with it. Look at how using FOMO and other
| psychological tricks are actually a "good retention method" now
| instead of being unethical, people don't even complain against it
| any more, they complain if it is badly implemented and they don't
| get enough of it. Companies selling your data are getting less
| and less backlash over it with people using arguments as "oh well
| they know everything already, I don't care".
|
| I really hate all of this.
| saos wrote:
| Talking of login. I've just tried to login to EBay app using
| Google authentication. I have 2 step verification turned on. It
| now specifically requires gmail app to access the verification
| code. It no longer supports Apple mail app. Is this a sick joke?
|
| The only way around it was to send the verification code via tex.
| I'm so concerned now that Google will only send verification
| codes to Android device in the future.
| mlindner wrote:
| I recently switched from using Chrome to Firefox. Next on my
| list is probably to try to wean myself off of using Google
| search. Getting my email off gmail is going to be harder and
| not sure what the best way to do that is.
| dhagz wrote:
| There's lots of alternatives out there, but the good ones
| aren't free - ProtonMail is one, FastMail is another. There's
| others as well, but those are the one's I'd recommend.
| There's also Hey, but I'm still not sold on that one.
| kube-system wrote:
| Get a second email -- potentially at your own domain so you
| are never again locked to any particular service -- and use
| it in conjunction with gmail. Sign up any new accounts to
| your new email, and slowly migrate others as you see fit.
| After a year or two, your gmail will only receive spam, and
| anything important will be in your new account.
| mlindner wrote:
| The "own domain" is the hard part here. I've never owned
| one and figuring that all out takes time. Even more so
| getting all the email server configuration figured out.
| kube-system wrote:
| It's super easy. Pick a registrar, find a name that
| exists, and pay the ~$15/yr.
|
| If you pick a mail service that lets you bring your own
| domain, they almost all have step-by-step guides to
| configure it. It's a half-dozen settings to copy/paste.
|
| Using your own domain certainly isn't a requirement, but
| it lets you easily get out of this situation without any
| trouble if your next provider decides to do something you
| don't like.
| electrondood wrote:
| Making a lot of expensive bricks just like that.
| UMetaGOMS wrote:
| I very nearly bought an Oculus Quest recently due to some glowing
| reviews, despite my strong anti-FB feelings. So very glad I
| hesitated.
| detaro wrote:
| Not going to repeat the general criticism covered in other
| comments, but how is that going to work with professional users?
| Using employees private Facebook accounts in a work setting is
| somewhere between a really bad idea and impossible.
| apazzolini wrote:
| I'm tired of saying fuck Facebook on HN threads, but man, fuck
| Facebook.
|
| If I ever move my racing sim rig to VR, it's definitely not going
| to be an Oculus.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| I'm tired of reading these type of comments. Do you enjoy VR?
| Just create a facebook account, that's not a big deal. There's
| nothing evil there, people are just grasping for straws.
| apazzolini wrote:
| I deleted my FB account over 5 years ago. A few years after
| that, I tried creating a new one to sell something on
| Marketplace, and they closed my account, saying I needed to
| provide a driver's license due to fraud. I'm not giving FB my
| driver's license to sell something online, and I'm certainly
| not going to do it to play a video game in VR.
| halfFact wrote:
| This really is no surprise. So many threads on the front page
| shocked at the evils of Facebook and Apple.
|
| All were predicted given their past record.
|
| Don't buy from bad companies and this isn't an issue.
| Ace17 wrote:
| ... except when the non-bad company you bought your DK-1 from
| gets bought by a bad company.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Non-bad companies could set up "will not get bought by
| Facebook" poison pills. Say they will release all IP to the
| public domain when acquired by Facebook. Enforceable
| contract with a third party.
| goodluckchuck wrote:
| That's exactly what happened here. The question is
| whether Oculus's customers will enforce the promises of
| never requiring a Facebook login.
| Bhilai wrote:
| I think there is a lot of benefit from unifying various
| identities and identity stacks. You can put all the investment in
| improving one identity platform instead of trying to maintain a
| user identity for every acquisition you make.
| djsumdog wrote:
| I have an Oculus Go and pretty much only use it for Skybox and
| nothing else. I hope I can just disable all updates and keep
| using it without connecting it to a FB account. I haven't even
| bought anything on the store.
|
| I guess it might be time to look at FOSS alternatives for these
| devices, just to keep basic functionality. I wonder if the
| bootloaders are locked.
| [deleted]
| electrondood wrote:
| Cool, so your existing Oculus device is guaranteed to be an
| expensive brick 2 years from now if you value privacy in any way.
| commandertso wrote:
| I -just- decoupled Facebook from my Oculus account in preparation
| for deleting Facebook. I guess in two years I make a throw-away
| account, or better yet, move to Valve's current offering.
|
| I'm super done with this company.
| olex wrote:
| Same plan here. The Quest I got earlier this year is my first
| and will be my last Oculus device. Hopefully someone else makes
| a comparable headset soon (comparable = full wireless PCVR
| capability, like what the Quest + Virtual Desktop offers),
| ideally at a comparable price point as well... how hard can it
| be, the Quest is 1.5 years old by now, there's gotta be
| something at least similar in the works somewhere.
| sharken wrote:
| Good move, Valve are gamers at heart while Facebook is out to
| get your data and make as much money possible from it.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Valve is also private. Theoretically they have more leeway to
| make short-term unprofitable decisions without having to
| answer to public shareholders.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Theoretically, but their history suggests they won't. This
| is the company that made gaming on Linux viable, has a
| platform open to all VR hardware, and lets people sell keys
| on alternative stores without even taking a cut even though
| they are clearly in a very dominant market position.
|
| They have their faults, but acting like a modern big tech
| company isn't one of them.
| mikenew wrote:
| I'm able to play Half Life: Alyx natively on Linux with my
| Valve Index, as well as other games running through Proton. Not
| only does Valve support Linux natively; they've been funding
| development on GFX drivers and things like DXVK. Unfortunately
| OpenHMD (which would let you use the headset completely
| decoupled from Steam) doesn't support the Index yet, but it has
| been worked on and it looks like it just needs someone to
| finish up that work. Not that you necessarily care about Linux
| support, but it gives you an idea of how they feel about their
| products and their community.
|
| The headset itself is expensive but it's the best consumer
| headset in existence right now. I can play for hours (depending
| on the game) without feeling like I need to stop. There's no
| single thing that's dramatically better than other headsets,
| but just about everything about it is at least somewhat better.
| Comfort, tracking, visuals, adjustability, and so on.
|
| Anyway, Valve is just night-and-day different from Facebook. In
| fact _they 're_ the ones maintaining support for the Rift on
| Steam, not the other way around. Valve wants VR to be an open
| platform, and Facebook wants it to be a part of Facebook,
| entirely owned and controlled by them.
| tasssko wrote:
| Valves VR looks awesome!
| tiagobraw wrote:
| yeap, there goes my changes of having an Oculus (never had a
| facebook account and won't)... Guess one less option then...
| 0xBeefFed wrote:
| I guess now is the time to look into how to root the console and
| install a custom ROM in a similar fashion to de-Googling your
| android phone. There is already enough support in the community
| for side-loading APKs and the like. Does anyone know of any ways
| to achieve this?
| ohyes wrote:
| Quelle surprise, a big tech company making a big tech company
| move to drive users into their embattled flagship.
|
| I take this as a negative indicator of how things are going for
| Facebook. I don't see any synergy with oculus other than that
| both products have users. Maybe that is enough from a business
| standpoint, but I feel forcing login to Facebook is going to kill
| oculus adoption, it isn't like 6 years ago, there are viable
| alternatives if you want a VR rig. It just looks and feels
| desperate to me.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| ' Please log in to your national ID account before turning on
| your vehicle. '
| [deleted]
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is in jest, but we all know this is what the future holds.
| Isn't it interesting how inevitable this all is/seems?
| Yhippa wrote:
| More like "please drink a verification can".
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Have a Rift S, left FB several years ago, now forced to go back
| in the future. I hate you FB. Will not buy Oculus again.
| kostadin wrote:
| Great, I can now attempt to sell my Vive Pro because this will
| surely drive up demand for it.
| surfsvammel wrote:
| I don't have a Facebook account. My birthday wishlist just got
| one item shorter :(
| coldwaraaron wrote:
| Alright, then I'll be selling this Rift S and getting an Index
| after all. Fuck Facebook.
| carabiner wrote:
| @dang, fix typo in headline? Faceboo _o_ k.
| dang wrote:
| Whoa, how'd we miss that? Fixed noow.
| Carmack77 wrote:
| Andrew Reisse is rolling in his grave right now. This is
| disgusting and not what he wanted and disrespectful to everything
| he worked toward. I am ashamed of Oculus.
| danShumway wrote:
| A very brief history of Facebook's involvement with Oculus and
| how this has shaped up, just from quickly searching HN previous
| posts:
|
| - (2014) Facebook acquires Oculus:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237
|
| - (2016) Oculus's privacy policy sparks concern:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410809
|
| Oculus responds to privacy concerns about user tracking
| (https://uploadvr.com/facebook-oculus-privacy/) saying
|
| > Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such
| as elements of our infrastructure, but we're not sharing
| information with Facebook at this time. We don't have advertising
| yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising -
| though these are things we may consider in the future.
|
| - (2019) If logged into Facebook, Oculus data may be used for
| ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21770752
|
| From their official statement:
|
| > If you choose not to log into Facebook on Oculus, we won't
| share data with Facebook to allow third parties to target
| advertisements to you based on your use of the Oculus Platform.
|
| - (2020): Facebook accounts are now required.
|
| None of this is particularly surprising, lots of people (even in
| the press) were calling out how this was going to evolve. But
| it's still interesting to look back 6 years and see what the
| initial reactions were and what people were most concerned about.
|
| The takeaways:
|
| - data silos are always temporary
|
| - companies think on a larger timeline than just 2 years in
| advance
|
| - this kind of thing nearly always gets executed as a slow boil.
| Facebook didn't buy Oculus and immediately require an account and
| start advertising to users. But I don't believe for one second
| that Mark wasn't thinking it at the time.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| That's one side of the story, the Quest wouldn't exist without
| Facebook
| geoelectric wrote:
| Sure, it'd be called something different and would be made by
| someone else. It's not like FB started Oculus from scratch.
| Worst case it would've just taken a little longer while some
| other player with the capital got around to being interested.
|
| The use case drove the tech, not the company, and so far the
| tech is being used for exactly what it was used for before FB
| bought it (just better as computers, motion sensors, and
| cameras got better). There was nothing transformative there.
|
| I don't think FB deserves any credit other than being in the
| right place at the right time. Now they're in the wrong place
| at the wrong time.
|
| Props for wireless 6DOF before anyone else, and I love my
| Quest, but now that the trail is blazed and they aren't being
| maintaining their (yes, their--Palmer worked for them too)
| promises to the community, they can sit down.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > The use case drove the tech
|
| Eh. The _money_ drove the tech - Facebook can afford to
| dump money into Oculus despite there being very little use
| cases or consumer appetite for it.
| danShumway wrote:
| Both can be true.
|
| It can be true that Facebook heavily invested into the Quest
| and it can be true that their user-hostile moves over the
| past 6 years were all utterly predictable, even though
| company heads ran around telling their critics that they were
| being unreasonable and paranoid.
|
| This is true for many tech products and industries.
|
| Apple and Google have both invested huge amounts of money and
| resources into building voice assistants into general
| consumer services. They deserve credit for that. They also
| deserve criticism for stifling the markets around voice
| assistants, building walled gardens that hamper innovation in
| the space, and for general privacy violations along the way.
| And it is, once again, completely predictable what the end
| goals are for companies like Google in regards to voice
| assistants and augmented reality -- regardless of what their
| company spokespeople might be saying today.
|
| It can be true that Chrome unambiguously moved the web
| forward as a platform, and that without Google's involvement
| the modern web would not have the potential that it has
| today. And it can simultaneously be true that Google's long-
| term corporate vision for the web is toxic, and that there
| are serious concerns to be had about Chrome continuing to
| maintain a dominant browser position.
|
| The point is, I don't think acknowledging Facebook's
| investment in the Oculus means that it's good to ignore the
| obvious downsides of their involvement. I think it's good to
| look at what people were worried would happen, and to see
| that it _did happen._ That doesn 't mean you need to
| disregard Facebook's investment, and it doesn't mean that
| Oculus shouldn't exist -- it's just giving you a broader
| perspective that sometimes these positive investments also
| come with serious tradeoffs that aren't always acknowledged
| up-front.
| umvi wrote:
| But did Facebook add any value (i.e. engineering money/hours)
| to improve the device? What you've listed are all negatives,
| but there have to be at least a few positives to come out of
| it.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I think Facebook worked as a king maker, giving Oculus enough
| financial backing to be a trusted (ironic) platform. Were
| they the only option? No idea.
| danShumway wrote:
| I suppose.
|
| But at the same time, for any new users who value their own
| privacy the device is now pretty useless, and for any
| existing users who value their privacy but also want to be
| up-to-date and get new features, they're also probably going
| to be locked out in future updates.
|
| So you kind of have to excuse them for focusing on the
| negatives, because they don't get to enjoy the positives.
| It's kind of a moot point for them what Facebook brought to
| the table.
|
| This is always the concern with these kinds of purchases, and
| I think this was a big part of the concern back in 2014. I
| was never worried that Facebook wouldn't invest in Oculus, as
| a consumer I was worried that it would ruin the Oculus
| ecosystem and shove dystopian adware onto the devices.
| gibolt wrote:
| The vast majority of those users likely also have a
| Facebook, Instagram, and/or Whatsapp account.
|
| Without Facebook's funding, none of the recent advancements
| are likely to exist in the first place. Valve hasn't done
| it, HTC hasn't done it, Sony hasn't done it. Because it is
| hard, expensive, and a money losing endeavor (for the
| forseeable future).
|
| To be clear, I am strongly against the requirement, but am
| glad the product exists.
| danShumway wrote:
| I'm not saying there aren't positives, I'm saying that
| it's understandable why users who now need to choose
| between a peripheral and their privacy are having a hard
| time focusing on those positives.
|
| I'm also not too cynical about the market, because
| thankfully there are multiple companies in this space who
| are making progress. So Facebook will trash Oculus and
| things will stink for a while.
|
| Eventually somebody else will come along and offer the
| same functionality without feeling the need to create a
| user-hostile platform out of a peripheral. Eventually the
| Linux support will improve. Eventually some community
| group will take over WebVR and we'll get a general
| platform instead of a bunch of separate stores designed
| to increase user lock-in. Eventually the games will be
| disassociated from the peripherals. Eventually, we'll get
| what we want and the space will improve. And Facebook's
| early efforts to improve the raw tech will be a part of
| that story.
|
| But in the meantime, for the people who were predicting
| what Facebook was going to do from the moment Oculus was
| acquired -- I think it's reasonable to step back and let
| them say, "we told you so."
| shazow wrote:
| > But did Facebook add any value (i.e. engineering
| money/hours) to improve the device? What you've listed are
| all negatives, but there have to be at least a few positives
| to come out of it.
|
| Can't help but think of this comic:
| https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
| csours wrote:
| I think it's closer to 'What did the Romans do for us?
| Besides the roads, clean water, ...'
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xad5Rl0N2E
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I don't have the financials, but I expect that after spending
| $2 billion for the acquisition, they didn't live them alone.
|
| One notable thing is that Oculus hired Michael Abrash just
| following the announcement of the acquisition. With John
| Carmack, who was already there, they are among the most (if
| not _the_ most) prominent developers in the field. Even
| though Carmack stepped down as a CTO, both are still there. I
| have stopped following VR news but Oculus had pretty nice
| prototypes a few years ago which combined eye tracking,
| foveated rendering and varifocal lenses, all addressing
| fundamental problems with the current generation of headsets.
|
| Also, even though I am not sure about Facebook involvement,
| they financed some of the best VR games at the time. Lone
| Echo is one of them. Ready At Dawn, the developer is now part
| of Oculus Studio, a branch of Oculus focused on making VR
| content. Note that having good VR content is extremely
| important, even more so than the devices themselves. I mean,
| you are not going to spend hundreds of dollars just to slash
| cubes, or maybe you do, can't blame you ;)
| rbecker wrote:
| Those positives turn to negatives if you care about privacy -
| they help Oculus muscle privacy-respecting alternatives out
| of the market.
| nerdponx wrote:
| _there have to be at least a few positives to come out of
| it._
|
| Why does this have to be true at all? Let bad things be bad,
| and deal with them. Don't try to rationalize away problems.
| [deleted]
| ggreer wrote:
| Without Facebook's capital and Zuckerberg's commitment to VR,
| I doubt the Quest would exist. That project was announced in
| 2016 and was likely in development for a couple of years
| before that. Still it took until mid-2019 to be released to
| the public. IIRC, Carmack said that development on the Go was
| started after the Quest, yet the Go went to market a year
| sooner. I can only imagine what kind of hell it was to get a
| 2016 phone SoC to do VR with 6DOF inside-out tracking.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Actually, not really. Inside out tracking runs on one core
| of my ancient AMD FX 6350 well enough. It was very doable.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Did they really need Facebook's capital? The market was
| absolutely flooded with VC money, Magic Leap raised almost
| $3B since then.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| and did nothing, Oculus didn't just need money, but a
| competent team behind it.
| jayd16 wrote:
| This isn't correct. There were/are a lot of inside out VR
| headsets. Oculus just happens to have a brand, a solid
| marketing presence, a solid product, the appearance of
| longevity etc.
|
| Facebook might have helped but from a purely technical
| perspective, Facebook wasn't the only path.
| [deleted]
| jayd16 wrote:
| Lenovo did it before the Go released (or about the same).
| It was kind of gimped because they went with the Daydream
| controller instead of full controllers but the headset
| itself was roomscale VR. It was also bigger and not as
| comfortable but worked on a previous gen SOC to the Quest.
| Check out the Lenovo Mirage Solo.
| ggreer wrote:
| Since it only had two front-facing cameras, the Mirage
| Solo would have required extra hardware to track any
| controllers. Also I don't think there was ever an app for
| it that let you walk two steps away from the origin. The
| only truly room scale thing I saw was a demo written by
| some developers. They had to put the headset in dev mode
| and disable a bunch of safety mechanisms. I wonder if
| this limitation was imposed to minimize drift.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I developed on it and the limitation was mostly self
| imposed for safety/perf reasons. Its much easier to draw
| a consistent roomscale boundary on the Quest with the
| 6DOF controller. Without that its a real UX problem. Even
| the Quest is constantly asking to redraw the boundary. It
| was one of two SOC generations (as well as VR SDK gens)
| earlier and it was quite hard to build out a full room
| without a lot of perspective tricks.
|
| There was an experimental add on for 6DOF controllers
| https://developers.google.com/vr/experimental/6dof-
| controlle...
|
| It really wasn't a fundamental technical leap to go from
| the Mirage to a Quest. The Quest feels like a (well
| thought out) iteration instead of a revolution compared
| to the Mirage Solo.
| legulere wrote:
| Of course you first need to fatten an animal before you
| slaughter it.
| unionpivo wrote:
| Sure there are, for Facebook shareholders.
| [deleted]
| pratio wrote:
| Sometimes I wish Facebook should at-least try to prove us wrong.
| These are trying times with everyone being paranoid about how
| their data is mishandled, shared, used and for good reason. What
| is so difficult in giving users the option to connect their
| Facebook accounts if they wish because lets be honest so users
| might just want to but making it mandatory is only going to hurt
| the gaming community.
| ravroid wrote:
| Saw that coming. As a user of the original Oculus Rift headset, I
| will definitely be upgrading to a non-Oculus headset within the
| next 2 years (before Facebook accounts become mandatory).
| romille wrote:
| Software is soft
| phone8675309 wrote:
| I guess I know what company to not buy any VR hardware from.
| antonf wrote:
| Just ordered my Oculus Quest from Costco a week ago, and it's
| scheduled for delivery today. And I have no problem using
| Facebook account. Yeah, my data will be used for ads, so what?
| How is that such a big deal for some people to sell the device
| they otherwise enjoy?
| zmmmmm wrote:
| This is very saddening.
|
| The fact that Facebook had not made this move actually had a
| significant impact on me in assessing their overall "evil" factor
| for other services. Now that they have, I'm left owning a Quest
| and looking for another platform to move to over the next few
| years. I hope the competition steps up because the Quest has
| really nailed everything important about VR.
| donohoe wrote:
| TLDR;
|
| Facebook to Oculus Users: Go f* yourself.
| martindale wrote:
| Why do I need to log in to my display device?
| croes wrote:
| That kills the possibility of selling your account.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Because there are multiple VR headsets, the only charitable
| argument for doing this is to market:
|
| 'the occulus is for jumping in a facebook world to visit your
| family'
|
| I can buy that, if they refund current owners who don't want
| that...
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I have a different opinion than most comments here. I love the
| Oculus Quest. I don't suggest that anyone waste their time in FB,
| but needing a FB account to buy VR experiences for the Quest us
| all right with me.
|
| Off topic, but my favorites are the Star Wars Vader Immortal
| Trilogy, Racket Ball, and Ping Pong.
| azifalix wrote:
| No Facebook, and therefore no oculus needed..
| Keverw wrote:
| What happens if you were banned from Facebook (for example
| political censorship or other possible reasons I can't think of
| off the top of my head)? Is your Oculus device bricked and
| useless? I'm a fan of Oculus, but this is a bit of a turn off.
| But I guess if Apple makes their own VR headset, they probably
| require an Apple account but Apple isn't really a social network
| so feel less of a risk, same for Microsoft's Mixed Reality
| headsets too I'd imagine.
|
| Then your purchases and stuff are lost too, I guess as WebXR
| matures though maybe there will be some great apps you can just
| pay directly for on the web, but I feel like if rumors of Apple
| making a headset they'll just skip WebXR and force the app
| store... I know other headsets including the Oculus supports
| WebXR but sorta feels like it's a conflict of interest to their
| own stores to me so wonder how much more advanced it'll get.
| cma wrote:
| Apple is now using the notarization system on desktop to ban
| apps from companies that broke iOS App Store rules, so you
| could for instance get your drone strike death toll app that
| was making a political statement taken down and lose your
| desktop notarization (which was supposed to be about security
| only) on a totally unrelated app in retaliation.
| Keverw wrote:
| Yeah seen that Apple is doing that for Epic's Fortnight.
| Won't be able to sign for Mac, but people could still install
| it if they turn off gatekeeper which I doubt many people
| would mess with, been a while since I've done that myself
| since I use dev tools. I think now on Catalina and newer Mac
| versions even more steps. Used to be a checkbox, but I think
| you have to use the terminal now?
|
| Never really worked with Unreal but wonder if this will
| affect other games using their engine, not sure if there's
| like signed dylibs and stuff.
|
| All this security stuff is cool but in a way more control.
| It's like you paid all this money for something but in a way
| you don't really own it. Like some graphic card company sells
| graphic cards including server graphic cards, but their
| driver's EULA doesn't allow you to use your desktop cards for
| server use. I guess the hardware being used 24/7 wasn't
| designed for that, but sounds like they should deny your
| warranty then instead of turning it into a copyright issue.
| Some game streaming company ran into this problem.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| It's astonishing how many of you isolated fucking nerds on
| this site don't know how to spell Fortnite because you
| never interact with normal people. It's a good reminder
| that no one should listen to your worthless opinions.
| 1f60c wrote:
| If you Option-click an app, it gives you the option to run
| the app even if it's not signed. No disabling of Gatekeeper
| required.
| Keverw wrote:
| Oh yeah right click open too. I've done that before but
| thought maybe I've disabled Gatekeeper in the past on my
| machine.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| This creates a chilling effect which puts my first ammendment
| rights at risk as an American, and it should be (and probably
| is if anyone actually bothered to correctly interpret the law
| anymore) illegal.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This has zero to do with the 1st amendment. That is between
| you and the government. You have not such 1st amendment
| rights when dealing with a private company. All you can do
| with facebook is either do as they tell you, or drop them.
| There's not much middle ground.
| coldpie wrote:
| Facebook is a private corporation. The first amendment has no
| bearing on how Facebook decides to operate their business.
| paulnechifor wrote:
| It's not that simple, and I hate it when it's inconsistent.
|
| For example, even in the US, courts have established that
| Twitter is a public forum with respect to what politicians
| (such as Trump) say. But do other people get such
| protections?
|
| In my country, Romania, the supreme court declared that
| Facebook is a public space, so if you say something like
| "the police can blow me" you'll get a letter from the
| police telling you so show up at the station so that they
| can fine you (swearing is illegal in Romania).
|
| But Facebook can take down something I _can_ say in public,
| meaning I 'm not allowed free speech. It's not fair that I
| suffer all the consequences of a "public space", but none
| of the rights.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| We're talking about an open social platform which half the
| world's population uses, so it's effectively a public space
| and the fact that a simple political opinion could be
| enough to cancel my account means that when hundreds of
| dollars are on the line, my voice may be effectively
| silenced.
|
| It's a huge problem and even if you don't realize it now,
| it is going to be a huge political issue in the future.
| javagram wrote:
| That doesn't make it a first amendment problem. There's
| only one legal case where private property was ruled to
| be subject to the 1st amendment - a company town where
| even the roads and sidewalks were owned by the company.
|
| In contrast, if you don't want to use or get banned from
| facebook, you can still communicate via SMS/MMS, google
| chat, email, GnuSocial/ActivityPub, twitter, and dozens
| of other options.
|
| Actually, banning companies from moderating is probably a
| first amendment problem in the opposite direction -
| you're forcing them to associate with you.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| And it has a simple solution, albeit an unsavory one to
| many of America's more free-market minded persons: If
| they are effectively a public space, then nationalize
| them and make it official.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| That will never happen. The politician that sets it up
| will be voted out in the next election and everything
| he's done will be undone. Even as progressive as I am I
| will never vote for anyone who wants to nationalize a
| private company. That's what the CCP does, not America.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| If America is unwilling to stomach nationalizing a
| private company, but will stomach privatizing a
| previously public domain, where do you think that's going
| to land us?
| coldpie wrote:
| I agree with everything you said, but the fact remains
| that the US constitution defines what the US government
| can do, and Facebook is not a part of the US government.
| The first amendment does not have anything to do with the
| policies Facebook may choose to create and enforce on
| their private platform.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I've been wanting to buy an Oculus Quest since lockdown started,
| but I've been having trouble finding one in stock for a
| reasonable price. I guess I'm glad I didn't succeed in purchasing
| one, and now I won't be buying one at all.
| xwdv wrote:
| People will bitch and complain, but at the end of the day,
| there's no better device for untethered VR that you can take and
| setup anywhere.
| Aerroon wrote:
| That just means there is no device for untethered VR. I think
| this is more likely to just limit VR adoption more than
| anything else.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| The general public doesn't give two shits about privacy and
| the amount of data that Facebook collects. They'll gladly go
| along with this to continue playing their games.
|
| What this _really_ means is that there is no untethered VR
| device _for privacy-minded folks_ which make up a tiny
| portion of the overall VR users.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I don't think it'll have a meaningful adoption-limiting
| effect, and honestly, this is the most interesting dynamic of
| technology right now.
|
| Voice recognition is an extremely solved problem. A lot of
| the hard part of the AI---the stuff that appeared impossible
| in the '80s---works consistently on Google, Alexa, and Siri.
| It just needs to know enough about you to make intelligent
| guesses at your intent.
|
| ... which means it needs access to all that big data the big
| company collected on you and users like you.
|
| There are technologies that are owned by big companies that
| will leverage them for ecosystem lock-in. Want a neat
| personal assistant? Sure; just use your Google account. Want
| some untethered VR? No problem; just login via Facebook. And
| that's generally how things will be; you don't _have_ to use
| it, but you 'll be off the cutting edge if you don't.
|
| Because ecosystems are where the money is, and cutting-edge
| tech costs money. That's the iron law of capitalism and
| technological progress.
|
| (I'm still waiting for my Linux phone. Thought it might be
| shipped to me in 2020, but with COVID slowing down
| production, 2021 looks more likely. But at least I'll feel
| some moral superiority once I have the thing in my hands that
| other people already have if they just give up and buy into a
| big-data vendor's ecosystem. ;) )
| liability wrote:
| > untethered
|
| Tethered to Zuckerberg.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Honestly, the number of times an acquiring company has promised
| "we'll never do this" and then "done this" is so staggering, I
| think any acquisition promises should be codified with the FTC
| during the acquisition process as consent decrees or the like,
| and it should require regulatory permission to roll back. And
| then anything claimed not listed as such should just be assumed
| to be a lie.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Yeah, like the last time Facebook "did that"! Merging data from
| WhatsApp and Facebook in that case.
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_...
| outworlder wrote:
| > We will take steps to allow you to keep using content you have
| purchased, though we expect some games and apps may no longer
| work.
|
| Complain as much as you want about Steam, at least they are a
| games store and store only.
|
| I don't know why anyone would buy games from the Oculus store.
| pugworthy wrote:
| Some shade from HP's Joanna Popper on r/HPReverb...
|
| "The HP Reverb G2 does not require a Facebook account today or in
| 2023."
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/HPReverb/comments/ic93cn/for_anyone...
| ipsin wrote:
| I'm curious -- I have a Facebook account, but I have the app
| platform disabled.
|
| It seems that the app platform may be used for managing logins on
| third party sites. Are they likely to require it for Oculus
| devices?
| nbrempel wrote:
| I've been really interested in purchasing a VR platform but
| Oculus' Facebook integration has always been a dealbreaker for
| me.
|
| What are the alternatives for a self-contained VR system? I don't
| want to have to plug into a PC.
| [deleted]
| wpdev_63 wrote:
| They probably want to cut down on people reselling their accounts
| with the games in them. That's what I did when I sold my oculus
| during the quarantine. Why shouldn't I be able to resell my games
| just because they're digital now?
| joshspankit wrote:
| Facebook is dangerously close to collapsing the whole VR industry
| with this.
| freejak wrote:
| Here comes the walled garden. I don't have an Oculus HMD but took
| the risk of purchasing exclusives from their store and running it
| via Revive. Looks like those days may be over soon.
| Santosh83 wrote:
| The larger point here is that there needs to be sensible limits
| on how many markets or products a single company or group can
| operate in (among many other regulations). Otherwise the endless
| acquisitions by the global behemoths will continue right into
| techno-fascism of one kind or another.
| antihero wrote:
| Amazing, so if you get banned from Facebook due to one of their
| dumb rules or algorithms, I'm assuming you can sue them for the
| value of the device they've just taken from you?
| Kapura wrote:
| Incredible. I deleted my facebook account earlier this year, and
| I've been looking to get a VR headset. This sort of forces me
| into the Vive camp, I suppose.
| xg15 wrote:
| This is something that still completely baffles me about the
| "IoT"/"smart devices"/"connected devices"/"whatever you want to
| call it" space.
|
| If someone advertised a device as capable of doing X without it
| in fact being able to do X, they'd be liable for false
| advertising.
|
| If someone sold you a device, then took it back or destroyed it,
| they'd be liable for theft or destruction of property.
|
| Nevertheless, if someone sells you a connected device and then
| _completely alters the rules by which the device operates_ at an
| arbitrary point in time after the sell, that 's perfectly fine.
|
| Have we really given up basic consumer rights that easily?
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| You need internet to download games to your oculus quest, so it
| makes sense to have an account to keep track of what games you
| own no? I still don't understand what people have against this
| change. You needed an oculus account prior to this, now it's a
| facebook account, what's the big deal?
| antihero wrote:
| Facebook account bans are often for absurd reasons and there
| is basically zero accountability. Post a pic that an
| algorithm flagged as a nude? No Oculus for 30 days and
| needing to send them a passport scan!
| paulnechifor wrote:
| > You need internet to download games to your oculus quest,
| so it makes sense to have an account to keep track of what
| games you own no?
|
| Not really. If they're downloaded, why would you need to look
| up remotely what you have locally.
| achr2 wrote:
| Really? I have never and will never have a facebook account,
| so this expensive device is now a paper weight..
| jjaredsimpson wrote:
| Kinda absurd. You can setup a one time email, and one time
| facebook if you really want to segregate.
|
| Sure you win on principle, but that's just the same as
| losing.
| TT3351 wrote:
| Actually you can't, because Facebook will lock your
| account for inauthentic behavior. Try making a fake
| account, and see how long you can hold on to it without
| being extorted for personal, identifiable information.
| charles_f wrote:
| Good point, that being said market pressure can sometimes
| influence that.
|
| Sonos was a hair short of bricking their old devices a few
| months ago, then backtracked after getting a lot of fire from
| their customers.
|
| I'm wondering if this would be true for larger companies /
| acquisitions though. Would they have done the same if purchased
| by Google or Facebook?
| javajosh wrote:
| _> Have we really given up basic consumer rights that easily?_
|
| Well, yes. I don't know if you've noticed, but short-term
| convenience trumps all other concerns. The market can't really
| deal with these issues, because they are too subtle and
| expensive for individuals to work out for themselves. We really
| do need collective action, by way of regulation, similar to how
| we recognized as a society that workplace safety laws were not
| something private businesses were _ever_ going to compete on,
| and we just needed to force them to comply. And no doubt the
| same howls of protest let loose then, too, about how "the
| extra costs will put me out of business", etc. It was then, as
| it is now, hogwash.
|
| And in fact I would argue this kind of regulation not only
| important for consumers, but for national security. As more and
| more individuals lives become dependent on centralized
| information infrastructure, the more damage espionage (foreign
| or domestic) can do, not to mention the effect of wide-scale
| DoS attacks. Imagine a world where all smart devices are
| bricked...so much of the old infrastructure is gone - phones,
| phone books, maps, manuals. In some cases you might not even be
| able to vacuum your house (Roomba owners), or make a POTS phone
| call.
|
| So yeah, its bad on multiple fronts, and I fear that the
| correcting event will be catastrophic (like, supply chain
| catastrophic, leading to starvation).
| nomorealoha wrote:
| > Have we really given up basic consumer rights that easily?
|
| Is there anything I can do as a mere consumer to lobby for my
| rights?
| grillvogel wrote:
| PKD predicted this 50 years ago
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7444685-the-door-refused-to...
| latenightcoding wrote:
| It baffles me too. My Samsung smart tv started showing me ads
| in the control panel/home screen. I paid full price for it, why
| am I seeing ads. I wish I could return it, but the snakes
| waited until the return period was over.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| This is some bullshit. I would blackhole whatever fucking API
| they are using... just limit the incoming, but allow outgoing
| so their ad networks begin counting it as a non-shown ad.
| glandium wrote:
| My Panasonic smart TV used to have an app for Hulu. It
| doesn't anymore. Same for a bunch of other apps. The app list
| is full of holes now.
| mlboss wrote:
| Better to have a dumb TV with chromecast.
| mdorazio wrote:
| In the case of the smart tv it's actually because you didn't
| really pay the full price of the tv. The manufacturer counts
| on the revenue from those ads to boost the tv profit margin
| to an acceptable level, otherwise they would have to charge
| you more for the tv initially.
|
| If you don't believe me, look up the price of a "commercial
| display" comparable to your tv. And before anyone asks, the
| majority of customers would rather have a cheaper tv with ads
| in the menus than a more expensive one without.
| Maha-pudma wrote:
| This happened to me to. It now is not connected to the
| internet and never will be again. It's also the crappest TV
| I've ever owned. My old dumb TV is better.
| samename wrote:
| You can set the DNS on the TV to NextDNS to block the ads
| and tracking, so you can use the internet again.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > then completely alters the rules by which the device operates
| at an arbitrary point in time after the sell
|
| You usually agree to a EULA that allows them to do that. If you
| cannot agree to the EULA then you return the product.
|
| Now, I will give full credit that no one reads those, but
| Legality doesn't care if you fail to do due diligence.
| Dahoon wrote:
| You have some basic rights and an EULA, TOS or a contract
| cannot take those away (at least not in the EU). So no, that
| wouldn't cover a situation where a device is crippled later
| on. You'd have a right to get your money back.
| JMTQp8lwXL wrote:
| Consumer protection laws generally lag behind these problems,
| so it might be premature to say we've given up. We have to know
| the problem exists, and then we have to go through the (slow)
| legislative process.
| amelius wrote:
| I think the problem is that the "masses" would still buy the
| Oculus product as if nothing was wrong with it. From there,
| it's pretty difficult to convince people (e.g. a regulator or a
| judge) that your item is of no use to you anymore.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| My monitor, mouse and keyboard don't require any accounts (yet?),
| why does a device with two monitors and motion sensors require
| it?
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| to track what games you bought and downloaded so you can
| download them again if your device breaks?
| mortehu wrote:
| Oculus Quest is actually a complete gaming console, which is
| why you can use it for untethered play. You can buy and install
| games on it.
| zamalek wrote:
| Because Facebook needs your data.
|
| And it's incredibly creepy. Movement just feels like an
| extremely intimate piece of data.
| dividido wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Luckily my favorite purchases are on steam and 2 years gives
| me plenty of time to move on from my rift. I'm not going to
| be forced to use facebook.
|
| Last thing I need is a remote exploit on my tracking cameras
| and facebook telling them exactly who and where I am.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| If those devices were invented in 2020 you can be certain they
| would all be "platforms" with monthly subscriptions. They would
| also have nonstop rabid defenders on social media.
| willcipriano wrote:
| >My monitor, mouse and keyboard don't require any accounts
| (yet?)
|
| I take it you don't have any Razer devices.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| The Razer accounts are in no way mandatory. They just have an
| app that auto-updates drivers (and probably does a lot of
| data mining) but you don't need to use it to use the device.
| It is a funny comment though, I laughed when I read it.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > (and probably does a lot of data mining)
|
| Not just data, either. A year ago or so, Razer was pushing
| a _cryptocurrency_ miner along with their driver package:
|
| https://www.razer.com/eu-en/softminer
| nottorp wrote:
| No shit. I can't configure the lights on my former razer
| mouse without logging in.
|
| Must be why I'm using a Steelseries now.
|
| Edit: Apparently they gave up on that idiotic requirement.
| Sorry Razer, too late. Not touching your products ever
| again.
|
| Edit 2: And since we're actually talking about Oculus, for
| me it died when they sold to Facebook. You needed to be
| pretty naive to think it won't come down to this in the
| long run.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I don't know about Razer recently, but I have a 13 button
| Logitech mouse (G700s) and it would be essentially useless
| without the Logitech software to configure it. I assume
| Razer mice are the same, you could technically use them
| without Synapse, but if you're doing that you may as well
| have bought a Microsoft Intellimouse instead.
|
| And Synapse did require a login for several years. Looks
| like it doesn't anymore, thankfully:
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/razer-synapse-3-removes-
| lo...
|
| Personal mouse experience, I had two Razers that died right
| outside warranty, while my Logitech is at >6 years. Those
| were before their driver shenanigans, but the drivers
| aren't even the main reason I wouldn't switch back.
| daxelrod wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is true for the G700s, but many
| other Logitech mice store the configuration on the device
| itself, which lets you configure it once and then get rid
| of the software or use it on computers or OSes where
| you've never installed the software. This is true for my
| G502.
| VRay wrote:
| +1 to this
|
| I plugged my G700s into a Windows machine with the
| Logitech bloatware suite installed, programmed it, and
| I've been using it on a Mac for years since then without
| any trouble
| wlesieutre wrote:
| It's true for a single configuration, but not if you want
| to bind different keys per program with the "Automatic
| Game Detection" mode.
|
| I mainly use one profile for games and set any keybinds I
| need in each one, but I've used automatic game detection
| for other software like repurposing the DPI adjustment
| buttons for quick shortcuts to blender's popup radial
| menus.
| bt1a wrote:
| I recommend anyone with Synapse use your firewall to
| block all of their services from interacting with the
| Internet. I noticed Synapse was consuming a lot of
| CPU/network. I'm definitely never going to buy a Razer
| mouse again, I'll probably get a Zowie.
| ivalm wrote:
| I have a razer deathadder chroma with a kvm switch on
| mac/windows/linux systems. I do not have razer app
| installed on any of the three systems and the mouse works
| fine (including the forward/back side buttons and
| pressable scroll (so 5 buttons total)).
| wlesieutre wrote:
| OSes do well up to that point, but 5 buttons is the limit
| of what tends to work well without some sort of special
| drivers
| Lammy wrote:
| And the Facebook account was in no way mandatory for Oculus
| until today's announcement we're commenting on. What's your
| point?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > They just have an app that auto-updates drivers (and
| probably does a lot of data mining) but you don't need to
| use it to use the device
|
| Uh, yeah, updating _drivers_ for mice. Just WTF? I get that
| it makes sense to have a capability of correcting bugs, but
| that should not require an app.
| TillE wrote:
| My Razer mouse is basically broken (it's not that the
| sensitivity is too high, it's just...completely off) until
| you install _and log in_ with their app. Only after you log
| in is the mouse movement fixed.
|
| I would never buy another Razer product, specifically
| because of this.
| tenryuu wrote:
| I have Razer Synapse installed right now, I am not logged
| into the service but I am still able to make
| configurations. Don't know what issue you're having. I
| would feel the same way if this was an issue though
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > I would feel the same way if this was an issue though
|
| It _was_ : https://www.tomshardware.com/news/razer-
| synapse-3-removes-lo...
| tenryuu wrote:
| Oh wow, this was only a few months before I bought my
| hardware. I've been using a Naga since the first model
| and had it replaced in 2014. I guess I just got a bit
| lucky on my timing. The old hardware was really bad at
| trying to force Synapse on you too, used to even appear
| during Window 10 upgrades.
|
| It would be great if they used the additional on board
| macro profiles as an 'out of the box' way of adjusting
| the mouse without software. You nerd the software to
| change mouse button 4/5 to native actions, otherwise it's
| just dpi control.
| corobo wrote:
| Are they still storing your mouse settings online?
|
| I got rid of my Razer mouse as my custom key settings
| wouldn't kick in for about 5 minutes after each reboot
| young_unixer wrote:
| They absolutely are necessary if you want to disable or
| configure lighting, change DPI, acceleration, etc.
|
| I will never buy a Razer product again.
| [deleted]
| abstractbarista wrote:
| I've used a Razer mouse for ages solely on a Linux machine.
| Never made an account. Only used Windows initially to set my
| preferred LED lighting option via their crappy app.
| [deleted]
| DannyB2 wrote:
| I never have nor never will have a Facebook or Twitter account.
| Probably not other social media either.
|
| It's bad enough having a Google account and all that encompasses.
|
| It is astonishing that another company would require an account
| on some other system. Now I don't have a problem with allowing
| using your Google, Facebook, etc. account as a convenience to
| authenticate your account on some other service.
| delecti wrote:
| HN is social media.
| DannyB2 wrote:
| I suppose you could say that about any online forum.
|
| There is a qualitative difference between HN and Facebook or
| Twitter. One of these doesn't try to pry its tentacles into
| every aspect of your life while trying to capture every
| possible scrap of information about you known and unknown.
| 2fast4you wrote:
| As soon as I needed a Facebook account to use the social
| features, I bailed. Thankfully I was fortunate enough to buy a
| Valve Index. SteamVR is a much nicer platform anyways
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Giving people a single way to log into Oculus -- using their
| Facebook account and password -- will make it easier to find,
| connect, and play with friends in VR.
|
| Ugh. I guess Facebook is making a play to become the Steam/XBox
| Live of VR. Why can't we just have gaming peripherals anymore
| without some kind of platform tie-in?
| LegitShady wrote:
| Oculus was always trying to do this. When they first launched
| they did the same purchased exclusives stuff epic has done.
| Their software isn't compatible with other platforms except
| through unsupported hacks and they have no plans of changing
| that.
|
| This was the whole oculus spirit since the beginning.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I understand allowing the option to login with your Facebook
| account, but how is forcing it make anything easier?
| bitwize wrote:
| Doing anything other than logging in with your Facebook
| account has been crippled; therefore, logging in with your
| Facebook account is easier.
|
| It's just like "Download our app" to get a service the
| company can easily provide through a Web page, but refuse to.
| It's not there to benefit you. It's there to benefit the
| company.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Hardware is difficult and expensive to make, and consumers are
| very price-sensitive.
|
| In a world where everyone has a service subscription or a data
| hose to subsidize their hardware (see: most phones, game
| consoles, kitchen appliances, "smart assistants"), it's very
| difficult to be competitive just making hardware.
|
| Given that the Oculus Quest is effectively a flagship phone
| with a strap attached to it at ~1/10 the sales volume of a
| flagship phone (rough figures: [0] [1]), it would be very
| difficult to even pay engineering expenses without a secondary
| income stream enabled by a) real-identity advertisement
| targeting/data sucking and b) ecosystem lock-in.
|
| [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Galaxy-S20-series-sales-
| number... [1] https://arinsider.co/2020/05/25/data-dive-has-
| oculus-sold-80...
| ShamelessC wrote:
| More like the walled garden Apple App Store approach. Except
| this time it's a company with a bad track record of tracking
| you.
|
| Steam is already the Steam of VR, btw. They have the flagship
| title (Alyx) and Oculus exclusives aren't necessarily
| compelling enough to make it a deal breaker.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Because the companies make a large amount of money on the
| platform. Look at Apple/Google/MS/Sony/Nintendo charging for
| access to the platform - either explicitly for online play, by
| taking a cut of sales on the platform, or in the case of the
| console makers - both.
|
| As someone who prefers to play games alone, it's frustrating.
| The first five minutes after installing Steam is a constantly
| stream of "stfu and stop shoving game release/update/sale
| announcements in my face", "gtfo with the popup messages that a
| friend is playing a game", "wtf? why are you auto-logging me
| into the messenger", "no, I don't consent to you building a
| hardware inventory of my machine and using it for internal
| stats", and "jfc, please just leave me alone and let me play
| some games".
|
| It's almost enough to make me buy a shack in Montana and
| support the post office.
| arkanciscan wrote:
| I get all my games from Codex and Fitgirl. No multiplayer,
| but you don't want that anyway.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Don't sell CODEX/PLAZA short - there are Steamworks and
| CreamAPI multiplayer fixes shipped sometimes, and sometimes
| Fitgirl will add them in with the repack.
|
| (Anybody reading this - there are publicly available NFO
| files and posts from Fitgirl that indicate what is included
| in a release/repack. I would never advocate violating
| copyright, and I certainly do not do so in a personal
| capacity.)
| LukaCEnzo wrote:
| If people are curious they can find more info on
| cs.rin.ru steam forums. Great resource.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| For me it's the reason, why I never started gaming again. I
| just wanna buy a game and play. I don't wanna have any
| spyware on my PC.
| polytely wrote:
| itch.io is a great place to get drm free (indie) games.
| crtasm wrote:
| Subscribe to Humble Choice for a month and download all the
| drm-free games from their "Trove"!
| MayeulC wrote:
| Some time ago I worked on a tool [1] to do just that,
| unsure if it would still work. I also got lost between
| feature development and fixes in my git branches at the
| time, and never had time to finish this. Looks like
| upstream [2] became active again and merged some of my
| improvements, unsure if it works with the trove. I was
| also just made aware of this new project, dedicated to
| that issue [3]. I'd advise someone to start looking at
| the last one.
|
| I don't usually do this, but I don't think it is against
| the TOS, so here is my HB referral link [4] Here's also a
| 20% discount on the humble store for 30 days for _one
| lucky person_ who isn 't a subscriber [5]
|
| [1] https://github.com/MayeulC/hb-downloader/tree/next-
| next
|
| [2] https://github.com/talonius/hb-downloader
|
| [3] https://gitlab.com/silver_rust/trove_downloader/
|
| [4] https://www.humblebundle.com/subscription?refc=Y9dywp
|
| [5] https://www.humblebundle.com/subscription/activate-
| discount?...
| mlindner wrote:
| At least on Mac, Steam doesn't stick around when you close
| it. I never understood the PC love for when you close apps
| have them simply stay resident around in the lower right
| taskbar. Opening is an active choice.
| bogwog wrote:
| Having to wait for Steam to open and log you in every
| time you want to launch a game sucks, plus keeping it
| open in the background lets you keep games up-to-date,
| lets you use the chatroom features, and some other stuff.
|
| The good thing about Steam, which makes it good software
| in my opinion, is that you can easily customize it and
| turn features off, and nothing really gets forced down
| your throat. It's almost like Valve feels they actually
| have to make an effort to keep you as a customer. Compare
| that to anything from the tech giants.
| mlindner wrote:
| > The good thing about Steam, which makes it good
| software in my opinion, is that you can easily customize
| it and turn features off, and nothing really gets forced
| down your throat. It's almost like Valve feels they
| actually have to make an effort to keep you as a
| customer. Compare that to anything from the tech giants.
|
| If there's a way to turn off most of the recent UI
| updates I'd love to know how.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| GOG is good if the game you want to play is on there - if
| you don't install GOG Galaxy.
|
| You can download an executable installer from their website
| that is DRM free, can be installed offline, and you can
| keep a copy of forever.
| fartcannon wrote:
| GOG's weird position on Linux users quacks like a duck in
| my opinion.
|
| The quotes have a real Tim Sweeney vibe to them.
| aryik wrote:
| This is why I love the Switch compared to all the other
| modern consoles. When I try to use a PS4 or an Xbox it
| feels like I'm fighting to be able to play - 10's of GB's
| of updates that take hours to "copy" after download, slow
| system updates, games that need to install for an hour
| after you put in the disc, etc. etc.
|
| The Switch is the first console I've used in years where it
| seems like the maker of the console actually _wants_ me to
| play games.
| cruano wrote:
| Except when you go into the eshop and have to scroll down
| pages of shovelware to find anything decent
| reaperducer wrote:
| It's also an argument for retro games.
|
| Plug in a cartridge and go from power on to playing the
| game in a matter of seconds, with no privacy invasion.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Windows Mixed Reality headsets are the best in this regard.
| Still locked to Windows but at least that's not a social
| platform. I really wish there was a version of it with better
| quality controller tracking, it's fairly good, but not on par
| with Oculus or Valve controller tracking.
| bitwize wrote:
| Because this is how the industry works now. Investors want to
| see the consistent revenue of XaaS platforms, so XaaS platforms
| are what you get -- and if you want hardware, it will be
| platform-tied.
| moron4hire wrote:
| The platform play was the only reason they bought Oculus.
| MayeulC wrote:
| They just want to squeeze as much data as they can out of you.
| The ultimate goal is to stand as a proxy between you and the
| real world. I'm not saying this is what they are trying to
| build with AR and VR, but that's not too far fetched either.
|
| Just imagine eye tracking tech in VR headsets. What a trove of
| data for advertisers! Did the user see may ad? For how long?
| Etc.
|
| I hadn't imagined that before writing this, but they could do
| the exact same thing in the real world with AR. Did you spend
| some time looking at that car? You are interested in cars.
| Spending some time in the garden? Watching birds? Running? Etc.
| What's better than an always-on, always-ouside device which you
| use as a proxy to see things, and request information? MITM TLS
| (which Google technically does with Chrome) becomes useless if
| you just have access to the eyes.
| 1f60c wrote:
| > MITM TLS (which Google technically does with Chrome)
|
| Do you have a source?
| jandrese wrote:
| The most annoying part to me is that the only reason Facebook
| should have had any interest in Oculus (apart from the money of
| course) is to create a VR/AR social network. Yet here we are 6
| years later and no Metaverse.
| k__ wrote:
| _" If you are an existing user and choose not to merge your
| accounts, you can continue using your Oculus account for two
| years."_
|
| Phew
| bussierem wrote:
| As someone noted above -- that 2 years is the statutory
| warranty period for the EU.
|
| They are setting that time limit so existing users can't call
| to return Oculus saying "I don't agree to these terms" because
| _they aren't terms yet_ for that user. But by the time they
| finally require you to log in with the account, it will be
| impossible to refund because you are outside the legal warranty
| period for both US and EU.
|
| It's planned exactly to trap people who already bought so that
| some percentage will "give in" and just log into Facebook so
| that they don't suddenly have a VR device (and VR library)
| that's not worth anything to them anymore.
|
| There are far more people who will do this than those that
| won't, and that's a portion that COULD have returned it if
| Facebook was allowing them to.
| koalaman wrote:
| Don't you need to be at least 13 years of age to register a
| Facebook account?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I believe Oculus' TOS also "requires" you to be 13 or older.
| _Stares at VR Chat_
| ylee wrote:
| I would appreciate suggestions on how to regain my Facebook
| account, shut down without explanation a year ago. Despite its
| age (15 years) I barely used it, let alone for anything
| "controversial", but did regularly log into it. I have repeatedly
| tried to verify my identity by submitting an image of my driver's
| license, without any response.
|
| I don't want to create a fake Facebook account. I want my own
| back.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| So if I don't have a Facebook account and I buy an Oculus Quest
| after October, does this mean I may have to submit a copy of my
| driver's license just to set up a piece of consumer electronics?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| If they suspect you aren't who you are then yeah. Otherwise
| generally a phone number and email are enough. That's the price
| for Facebook, but it's good to be informed about what you're
| sacrificing.
| tssva wrote:
| You might not be able to use it even then. I deleted, not
| suspended, my Facebook account years ago and recently tried to
| create a new one because there was a Facebook group I needed
| access to. Created the account and a few minutes later it was
| suspended with no mention as to why and I was required to
| submit a photo of my driver's license to appeal the suspension.
| I did so and ended up waiting weeks before discovering that the
| account was now permanently suspended with no ability to
| appeal. No reason given. I literally did nothing between
| creating the account and it being suspended so I couldn't have
| violated any policies.
| fullshark wrote:
| You need to submit a copy of your driver's license for a FB
| account these days??
| rement wrote:
| If that is the case it would be harder to get a FB account
| than to vote in some states...
| InitialLastName wrote:
| It's almost like having access to a company's services is
| less essential than having a hand in your society's
| decision-making mechanism.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| What happens when we privatize voting, too?
| InitialLastName wrote:
| A further sacrifice of the needs of the people in favor
| of the whims of our corporate overlords? You don't even
| really need to vote; Facebook already knows you want to
| vote for Mark.
| rement wrote:
| It's almost as though Facebook understands how important
| it is to verify you are who you say you are. A simple
| verification to certify that those in their system are
| authentic.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| What do you mean? Are you aware of a long history, and
| continued attempts today, of voter disenfranchisement in
| the US?
| rement wrote:
| I am but I am also aware that a functioning democracy
| requires that the people trust the polls. And one piece
| of that is verifying that those who vote are who they say
| they are (and are citizens of the country they are voting
| in).
| avolcano wrote:
| Facebook has a policy where they can arbitrarily ban you for
| failing to "prove your identity" if they believe your account
| does not use "the name you go by in real life." One of the
| ways they ask you to prove your identity is to send in a
| license.
|
| Unsurprisingly, this ends up hurting all sorts of people who
| do not use their legal names online: people who have just
| chosen other names, people who want to avoid being targeted
| or stalked, trans people, etc. They've updated this policy to
| allow for some of these situations
| (https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/facebook-real-
| names-1.336...) but folks still get banned for failing to
| comply.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| As soon as someone manages to get your account flagged as
| possibly using a fake name I think.
| entropea wrote:
| >If you're an existing user and choose not to merge your
| accounts, you can continue using your Oculus account for two
| years.
|
| At least this gives me enough time to sell my Oculus and buy from
| another company.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Yeah, they just lowered the resale value of your hardware...
| HTC Vive it is then.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Better throw my "old" vive on Ebay. Some people are going to
| need some headsets!
| ljm wrote:
| Yeah 2 years is enough for me to enjoy the Quest and then move
| on.
|
| I deleted FB for a reason and it will stay that way.
|
| A shame that their shitty growth hacking position will
| contribute more e-waste to the environment unless the headset
| can be fully jailbroken.
| grumple wrote:
| Exactly. I deleted my Facebook account years ago. I have an
| oculus account. Really disappointing though, it means I either
| have to link that to my girlfriend's account or sell the oculus
| within two years.
|
| Realistically I'll probably sell the quest, stick to buying
| steam games from now on, and buy a headset from a different
| company as soon as they get a wireless headset.
| shigawire wrote:
| Is there anything to stop you from making a fake Facebook
| with a throwaway email and use that?
|
| Or do they verify accounts in some way now?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| They can verify them via their social network.
|
| An account with no connections is HELLA suspicious.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Isn't it cool how you can dust off your old Nintendo
| Entertainment Systems and give your kids a blast from the past?
| Share your childhood with them?
|
| Well, that's a things from the past with hardware it seems.
| Effective obsolescence through corporate policy.
| kmfrk wrote:
| What a trip this has been from the Kickstarter to its acquisition
| to this situation.
| wnevets wrote:
| So glad I never bought an oculus. Is anyone really suprised?
| shoulderfake wrote:
| I was considering buying a VR headset,Oculus just dropped their
| name out of the hat
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| I've owned the first Rift kit for a couple of years. I'll
| either stop using it by the time 2023 rolls around or be
| looking for new offerings.
|
| One of the things that pleased me about it is that it hasn't
| already been rendered obsolete. Well I guess FB has set a date
| on _that_ now for no good reason on the user end.
|
| I'm curious to see what might be coming around hardware-wise in
| that time.
| downshun wrote:
| Well. Another lost customer here.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| How much longer until we need to login to use create-react-app
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That would be difficult to enforce, since React is open-source.
| It'd take ten seconds for someone to fork it.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| They should shape the Oculus Quest like an Alien Facehugger.
|
| https://www.getdigital.eu/Alien-Facehugger-Plush.html
| brian_herman__ wrote:
| This TBH
| [deleted]
| james_s_tayler wrote:
| Need to log in to Facebook to use VR.
|
| It just doesn't even make sense.
|
| FB is too entrenched in our lives. And for what?
| riskyfive wrote:
| I guess there are still other brands who sell headsets :/
| atoav wrote:
| I recently gave a seminar about how to use Oculus devices in
| combination with Unity at university. Oculus produces great
| devices, but man is the software a convoluted nightmare.
|
| A (very patient) student of mine tried to install the oculsu
| software on a current thinkpad for 4 days in a row. It always
| failed for various reasons. She used a current Windows 10 and her
| computer definitly has the specs. She even reinstalled windows.
| In the end there was an electron error, which we sent to the
| support - we never got a reply.
|
| If you can avoid Oculus, do so at all cost.
| apta wrote:
| What are viable alternatives?
| britmob wrote:
| The entire SteamVR ecosystem or WMR.
| q3k wrote:
| SteamVR/OpenVR. It's fantastic.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Valve, HTC and HP.
| mlindner wrote:
| Vive would be the immediate thought. There's also the pretty
| expensive Valve Index which is pretty much the best VR system
| you can buy right now.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| I don't get what people over here expected when Facebook acquired
| Oculus, and also don't get why it is so hard to create a
| throwaway facebook account. No condescension. Just not sure what
| I am missing in the extreme positions here
| tantalor wrote:
| I made an FB account just for Oculus apps that need it. It has no
| personal information about me except email address.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| ... and the personal data on how much time you spend in which
| game, whether those are day times or night, whether it's
| regualr or irregular etc. from which different information on
| your situation an be derived.
|
| If it's connected to your desktop, it can also use all the dark
| patterns Facebook knows to tie it to your other activities ...
| hammock wrote:
| Isn't it against Facebook TOS to have more than one Facebook
| account, or to open a Facebook account for someone/thing that
| isn't a real person?
| speedgoose wrote:
| Worst case they delete his Facebook account and he can create
| a new one.
| hammock wrote:
| Try to say that about Google
| ericd wrote:
| Are his game purchases tied to the deleted FB account?
| Zenst wrote:
| Put in a data information request and see what they do actually
| know about you.
|
| May well be insightful. Friends who have your email and phone
| number in a contact entry who also have FB and synced contacts
| - etc etc etc. May well have more information than just an
| email address and way to look at it is - would you bet a large
| sum of money that is all they have? Always a good way of
| putting perspective upon things I find.
| nottorp wrote:
| I have a bridge I'd like to sell you then.
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| I did this. Then one day, facebook locked me out of my account
| unless I sent them a picture of my driving licence.
| mazatta wrote:
| I knew this was coming eventually, but I am definitely selling my
| Rift after this announcement.
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| I assumed Facebook had already done this. Users are so naive for
| assuming it would never happen.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| This is sad to me. I would like hardware to be hardware and
| services to be services and I don't want a piece of hardware to
| require a particular service, particularly when the hardware is
| of general purpose. I can accept that an XBox wants an XBox live
| account because an XBox is for one thing, playing games. An
| Oculus device really ought to just be a display peripheral that
| is used for communications, for content creation, and yes games.
| I want something like that to be as open as possible.
| dathinab wrote:
| Hy if someone from Oculus reads this requiring a Facebook (or
| Google) account for login means I will never buy your products.
|
| I also now many other people who think the same.
|
| Goodby, I'm happy I hadn't yet time to but an Oculus product.
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