I have been using the Oculus Quest 2, on and off for about 1 year now. The first time I used it I was blown away. I thought to myself, this is definitely the future. Weirdly enough, when I discussed it with my friends and even the reviews online, no one particularly seems to enjoy it. “It’s a poorly designed gaming system” - this is the typical response that I got. Later in this post, I will delve into potential enhancements for broader adoption, as well as fundamental paradigm shifts that may be necessary.

The virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR) industry has plummeted from investors’ radar due to lackluster sales figures of Meta and with highly anticipated startups like Magic Leap failing to meet expectations by a significant margin. Top tech personalities like Elon Musk have also said that “I don’t see someone strapping a friggin’ screen to their face all day”. John Carmack who was in charge of building the metaverse left Meta saying that the pace of innovation is slow.



This is a short screen capture that I did in the VR and it felt like I was really there. The discussions in VR are very different from what one experiences in group chats or group calls. There really is an immersive feel to it. But it comes at a cost, when you enter the metaverse you become completely disconnected from the actual world. So unlike on a group video call, you can’t quickly share/access your files on your computer/mobile or the internet. You can’t hear your mom yelling for you to come down. For a little amount of immersion, it feels that we sacrifice a large amount of control and awareness. This can be both good and bad depending on the circumstances, but ideally, it’s good for things that require less control. For e.g. watching movies, sitting in a group and just discussing random topics, or playing a game where all the controls are already present in the VR. For most of the day-to-day work, it would be difficult to migrate to VR.

One other issue is that very few of your friends are in it. Even if they are, there are very few things to be done. We already have MMORPGs and similar games, where your network is present and the ‘immersive’ experience doesn’t make much difference. As stated in “The cold start problem”, the goal should be to first build an atomic network and then grow from there. I believe Meta had the right idea, of focusing on creating VR-first experiences. It can be a game but mostly has to be something different. Maybe it’s a field trip to an alien planet with your friends, maybe it’s an escape room, or a VR documentary. I believe BigScreenVR has found its core group of users (like me), who tune in every now and then. What’s their secret sauce? They let anyone host a private room and share any video. So you could in ‘theory’ have ‘some’ people screening the latest movies and you get to watch it from a perfect spot in a grand theatre without a kid crying in the back.

User experience is the other thing that creates a lot of friction. First, you have to put on the clunky headsets in position then turn them on then wait for them to boot. If in between you have to go to the bathroom, you have to take the entire thing off (headsets, controllers, charging cables, headphones, and wires) and then put it back on when you come back. The headset should be small, super quick to boot (or maybe should plug in directly to your laptop), have a long battery life or charges through the laptop connection, and has just simple gloves for hand tracking (no turning on or battery required for those). I believe one other limitation is the technology, current graphics look like they are from the PS2 era. As Apple has been always great at striking the balance between tech and user experience, I believe they have the most chance of nailing this correctly. We will have to wait and see what Apple unveils in June.