Glad to hear about this. I sued Facebook in a California small-claims court to rescind my purchase of the Quest 1 (and all accessories and game purchases) after I declined the change in ToS adding the FB account requirement. It took a while (negotiated with their customer support, then sued, then finally months later got an intelligent response), but we settled for what I asked for. I can't be the only one who got my money back. I liked the product except for the added account requirement, and I would now consider buying again.
I'm a little fuzzy on why people are upset at the idea of linking their Oculus devices to a Facebook account, but not to a Meta or Oculus account, which are surely part of the same data ecosystem. Genuinely asking, is there some reason to expect less – I don't know, zuckerberginess – from Meta or Oculus than from Facebook?
It's unknown what a Meta account will be, but I can explain the difference between a FB account and an Oculus one.
Having an Oculus account was pretty much like having a Steam account. It keeps track of your devices, your purchases, and you get emails or notifications (if you enable it)about products it thinks you want. Not perfect, but an a tradeoff I will accept for great devices and a good service.
Having to log into FB means you have to create an FB account, and they try to stop you from setting up a fake one not connected to your real phone number and emails. Using your device will mean that sometimes you have to log into FB which can be a real hassle on your home browser or phone. You have to think about leaving cookies, not leaving certain apps on your phone, particularly if you are on Android, and if you are a Quest 2 developer you are an Android developer so all the security questions are x2.
Plus, FB probably keeps this account you set up just to use your Oculus device and they post to it every time you buy a game or maybe every time you get an achievement. I have no idea if anyone actually has the misfortune to see those posts, but I wonder if they collect money on ads that are served to the accounts that have no other activity than automated Oculus posts. Someone here would know.
I love the Quest 2 and I am really happy FB is doing this. Thank you FB for this.
This entire rebranding is just a stunt to steer away from the mess Facebook creates in our society - it's still the same people in charge, even worse the Facebook people are moving more and more over to RL teams - so absolutley nothing will change, it will actually get worse as Facebook culture takes over.
Maybe some fun startup like Magic Leap or maybe Snap rebrands to Antimeta.
I don't disagree, but keep in mind that any VR headset is probably going to involve an account and a login. When I download a game from Nintendo or Valve I am signing up for something and giving them personal info.
We are going to have to strike some balances. It's really annoying to have FB (or anyone) mandate that you join a multi-platform surveillance ecosystem to use their hardware. On the other hand, a platform with a digital library-- like say a kindle-- requires a login and some personal info. We just need to set some limits so that companies don't abuse these relationships.
the balance is easily reached before the advent of facebooks' policy - you buy the hardware, you get to run _any_ software on it.
Some software require an account, but only because that software's specific needs (like VR chat would require some sort of account to identify a user).
Steam lets you use steamvr without having a steam account. The only reason facebook didn't is because they saw an opportunity to pull in people by force into the facebook ecosystem.
If your facebook account gets banned for some reason, you would lose your entire paid game library and would not be able to use the hardware you spent your cash on.
Bingo. I don't want my online persona to be tied to one account or company.
Big tech companies are pushing for a 360 approach where all you media, entertainment, work and even finance happens on their platform.
But what happens when one of their "AI" bots flags you for some arbitrary reason or they simply don't like you? Google is notorious for automatically banning accounts and it's virtually impossible to get a resolution. Bots ban you and bots "answer" you plea for resolution "We've looked into the issue and you're still banned. Bye."
So yeah, facebook bundling all their services under one account is not acceptable.
That's the big problem with these massive tech companies. They want to suck more and more of your life into their ecosystems, but they don't want to take on the responsibility that comes with it.
When losing your account just meant not being able to look at a few emails or social media their attitude was (almost) acceptable, but when losing access to your account could mean not being able to pay for things (apple pay, google pay), not being able to access stuff you've paid for (any digital content purchases through the account), possibly not even being able to access your phone; then it becomes a more serious responsibility and just suspending an account for arbitrary reasons is no longer acceptable.
Unfortunately, the tech companies don't seem to have got the message and still regularly ruin people's lives by banning accounts for no discernible reason and giving no recourse to getting them back.
I think if they are going to continue on the course they are on there needs to be some sort of campaign to force them to take more responsibility and to give people a proper channel to get bans investigated. Enforced by some sort of ombudsman or something.
Another option could be that if an account is banned for ToS violations the account holder can still log in and access "essential" services such as payments, plus have read-only access to stuff like emails and photos so they can still rescue their lives.
> Another option could be that if an account is banned for ToS violations the account holder can still log in and access "essential" services such as payments, plus have read-only access to stuff like emails and photos so they can still rescue their lives.
In some countries (France?) requires that online purchased products are transferable like in the real world. Mostly this is used for game resale, but it should enable you/the company to transfer purchases to a new account. "You banned me, but give my wife the games I bought"
Now your Meta account can get banned for some reason. I assume the ToS will be very similar. It's a platform, you can say things on it, you can potentially abuse people on it.
There may come a day where the world is utterly broken for the unaugmented, just a confusing sterile landscape camouflaged in QR codes. Getting kicked off the Metaverse will be a terrifying form of exile. But it will all be a private company's decision, so that will make it OK.
It is still better to keep as many accounts separate as possible. At least right now if you get banned from Facebook your google account doesn’t get banned also. And though I have never been banned from Facebook I wouldn’t want to tie real life game purchases to a social media account where saying the wrong thing might end you up in trouble. Hard pass.
Not being banned is nice, but keeping your accounts separate does nothing to prevent the data points you mentioned being linked, especially within the Meta ecosystem. Even outside of the ecosystem, there are billion dollar companies that are very very good at tying together all your 'unrelated' accounts/data points and selling these packages to the highest bidder. It's prudent to assume that big brother and anyone else who cared enough to look could link said activity to you.
Of this list only one of these creates an account that is searchable and contactable by the general public, and only one of these will ban you if you use a profile photo of anything other than your own face.
This has actually happened, too! I remember a big article about it on HN. Unfortunately I have no time to scrounge it up, but perhaps someone else remembers and can link to it.
IIRC there’s also a similar lawsuit against Apple. Someone who had purchased quite a lot of content with their Apple ID had their account suspended. I don’t recall the details either but I do remember reading their complaint and thinking they had quite an interesting and creative angle to get around Apple’s TOS that purport to allow Apple to cancel your account at any time for any reason.
Isn’t that true for Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft as well? I have games on Xbox, movies in iTunes, books and audiobooks with Amazon. I’ve hedged my bets but it still would be non-trivial loss for me.
This is a problem in general (not just FB) but, here are some apps I'd like to run on a VR device (Quest) but I don't want FB/Meta or anyone else to record that I'm running them or how often.
This is also a reason I will personally never buy an adult game from Steam. I don't want my gamer account and my sexual preferences to be linked.
Let me also add that inside out tracking means effectively the device is filming me in various states of undress and I have to trust that they aren't collecting any of that data for "quality assurance" etc...
And with FB/Meta, that same data is data that's used to connect me with my Mom and family on FB. No, just, no!
admittedly a very personal reason but I _don't_ want to be able to log in to facebook. Each property of theirs has it's own flavor but I personally find facebook with its treasure trove of decade old memories and connections to people i haven't seen in ages to be a bit of a despair and depression pit.
I deleted my account specifically cause I felt like "why am I still looking at this stuff?"
I would love to be able to use oculus or instagram (which i can now) without an FB account. Recently I created an account to use ad manager for my job and it's been really annoying how many friends (from the past) I get suggested and how much the algo seems to want to rebuild my old account...
I used to practice law, so the process is a little more natural for me. Summary:
1. I read the terms of service that I originally agreed to. Found a requirement to first negotiate any dispute with their general counsel in good faith. So I wrote to them explaining that I declined the change in ToS terms, and asked for a refund of everything I'd purchased in connection with the headset, plus the dollar amount that it added up to. Sent by registered mail. Waited a few months, got no response. This was summer 2020.
2. Filed a support ticket basically saying the same thing. I got very prompt responses but of course they were templates -- sorry, 30-day return window has expired, please create FB account, etc.
3. Drafted up the small-claims complaint. This is actually a very easy and short form in California.
4. Sent a courtesy copy of the complaint to Oculus general counsel. This can sometimes get their attention and resolve things right away without involving the courts. No response.
5. Filed the complaint, then served Oculus/FB at their Sacramento address for their registered agent for service of process. This cost something like $100 (filing + service).
6. Got a summer 2021 court date.
7. Sent them another courtesy reminder that the court date was approaching and asked to resolve before trial.
8. In the late spring of 2021 got some activity on the support ticket saying sorry for the delay, please dismiss the case, we'll send you the $$$ plus a box to ship back the goggles.
9. I accepted their offer, shipped the stuff back, got the $$$, and filed a dismissal of the case.
Total wall clock time > 1 year. Actual human time on the case probably 5 hours. Out of pocket expenses about $100, which I added to the settlement demand, and which they paid. So I ended up back where I started before the Oculus Quest purchase, except for the time I lost writing the court papers and support/legal communications. Which is what I wanted and expected.
As I hope you can tell, I wasn't angry or out for revenge. I just didn't want the FB account requirement, and I especially didn't like that they tried to change the contract terms after we had a deal. It was just a business deal to me, and that takes pretty much all the emotion out of it, which can make many legal cases easier to resolve.
Here's where I'd suggest hiring a real lawyer (currently practicing as a litigator in California) for an assessment, but here's my guess. Worst case is I lose in court, which is just wasted time and $100. There's no further downside than that, since they didn't countersue (and couldn't have). In that case, I'd keep my goggles and have the choice whether to throw them away, sell them, or suck it up and do the Facebook account thing. Or wait until today and learn that they'd dropped the requirement.
I bought a Quest 2, three weeks ago. Tried to set it up. Already have a Rift S with an Oculus account. To use the Quest 2 required me to switch my Oculus account to FB. (Not gonna happen). I tried 8 times to create a new FB account, it failed the first 7 (no idea why, nothing about the data I entered was strange). When it finally worked the device would not pair with my iPhone6S+ (which I used as it's on a different Apple account than my FB and FB app). It failed to pair which was enough for me to just say "f this" and I took it back.
If they drop me having to associate my Quest usage with my FB account I'll be happy to go buy one again.
During lockdown, my son's school delivered lots of material through Facebook. Despite quitting 8 years ago, I signed up again. I didn't add any friends or make any posts, though, and within days the account was blocked. When I tried to sign up again, it said my phone number was blocked. I contacted the "you've blocked my account in error" service twice, submitted documents - didn't hear anything back.
I think this speaks to my issue. Facebook is far too ban-happy and obsessed with verifiable identity for me to ever be comfortable associating it with an expensive piece of hardware.
It begs the question: if they host the social media account and VR account and can reliably identify / link them on their end, and the laws and terms allow them to do so, does it really matter if they’re different accounts?
It's still a win if you don't have a facebook account. For everyone else: I would assume that they will identify your accounts reliably.
>It's still a win if you don't have a facebook account.
That's making the assumption that Facebook isn't just going to eventually force everyone to a "meta" account that spans all of their properties. Which is exactly what I expect they're going to do.
If so then it would be a repeat of what they did with Oculus. They've certainly demonstrated their capability. I personally won't be considering any Meta hardware or software until they've demonstrated some seriously benevolent and sustained changes.
I was just trying to comment about what this means right now for people invested in hardware and on the fence.
There was a recent interview with MZ on HN that addressed this. He was asked if it was a mistake to require one account, and he basically said "we wanted a single-login, but we didn't think about how combining accounts would be undesirable, but we recognize it is"
So I think the end state is a single-log in Meta account with discrete FB and Oculus accounts to accompany it, logged in through Meta?
They aren't planning on it, based on Mark's keynote. They are opening up the products to multiple different account integrations. You will most likely be able to create an account with your Google account or Microsoft account.
Google Plus is interesting because whilst the social platform failed, getting you to sign in across a huge swath of properties with your Google account certainly worked. They even had me along for the ride until they started automatically managing Google accounts through their browser.
I think both Google and Facebook have pushed their luck recently and found the edges of their domain and their user's complacency. I imagine they'll just keep pushing and we'll eventually cave, but there has at least been some sensible backlash.
A unified google account predates Google+. Really the two pushes in that direction that Google+ contributed was when they decided to force the holdouts on legacy unlinked YouTube accounts to make G+ brand accounts, and when they shuttered orkut which had its own account system iirc.
Yes, because that's literally what they said was the reason for doing so in the stream, but I agree that until there's more clarity here and an explanation of how the terms of a Meta account would work then that's only of so much use.
My friend and I bought two Oculus Quest 2 for trying out out workrooms. We created new facebook accounts, oculus accounts as well as workrooms accounts. Both of us got the message that our accounts are not in good standing when trying workrooms. See screenshot from another poster in [1].
I recall reading something about having to have "an account in good standing", which certainly suggests that they can tell if an account is a real one or a dummy one.
I guess it depends on what you’re worried about so if it’s identification and targeted ads you’re probably right but I was just worried about losing access if I close or get banned or something from my Facebook account for whatever reason.
It seems like it is better in that the arbitrary suspension of your Facebook account for moderation purposes (which is, due to how moderation at scale with machine learning just doesn't work, inherently random) won't cause you to lose access to your Oculus content and paid media.
It's not a total win, probably, but part of the issue is that it's very unclear if you can have multiple redundant Meta accounts, what the ID requirements are for Meta accounts, what the process for appealing against moderation decisions for Meta accounts are, and what the terms of use for Meta accounts are.
It isn't and I've long given up on correcting people. Language evolves and sometimes it unfortunately evolves in ways that actually make communication more difficult (such as the over usage of literally). I've come to terms that if someone uses "begs the question" and then actually follows it with the question it's raising then it's fine. It's still annoying in the same way as using "utilize" instead of "use". It just sounds like someone trying to project themselves in a certain way and it coming across sort of stilted
Yes, it is what “begs the question” as a transitive verb phrase means (though the colon was superfluous, there.)
It is different from what “begs the question” as an intransitive verb phrase, which is older, means, but it also serves as something of a generalization and rationalization of the older phrase that makes the dubious and at best quite outdated translation from Latin have the appearance of some sensible relationship to the common definitions of English words in the phrase, so the pointless pedantry of opposing the clear and distinct transitive use which makes the intransitive use less detached from the rest of modern English is dumb. And tiresome.
What is "the question" in the intransitive sense, that makes it not the object of the verb?
I've given up complaining about the common usage, except that it's a nonsense phrase that apes the technical usage; there's no "begging" involved so the only reason not to say "raise the question" is because it sounds more scholarly to use the Latin, even incorrectly.
> What is "the question" in the intransitive sense, that makes it not the object of the verb?
The phrase “begs the question” is an idiomatic phrase that operates as a verb phrase. It can be either intransitive (“X begs the question” or transitive “X begs the question Y”). In the intransitive use it refers to applying the petitio principii fallacy; in the intransitive form it refers to creating a demand for the answer to a specific question (the former can be viewed as a special case of the latter where the specific question is the justification for the same claim the argument was intended to justify.)
> I've given up complaining about the common usage, except that it's a nonsense phrase that apes the technical usage; there's no "begging" involved so the only reason not to say "raise the question" is because it sounds more scholarly to use the Latin, even incorrectly.
“begging the question” isn't Latin, its an (arguably quite bad even when it was coined and definitely dated) translation of Latin into English.
Mark's statement was worded carefully in that he stated access would not longer require your _personal_ Facebook account. I interpreted this to mean you'll still need a Facebook account, but it would be through a Facebook for Work account (although I'm not sure if today these are distinct entities).
nah, they'll create a new single sign on service for Meta and you'll be required to have a Meta account (and Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp will all also require a Meta account).
Yeah. This article seems to be jumping to conclusions based on a vague statement sandwiched between a bunch of PR claptrap about "hearing feedback". The actual statement could mean anything from the return of standalone Oculus accounts to just unifying SSO under a "Meta" account instead of a "Facebook" one. The only concrete detail was support for Facebook "work" accounts for logging into Oculus.
> and frankly, as we've heard your feedback more broadly, we're working on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account. We're starting to test support for work accounts soon, and we're working on making a broader shift here within the next year. I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences and I get that, especially as the metaverse expands.
> There were all these subtle ways in which, because the company brand was Facebook, a lot of stuff flowed through Facebook and the Facebook app in ways that may have not been optimal. Facebook is still clearly the app that people use the most out of all the ones that we do. But there are people who want to just use WhatsApp or want to just use Instagram, or just want to have Quest and be in VR or AR and not have to use these things.
> So I think it’s about being able to pick and choose which of the services you want to use and know that, no matter what happens to your Facebook account or your Instagram account, you’re still going to have all the content that you bought in VR or all your virtual goods. You can set up an avatar and it can be tied to one of those accounts or could just be tied to your overall identity across the different family of apps. And you can use it in all these places if you want. I bet that’s going to be pretty powerful.
I assumed that you would be able to have a new Oculus only account. However, all you really have is an Oculus (by Hatebook) account. They promised to keep IG and WA separate too, so this is a bit of "Hey regulator, no it is a different account" non-sense signaling.
Glib but true. Wireless Vs. non-wireless is apples vs. oranges, now that I've experienced apples I want apples and Valve is only currently selling oranges.
Plus you're comparing a "good enough" $300 device to a superior but cost prohibitive $1K device. I feel like people who compare a Valve Index to a Quest really don't get what makes Quest uniquely good to its audience currently.
Nobody is denying that the Index is technologically superior across the board, what I am saying is that the measures we're using are completely different. I consider the Steam Deck a closer comparison than the Index for example.
Theres more than 2 VR headsets, Quest and Index, available at the moment. Just have a brief look.
https://www.vr-compare.com/
.
Eg. If you want wireless one like the quest, the HTC Vive Focus or HTC Vive Focus plus have similar specs to quest 2.. they can play games by themselves without a pc and are wireless
.
If you have a pc and want higher resolution / framerate like the index then DecaGear and HP Reverb G2 look good.
.
I would not get a quest cus of fb, and apparently atm the build quality of index is atrocious.
I've dropped mine, walked in to objects several times. Had the light house trackers fall from a distance and ripped the DP plug out of its port. I've had no issue with the quality; actually been quite impressed.
There's a few VR reviews on YouTube. Many things break for a lot of the user base. One reviewer has been through three headsets and a bunch of controllers. The RMA process is good.
Well let's get some edumacation goin here, you can be wireless.
Tracking is night and day on a vive vs. fb trash device. Are you really running around with a vr headset on? No, you mostly stay in one area and usually the same one. My vive pro not only has insanely good tracking. The video is amazing and the tracking, you can't say enough good things about it.
Vive costs more because it's that much better. So while I'd buy the facebook trash costs less, that's the only reason to get one. Not even imo, fact.
You replied to the wrong post. My post was a response to one comparing the Quest to the Valve Index, whereas your post is seemingly something about Quest Vs. Vive Pro.
Although regardless of who you were trying to respond to, comes across likely ruder than you intended just fyi.
It looks like Valve is making their own standalone VR headset ,and made Steam Deck along the way to meet minimal amount of orders for custom chip. The chip can deliver 2.5 TFlops if it's clocked like other RDNA2 GPUs, it's almost 2x of Quest 2 GPU performance. Not sure about price though, it will be definitely higher than 300$ of heavily subsidized Quest 2, and I think price will be closer to current "Oculus for Business" offering, which is 800$. Not sure how it will compete with project Cambria.
There is, but it's not even close to being here yet so I don't know why everyone keeps bringing up. Meta's Cambria will be released before Valve's wireless headset.
I sort of have a hard time dishing out $999 for a Index but I’m also in the same boat regarding FB. I don’t want anything to do with them. Even though they have all my information from back in the day when I used it.
I wouldn't count them off that easily. Valve is making their own autonomous headset, should be out next year. It will be more expensive, yes. But it will be faster and it will be full blown Linux PC with access to whole library of PC games. Might be very competitive(still will lag in units sold though, but mostly due to supply constraints). Any you shouldn't forget that Sony is still on the market(autonomous PSVR is not out of the question) and Apple is making their own headset.
I doubt Facebook's name change is driven by the last few weeks of bad PR. The relevant model seems Google's change to Alphabet, which wasn't driven at all by an attempt to flee the negative associations with their previous name.
I agree Zuckerberg had probably been thinking about it, particularly since Snow Crash is assigned reading for some of his employees.
It seems, though, that the timeline was moved up dramatically to both distract from other Facebook-related news, and to escape from the toxic branding that is Facebook at this point.
Switching to a name which is already a common english word with many uses, seems like an attempt to make future criticism more confusing, as well.
You're a Ghot damn American patriot! Thank you for not giving Facebook money, glad to hear there are other ethical people with at least half an eye open.
I'd upvote this a billion times but once will have to do ;)
At least now it will become possible to use Oculus without being forced to have a Facebook social media account. Just like it is possible to use Whatsapp without a Facebook identity.
This is the big point even if we have to have a meta account we are not at the whim of being suspended from using our headset because of something we said on a separate social media platform
The bigger point is how much of your personal info and psychographic profiling will, one way or another, still make its way to The Company Formerly Known As Facebook, which remains to be seen
Do you think they will just ignore those micro-head-movements when they start A/B testing different stuff on screen to figure out the algorithm that is _you_? Who needs a real, physical Westworld?
I hear the next version might even track retinal movement. So many useful audience-segmenting and personalized targeting capabilities!
I challenge them to link my accounts where I'm not using any real details for the Oculus one (aside from IP address). They're gonna accept the challenge though and I'd be safest not using any FB products at all aside from Oculus. I check FB on average every 2-3 weeks so they could probably make the connection. Loose one, but still.
By break away hit, I meant more in line with Nintendo Switch sales. I doubt it's even close due to the login requirement. They lost a lot of word of mouth marketing from would-be evangelists. It's near impossible to defend Facebook / Meta.
The Facebook login was unnecessary friction since they didn't even take advantage of it from the start. It wasn't until a few months ago when I could even find my friends from Facebook.
No, this would be an Oculus-specific account. There are enough legitimate criticisms of Facebook that we don't have to go around inventing false ones.
Edited to cite the announcement transcript[1]:
> And as we’ve focused more on work, and frankly, as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account.
> ... I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences.
Why the fuck do I need to log into my monitor?! it's bad enough the driver demands a running application which tries to sell me shit and pushes me into a place I don't want to be at all. It's literally hijacking my computer.
The Oculus isn’t just a monitor, it’s a complete computer system with its own OS. If you just want a VR headset that is purely a monitor, buy one of those.
I agree with OP for regular wired Oculus devices. They are essentially monitors, and I wouldn't expect to have to have an account in order to use a dumb peripheral. For the Quest, you're right, it's more like a computer system with OS, apps, etc. I'd still rather be able to use it without an account, and only create an account if I wanted to interact with online services like apps and games.
Still! why must I log in to simply download an app!? Perhaps publishing an app is a more sensitive matter, then maybe it's worth validating things strictly behind closed doors... but to simply download and use software on a device I own, I can't fathom how we've slipped so far.
This wouldn't change if it were a store account instead of a device account.
Most people use google's play store but this doesn't mean every android device needs a mandatory google account.
The MacOS "App Store" (as in the thing they call the app store, rather than all the other ways you can pay for and install apps) does require you to login. Worse, they block updating the non-os software that came with your computer with logging into that app store.
You can't install apps through "normal user" means on the Android phones I've had unless you add an account.
De facto, that means you need an account.
Yes, I know you can try to find copies of your banking apps on apkmirror and sideload, but... no. (Also, wouldn't that mean that you have to manually confirm every single app update, so a 10-minute button pushing session every week?)
Not really. Nintendo eShop and Google Play Service will dark pattern you towards having an account in cases where they don't outright require it like DLC expansions to the "physical" cartridge you "bought".
You can use via Link with a PC or side load apps, so Oculus apps aren't needed.
Since when is it ok that I need an third party account to access my computer?
False, I purchased a VR headset to use with Steam VR (mostly), but I fully expected it to work in a standard way, with understanding to the variations in the handheld controllers.
> Because you bought a system that only has apps from your monitor's app store available, and that means you have to prove who you are to use them.
Blatantly false. You can either play Oculus games (must, if you are playing without PC; basically the app store) or you can connect to PC and play any SteamVR games just like you would with any other headset (supported officially).
So with Quest 2, I get to play both the Oculus-only standalone games made for the headset specifically, as well as any SteamVR games that my friends with other VR headsets might want to play together.
I do not own an iPad. Also... do you really have to? I haven't used an iOS in a little bit now.
Apple is hardly the model for technology we should be using these days. Their walled garden has rotten fruit and it doesn't even get you drunk, you simply fall ill.
I don't own an iPad, but I flashed my tablet with an Android Open Source Project ROM so that I have the option to not send data to anybody I don't want to.
Is Facebook planning to let us do this? Or are they just changing the brand logo on the login page for their required login?
I use a pin code or thumbprint to unlock my iPad and login to Apples store
I can root it and install alternative store
What alternative software can I run on Occulus?
That and all the extra engineering for managing users for business reasons not technical wastes real resources to prop up a technology company that isn’t interested in novel discovery, but servicing contemporary business obligations
If they’re so smart and capable of pulling useful metadata off unstructured data, why do they need me to maintain a specific profile?
Really kind of feels like they rely on having concrete data and the meta part is marketing
You realize iOS roots are developed by third-party geeks and void your warranty (unless that changed in the years since I've interacted with iOS, but I'd be shocked)? Maybe we should indeed force hardware manufacturers to offer a rooting/open OS option by default, but it's a weird criticism when you start off the comment by licking Apple's boot. Further, Facebook actually does offer to open up your deprecated Oculus Go headset now that they are done with the 2 years of guaranteed support to its devs. As such, people can keep tinkering and keeping it up to date (Carmack's opening remarks yesterday address this) with the help of Facebook. That puts them quite objectively ahead of Apple in this regard, the company which was fined in court [1] for draining older iPhone's batteries and slowing them down thru software updates.
Guaranteed all these people in this thread wouldn't be losing their shit over a hardware account if it wasn't from Facebook's holdco. Forcing a Facebook account was creepy, a dedicated Oculus (well, Meta) account is normal and defensible.
Heya, I noticed that, in responding, you switched your premise from, "You log into an ipad", to, 'The overwhelming majority of people log into their apple accounts when setting up their ipads'.
Since this is disingenuous on your part, telling the person you responded to, to "do better" seems hypocritical.
I wonder who you think I meant by "you"? Did you assume I specifically know the parent in person and how they use their ipad at home? If so, and I can only assume you did otherwise your comment would be nonsense, I can see how that would be confusing and seem disingenuous to you.
If you're suggesting that by "you", you meant "The overwhelming majority of people who set up ipads", that doesn't sound like a very credible retroactive explanation.
Like, it's confusing for sure, but not on the part of the reader. It doesn't even make sense. Most people don't even _have_ ipads.
And even if they did, you're basically saying, "this small subset of self-selecting people who are okay with their tablet requiring a login to work, are okay with their devices requiring a login to work", which isn't very convincing to others, either.
And even if _that_ made sense, 'these other people are okay with it' is probably one of the weakest possible arguments in favor of /anything/.
> this small subset of self-selecting people who are okay with their tablet requiring a login to work, are okay with their devices requiring a login to work
I'll go ahead and assume English isn't your first language. I was saying the vast majority of people who own ipads are fine with needing to login to an account to get the most out of it. Doesn't seem like a particularly controversial statement.
Now go ahead and find some way in which the above sentence is technically incorrect, but you're starting to look silly.
How does the statement "the vast majority of people who own ipads are fine with needing to log into their device" convince those who do not, and are not?
You can just click the skip button and use an iOS device without any account. Whether or not people want to do this is an entirely different conversation but Apple does not require it.
You do better and stop moving the goalposts and lying.
An oculus is not a monitor, it's an entire game console that includes a screen. Are you this incredulous about having to log in to an iPad or a Switch?
Yes, there was a time when we didn't need accounts for every piece of hardware we use.
It is a fact of life that companies will impose more and more profit-maximizing inconveniences upon the customer as long as the customer is willing to accept them. It only stops when enough customers push back.
Does Meta provide a guarantee that data won’t be unified between Facebook and Oculus accounts ever? If not, what is the value of this distinction beyond PR?
Hmm, the statements you posted don’t quite say that.
I guess it’s still possible that users could be required to register a “meta” account which is separate to your personal Facebook account, although you can sign into your personal Facebook account with your meta account via single sign on. I think this would technically meet their wording while also not fulfilling the spirit of what everyone wants.
For instance, you can have a Google account that isn’t linked to your personal Gmail account, because not everyone wants their search history linked to their email - just change Google to Meta, Gmail to Facebook and search history to social media.
This is not stated anywhere. I don't see why Facebook couldn't create a Meta SSO that you can use for Facebook and/or Oculus and call it "job done". For them it's a win/win. Most people would choose to "migrate" their Facebook login to Meta. Those annoyed by this could just create a Meta account. Notably there's no mention of whether you'll need to use your real name for logging into Oculus as you do with Facebook. My bet is: probably.
Because of the security and risk implication of not preventing it. Goldman Sachs is both an investment bank and an asset management firm, literally the same company. However, they have clear protocols in place to separate the two sides because otherwise the opportunities for impropriety are too high. I could see a similar argument for separating Facebook and Oculus accounts.
The fact that the two components of an analogy are not the same thing is the point of the analogy. If they were the same thing, the analogy would be useless.
In this specific analogy, the point is, despite having different business models, society benefits from either conglomerate separating their respective two aforementioned business units.
No, their businesses are managing money and taking companies public. They're overall revenue would benefit from aligning those businesses, but they aren't allowed to. They are kept separate because of the risks of having them together. The Facebook scenario is a different (but comparable) situation.
That's FB's claim at the moment and after so many tricks and lies by FB I'm pessimistic.
Their contract excuse to circumvent the GDPR does not make them credible.
Quote: We asked Bosworth directly if we could unlink and delete our Facebook accounts from Quest and still keep our software purchases, to which he simply replied: “Yup”.
Plot twist. When you delete your fb account, your identity is switched to your shadow profile and any account you subsequently link to your oculus is linked to that shadow profile
> And as we’ve focused more on work, and frankly, as we’ve heard your feedback more broadly, we’re on making it so you can log into Quest with an account other than your personal Facebook account.
> ... I know this is a big deal for a lot of people. Not everyone wants their social media profile linked to all these other experiences.
To me this strongly suggests that it is a separate account, and is not required to be linked to a Facebook account.
I'd love if they clarified if not being directly linked to a Facebook account would mean it's not being harvested and shadow profiling the user to end up linking to whatever is their definition of a "person" in their ad systems.
This corporate-speak makes me very cynical and I hate it but given FB's history I would like a completely clear statement that data harvested from Oculus is not immediately linked to an identity of myself in some system of the FB colossus.
I think the other key feature they’re angling for is suspension or banning of a Facebook account for whatever reason will no longer cost you your entire Oculus library.
It’s a very long standing problem. Many people created new Facebook accounts just for Oculus, bought maybe $80-$100 worth of games, and then got their Facebook account banned[*]. There is pretty much no recourse but to whine on the Oculus subreddit till the community rep escalated them past tier 1 support. Even then, the result would be “We’ve refunded your purchases please use your actual Facebook account.”
It’s probably gotten bad with charge backs and returned headsets that they’re finally doing something about it.
[*]: The common speculation is that this would trip a similar heuristic to “Egg Accounts” on Twitter and would be banned without recourse because that particular piece of Facebook’s automation didn’t have visibility into the Oculus-side purchase activity. The assumption by Facebook being the account didn’t have any content so if it was an actual human they’d just create a new account.
Unless it's part of some legally binding document I wouldn't trust it anyway. Despite the name change they're still Facebook. Data harvesting is their business.
Without giving much detail, where I work many accounts from different businesses aren't linked... in customer facing systems. But internally everything is linked, and well linked (for good reasons). FB will profile you even more even though you can use a different email.
It looks like a company that's been talking about this direction for ~6 years already which decided to precipitate the rebranded holdco (and maybe speed of R&D/capex) in light of recent controversies. Bit of this, bit of that.
Umm, what again is the criticism for crating meta account vs creating oculus account(without fb)? I think at this point whatever fb does it will be criticised?
Oculus won't require an account? Where have I heard that one before... This is just another attempt at being clever (and dishonest), isn't it?
"Sure we said it won't require a FACEBOOK account, but Meta is something totally different and <insert more marketing sentences>. And because of that, a Meta account is required."
Terrible decision, Oculus is a well known brand, the name is catchy, it has good reputation. So, Facebook decides, let's kill off the brand and replace it with. something completely unknown!
Quest 2 owner here, "The thrill of the fight" has been my most amazing related discovery. Just 20 minutes playing before shower and you'll be sweating like there's no tomorrow. First days, if not already in gym, you are gonna feel for sure the aches.
Yes, for sure. Much more fun than going to the gym or doing boring exercises at home. Main use would be cardio and stuff like squats etc, not weight lifting. Although Carmack said (in his FB Connect keynote yesterday) that they will soon be fitness apps that incorporate weights as well.
I haven’t used it for that purpose but I follow Alanah Pearce and she swears by it for helping her drop weight after she gained a bunch because of an injury. I’ve heard a few other anecdotes about the app she used helping others too called supernatural. Also the boxing ones too.
I prefer no account at all. If you still have an account you don't really own the device outright. You had to agree to some level of things by buying it at a store. Then you have to continually agree to a barrage of ever changing legal requirements.
I honestly don't know if I can ever buy a new car, I might have to stick with ICE. At some point even your car might show a screen that says, hey before driving to work, do you agree to the following terms? NO? Then you don't get to go to work.
I think we have too many "agreements" and a lot of it is parasitic because they want to sell data about you.
Wake me up when the resolution isn't garbage. I have two Oculus kits collecting dust due to facebook and the fact that looking at my monitor is still a more pleasurable experience.
Ohsnap am I gonna get my kids one now? No. Hell no. Facebook Is Trash, I'll never give a cent to them on purpose and do my damndest to bring it down, put it down, throw Facebook away whenever I get a chance to educate someone.
Im getting the G2 headset baby! If you want to Easily make the world a better place, never give Facebook your money. You don't need to join Greenpeace or sort recycling, just Get Rid Of Facebook.
Yeah, all those poor people who can't afford ethical headsets can go fuck themselves! I'm getting a fully loaded headset with all my money, I simply can't imagine being unfortunate enough to get locked out of the Metaverse!
That's exactly what this is. They killed off the Oculus brand and now it's Meta. You will need a Meta account. I'd be surprised if it doesn't use the Facebook auth system with a different skin.
I have an old grandfathered Oculus account and haven’t upgraded to Quest 2 because I don’t want to link my Facebook. If this ends up being true, they’ve made at least one extra sale.
Owner of a Quest 1, so I've never linked to FB, but that's also locked me.out of Venues (which was how they broadcast Connect in VR). Any speculation on whether Venues will still require a FB account?
Wouldnt trust them. I'd follow the hack recently put out that gave you access without needing an account. Only thing you lose is access to their social media related functions if I remember correctly
The biggest questions (and anxiety) that I have right now is regarding the Oculus for Business (OfB) program.
I develop a social VR experience for students of foreign languages. It's an activity we provide in addition to our traditional classroom based instruction. Our students are primarily government employees, in diplomatic, defense, or intelligence roles.
When the pandemic hit, we had a huge problem. We needed to pivot our experience away from in-person and figure out a solution to continue development and testing with remote learning. So we built a new teleconferencing feature into the app and started shipping headsets directly to the student. They use them a couple of times for their classes and then ship it back.
This pivot also came at the exact same time that we had the first kerfuffle over the Quest 2 requiring a Facebook login, which made it a complete non-starter for organizations like US intelligence agencies.
Our product is a WebXR experience, which can technically run on any headset on the market. Any sort of PC tethered devices would mean we would have to also ship a gaming laptop to the students, because we can't count on their PC being powerful enough to run a VR headset at all. That would be significantly more expensive and would overcomplicate the setup for students. We can't ship Pico Neo headsets because their employers are fearful of the Chinese ownership of the company. We can't ship Vive Focus devices because, well, the lenses suck and have made even me, a hardened VR user, sick. The OfB Quest 2s that we have are really the best user experience we can provide right now.
With Oculus for Business, the users of the headsets did not need any sort of login whatsoever. It was the best case scenario for us. WebXR nominally keeps us from being platform-locked-in, and the enterprise licensing terms keep our customers happy. I say "nominally", because the only other, realistic option for it right now is PC tethered devices. All of the non-Quest standalones only have an ancient version of Firefox available as a browser. Mozilla laid off all of their VR developers and has not had anyone releasing updates to Firefox Reality in over a year. There are spec changes and defects that they've not kept up with that are significant impediments to continued development. On the other hand, Facebook builds a version of Chromium as the browser on the Quest, that they keep very up to date and have some excellent performance optimizations built in.
But Meta is ending new OfB purchases at the end of this year [0]. There is a Quest for Business (QfB) program that they have announced, but it won't be generally available until at least 2023. In an FAQ [1], they talk about options for migration. Migrate the existing OfB headsets to use the consumer Quest 2 software, migrate to QfB "when it becomes available" (starting a closed beta later this year, going to open beta "sometime in 2022"), or continue using OfB (which means no system updates in the near future [2]).
What is not clear is what that means regarding headset users being required to have some sort of device login. They say QfB will have "Work accounts" to log in instead of a personal Facebook account. But what, exactly, does that mean? Are these accounts that we can provision per headset, so users can check headsets out of a locker or we can ship to the students and they can just use them? Or will they have to be per-user accounts?
I can abide per-headset accounts. Our clients are not going to abide per-actual-user accounts.
This has been a frustrating experience, to say the least. I keep hoping Microsoft will wake up one day and realize that waveguide displays are stupid, rip them out of the HoloLens, put in some opaque displays, and give us a standalone VR headset, with a decent browser, that my USG customers can abide. But they aren't listening to me.
[2] OfB devices are currently on v28 of the system software, whereas the consumer SKUs are on v33, which has significant defect fixes and performance improvements. They've stated that v29 will be the last version deployed for OfB, so that's pretty annoying.
Can I migrate my purchases over and get rid of my extra Faceborg account, then? I don’t like the threat of getting banned and losing all my purchases hovering over my head constantly
> During the recent Facebook outage, certain Oculus devices were effectively rendered useless due to their inability to connect to the larger Facebook platform. It’s unclear if that specific incident is partially to blame for this change.
No, it's absolutely clear that this has nothing to do with the outage. WhatsApp and Instagram were down too. Their infrastructure does not care if the parent corp is called Facebook or Meta.
