Comment by idle_zealot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by idle_zealot | Hacker News Reader

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I can confirm that I was unable to use my Quest 3 this morning. I left it connected to the internet, it tried to phone home I guess, and then locked itself into a "please connect this headset to your Meta account" state.

I am so sick of companies "selling" computers that they continue to control. In what universe does Meta have the right to remotely lock my headset and prevent me from using it to run the software I installed on it? If I were to sell my current desktop computer, or phone, or whatever, on any marketplace, and leave a remote login account on it that I then used to continue to operate the computer as though it were mine remotely, installing software, playing games, and occasionally peeking at what the current owner was doing, that would be obviously criminal. How is this any different? Because I signed away my rights when I "agreed" to their Terms and Conditions box (which I was compelled to do to use the hardware I purchased)?

Something is so fundamentally broken in the current ownership/property landscape. We somehow ended up in a world where people don't own the most critical tools in their lives, companies have managed to recreate feudal fiefdoms within the bounds of the market.

Ubisoft Director of Subscriptions really opened the floodgates of bad behavior when they came out saying "Gamers need to get comfortable with not owning their games".

I think these companies need to be reminded they do not own our PCs either.

I'm really starting to like that mantra of "If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing".

The full context of that quote, which everyone conveniently omits, is ”for subscriptions to take off”.

As in, gaming subscription services like Xbox’s GamePass won’t succeed if gamers prefer to buy games over paying a monthly sub.

I can understand your frustration but were you not aware of the software lock in when you bought it? I'm not defending the ownership erosion, but I avoided these things specifically because of who was selling it and how it was locked to them.

Not OP but I bought a Rift when it was still just Oculus.

...then Facebook bought Oculus...

...and then required you to have a Meta account to continue using the Oculus drivers.

It's a real "boil the frog" strategy and this is still early days for VR in terms of realized market value. The time to push back on this bullshit is yesterday. As we can all see, nobody can compete with Meta on price with the Quest 3, but the cost to purchase is heavily subsidized by the expected futures.

If you bought a Rift before facebook purchased them I wouldn't call it boiling the frog, more like being stabbed in the back. Not much to do there but sell your device but I guess most people probably hoped things would turn out differently than they did. This is one of the most infuriating parts of America now, if you hate a company and never want to interact with them some merger comes along and throws you into being their customer again against your will.

Of course, OP owns a Quest 3 so its more cut and dry there.

I was aware. They are the only game in town when it comes to standalone VR. I want to play BeatSaber, a game I purchased when I used an Oculus Quest, and the only way to do that now is by subjecting myself to Meta's whims. I compromise on my ideals to have nice things, but will continue to complain when I feel that I or others have been wronged.

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