My prediction: VR is never going to take of for the same reason as 3D glasses never took off; you look stupid when using them. If you think about it, this is a rather important factor in adopting new technology. Cell phones only became popular when you didn’t need to carry something the size and weight of a brick with you; most of wearable tech has never become popular because it alters people’s appearance (usually for the worse); no-one uses segways because they look stupid but people have no problem driving car for very short distances.
For disrupting new technology there needs to be some kind of a “natural” entry point where you can use it without being too different. Once it has become popular, people don’t care so much what it looks like anymore.
For reference, General Motors, once the largest and most powerful corporation in the world, is worth 45 billion dollars.
jldsays:
Ah! So Facebook “use” is to make Zuck and assorted shareholders billionaires?
I guess that’s the “new economy”, didn’t we heard this tune around 2000 already?
Mark Ssays:
> Yet I have decided to bet $100 with Greg Linden […]
Thank you. I really hope more people in academia do this. (I very much enjoyed the recent unemployment bet between Tyler Cowen and Bryan Caplan.)
I wish I could lose a bet with Greg Linden 🙂
My prediction: VR is never going to take of for the same reason as 3D glasses never took off; you look stupid when using them. If you think about it, this is a rather important factor in adopting new technology. Cell phones only became popular when you didn’t need to carry something the size and weight of a brick with you; most of wearable tech has never become popular because it alters people’s appearance (usually for the worse); no-one uses segways because they look stupid but people have no problem driving car for very short distances.
For disrupting new technology there needs to be some kind of a “natural” entry point where you can use it without being too different. Once it has become popular, people don’t care so much what it looks like anymore.
1. Segways are expensive. If VR units remain as expensive as they are right now (nearly $2000 for an entire kit), they won’t take off.
2. I agree that VR units are large and bulky, and tethered. That’s not great.
May be, may be, meet Malo Girod de l’Ain, his own bet flopped in 2010
http://culture.nextmodernity.com/archive/2006/01/10/2010-futur-virtuel.html
BTW, which are the actual *uses* of VR beside entertainement and a very few niche applications of high tech flavor?
(need a killer app)
You could have asked, when Facebook was launched, what that was for. When the PC came along, most people dismissed it.
I think that if VR is a big hit in entertainment (read: all kids want VR for Christmas) then it will already be huge.
“You could have asked, when Facebook was launched…”
Though I have a Facebook page I am STILL asking what Facebook is for, beside funny videos.
Facebook is worth 300 billion dollars.
For reference, General Motors, once the largest and most powerful corporation in the world, is worth 45 billion dollars.
Ah! So Facebook “use” is to make Zuck and assorted shareholders billionaires?
I guess that’s the “new economy”, didn’t we heard this tune around 2000 already?
> Yet I have decided to bet $100 with Greg Linden […]
Thank you. I really hope more people in academia do this. (I very much enjoyed the recent unemployment bet between Tyler Cowen and Bryan Caplan.)
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/02/betting_rules.html