this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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To be fair, a lot of people were wondering the same thing when the iPad was announced. Now there's like a billion of them out there.
They were wondering that for the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch, and AirPods. I’d bet that in 10 years a decent portion of the population will have some sort of headset, Apple or otherwise.
None of those had a point nearly as questionable as this headset thing. The ipod was an advanced mp3 player, which was very popular and common tech at the time. The iPhone was an advanced phone with a large touchscreen, which was rapidly becoming very common at the time. The iPad was an advanced tablet, which was a concept that had already been tried many times by many other companies by then. The air pods are just advanced wireless earbuds, which nobody could ever deny were rapidly becoming more popular.
VR headsets are fundamentally different from all of those, in that there's no technological and social precedence quite like it. People used mp3 players and watches and phones before Apple did something new. Nobody was wondering the point of a better mp3 player that could hold massive amounts of songs. But the history of humankind says nothing about the masses' willingness to walk around in public with big ass high tech ski goggles strapped to their faces. VR is much, much more unknown compared to those.
If you have a computer space with multiple monitors with various equipment interfacing with it cluttering up a desk at your home, imagine all of that just completely gone, cleaned up, with nothing there but a recliner and a headset that can even go with you.
I think this is the value proposition. The price is too high for me, but I don’t think there’s anything to be confused about. The smart watch and iPad took more for me to wrap my head around than this.
When they get it down to rad sunglasses I’ll wear them everywhere.
I love my Quest headset, but I haven’t turned it on in 6 months. I don’t have time to be isolated like that without asking other people to make sacrifices for me so I can have that time.
I think the tech will be important in the future. I could be wrong, but when it shrinks down and becomes easy to remove isolation, I think people will want it.
I want 90s style bug-eye sunglasses with shiny, royal blue frames.
The thing is, I don’t want those replaced by a headset. I have a total of 5 monitors on my home setup, and I can’t see a reason to replace any of them. Especially with a headset that’s likely going to be uncomfortable, heavy and isolating. I just can’t see any case where a headset could be even remotely close to preferable.
A recliner would probably decrease my enjoyment of the setup anyways, as I much prefer a physical desk, chair and monitors.
That sounds like a pretty epic setup! Fortunately no one is forcing you to replace anything. You’re free to keep and make the most of what you’ve spent your own money on, just like anyone else.
Actually, I’m sure you more than most can appreciate why others who don’t already have a setup like yours might want to look at a headset as an option.
If you can’t see any use case for this, especially as they become smaller and cheaper, then no one is going to convince you otherwise. Even now, there are literally thousands of scenarios where a headset with no physical limitations is going to be more preferable than needing an entire room in your house or office for your computer setup.