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Comment by fidotron | Hacker News Reader

Not being a particular Zuck fan or hater I have to admit I like the fact he has decided to spend billions on a fairly out there R&D project. I also happen to believe VR is commercially useless but the R&D will yield tangential technologies that benefit us more directly, such as the control interfaces.

People have forgotten that Bezos used to receive very similar treatment over the cloud and everything non book store until it suddenly exploded.

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Imo FB or Meta is hurting from missing the hardware platform boat. Their apps are at the whim of Apple and Google with Apple already neutering FB with the do not track feature. I think they want to own the vr/ar hardware and ecosystem so they don’t end up in that same position again.

To +1 and say the same thing another way: If you don't like their strategy, don't buy their stock. Just wait for the innovations to diffuse Xerox PARC-style, and reap the benefits. It might take a decade and return 1% of promised, but the benefits will be felt by billions across centuries. That's how real innovation works. Future me thanks the current investors for their contribution to society.

Or maybe the current investors will get rich; that's what keeps them coming back.

Well, many people are invested in them because of ETF/index funds. But you are right. They could do awesome stuff generally but they focus so much on a creepy metaverse that really few people want.

Is it really any different from Alphabet and all the random things they’re working on?

isn't the amount spent on a much bigger scale?

A lot of the projects are killed off, and the research and development goes nowhere, benefitting nobody long-term.

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