Meta Plans to Reverse Controversial Facebook Account Requirement for Oculus

roadtovr.com

10 points·bryan0··4 comments

Not to be cynical, but I get the feeling they will require a Meta account? I'm half kidding but that's what first comes to mind.

Oh for sure. They will require some account for managing purchases, etc. It used to be Oculus before FB, but since they are replacing Oculus with Meta, it will require a Meta account.

As a name, “Meta” is so asinine and vague that it actually takes my brain a whole second or so of focused thinking every single time to remember that it’s bloody Facebook. No way that’s an accident.

Well played, Meta.

The vagueness is intentional and it's surely supposed to strengthen their ownership claim on the idea of the "metaverse"[0].

But unless the company radically changes their internal KPIs, it's probably just a matter of time until Meta will taint that name too and evoke the same association as the word "metastasis" does.

The concept is called the "euphemism treadmill"[1], you can try to outrun the negative association but it will catch up eventually, famously evidenced by the company originally known as Blackwater[2].

As much as I hate the subscription model in software, I'd prefer it for social networks and messenger services to stop the omnipresent and insidious peeping model for advertising purposes which we see today and ideally before it starts to infect a nascent "metaverse" of AR and VR.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaverse

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)

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