You mean, just like his pivot to VR?
Exactly. Zuck stole the original idea to Facebook. Then bought a ton of companies after that for innovation. He has no good ideas of his own, when he does think of stuff, they are wild big company pivots that fail.
I have to admit, I did wonder what his vr would look like and then he showed off something that looked like an early alpha release of a cheap second life clone in a giant global presentation, hilariously funny.
Or his pivot to threads?
For those that want to read about the fault of human psyche:
https://technophilosoph.com/en/2024/06/09/why-we-trust-ai-despite-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect/
The popular author Michael Crichton named this effect after his physicist friend Murray Gell-Mann, who had noticed how newspaper readers, for example, after studying an erroneous article on a subject in which they themselves are very knowledgeable, just shake their heads and find the reporting on it distorted, erroneous and lacking in understanding. However, if they then turn the page and read an article on another topic in which they themselves have little knowledge, they trust the information in this article almost without reservation.
Has he picked a single winner since he stole the idea for facebook?
Probably only when he bought out Instagram and Whatsapp, that’s all I can think of
Those were already popular before he bought them, and then he made them worse.
I feel like Oculus improved under them, but yeah - an exception proves the rule.
I don’t know if “improved” is as accurate as “accelerated” in that case. Oculus was already doing cool stuff they just needed the resources to really get going, and now Meta is all up in it so the service kinda blows.
He bought 100 lottery tickets through acquisition (probably more) and 2 of them hit.
And Oculus
Two other things I don’t use.
I thought he actually stole the source code, not just the idea.
Outside of Facebook what has he been responsible for that didn’t blow up in his face? The only other things Meta has that aren’t thus far miserable failures are Instagram and Whatsapp, both of which they bought.
Reminder that he stole Facebook
And Google built a search engine. Everything else they’ve tried to build has failed, other than maybe Gmail which was just a Yahoo Mail / Hotmail clone. Everything else that has been successful has been an acquisition: Maps (Keyhole), YouTube, Android, Google Photos (Picasa), Doubleclick…
We really need robust antitrust. How many of these acquisitions would be thriving companies in their own right, competing with the big tech giants if the tech giants hadn’t been able to absorb them.
Google+ is an example of what happens when companies have to compete instead of acquiring other companies. Google poured billions into it and it flopped completely.
IMO it’s almost worse than if G+ flopped completely. Google+ was actually awesome for the specific world of smalltime pen and paper RPGs. But of course, that one creative community of people designing & publishing cool stuff wasn’t enough to justify its cost, or challenge Facebook for supremacy, so they pulled the plug even though plenty of people were still using it. Just a waste.
If it takes multiple billions of dollars to create a product that is useful for a niche group of pen and paper RPG players, that product is probably not going to succeed.
But, also, if Facebook didn’t have such an unassailable monopoly on social networking, small, focused social networks that targeted a niche group of people might have a chance of surviving.
I have to say I’m a bit worried he’s banking on receiving unlimited access to an insane level of surveillance data to use in the the $50B digital prison he’s building in Louisiana
Jeff Landry’s Intelligence Chief is Spying on New Orleans with Project NOLA
Louisiana’s use of NDAs in AI data center push raises questions over transparency
Bad uses and implementations of AI is being reversed and also being reclaimed by people-owned open source alternatives which is good
However, robotics needs way more done to be put back into peoples hands, and also to have more people-owned alternatives to become industry standards (same should be done for people-owned ai to be industry standards)
Lots to do but we got this and decent amount of people are doing for both AI and Robotics to make it for us and not for those who wish to shit on us all
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bot.
His is such a bad company but so poorly run by its dictator. He can’t be ousted as he holds majority shares. It’d be funny as hell if it wasn’t facilitating the progression of the end of our world. Dumping billions that could be used to feed and support people in need. Instead we got the metaverse and datacenters on every corner.
Right? Imagine if all of the money spent “building out” the metaverse had been invested in improving infrastructure in real life…
I believe a lot of these people had the right idea at the right time but are by no means a good judge for these kinds of things. And should not in the least bit believe everything they touch turns to gold. You were FaceBook, you did good once. Enjoy your money and just stop.
If you are still actively using Facebook you are either over 40 or live in a rural area of the country. As an example, I live in a small rural town of less than 4000 people everybody still uses Facebook and the amount of AI that they are liking sharing commenting on is absurd.
Such a punchable face. He and his wife are evil people. Stains on humanity.
anyone who owns 8-plus-digits fortunes are profoundly evil
Is that his real name!? I thought it is Fart Fuckerber
Yeah, it’s getting tough for him to support AI, and FB is declining.
He probably should have stuck with the Metaverse, I’m sure it would have worked eventually. I mean maybe, who knows…
There was a brief period of time where they were actually on the “right” track IMO. You’d pop the headset on, call your friend(s), and when they answered, immediately your VR avatars would be standing in the same virtual space or in your room if you’re using passthrough mode, and you could “look at” and speak to each other in a way that felt extremely natural. You’d start gesturing and naturally moving your body as you speak in the same way you would in a face-to-face chat. The same way you can be at a Halloween party and after a few minutes, you’re having a completely normal conversation with Abe Lincoln or a frog or whatever. Even though the avatars weren’t perfect, there were times that three of us just stood around for 30-45 minutes just chatting and catching up before anyone suggested playing an actual game.
To me, the main selling point of VR is that it’s the best way to feel present with someone who isn’t physically there. It’s better than a video call or a traditional online game. It’s really the closest thing to just “hanging out” with someone who’s somewhere else.
Of course, it only worked that way for a month or two before they made it so that you couldn’t gather like that unless you were inside the horizon worlds app, which everyone always hated. Typical dark pattern enshittification as usual.
This is all beside the fact that it’s Zuck, Facebook, and all the other things everyone hates, but much like the perv glasses seem to be catching on, I think Zuck’s metaverse could have been somewhat popular if they hadn’t done… basically everything they’ve done to it.
