
Wrong and Right Reasons To Be Upset About Oculus – with Carmack response - julespitt
http://peterberkman.tumblr.com/post/80827337212/wrong-and-right-reasons-to-be-upset-about-oculus
======
baby
> I wasn't personally involved in any of the negotiations -- I spent an
> afternoon talking technology with Mark Zuckerberg, and the next week I find
> out that he bought Oculus.

He's a CTO and he finds it out like that? There's something I don't
understand.

~~~
mikegioia
Yea, I thought that was bizarre. It makes you wonder what Carmack _actually_
thinks of Facebook buying Oculus.

~~~
bane
He probably had a boat load of options or outright shares that just got closer
to being turned into Ferraris.

~~~
Crito
Or rockets, hopefully.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace)

~~~
someperson
[https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/450031715017179136](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/450031715017179136)

~~~
nitrogen
You might've noticed, but it looks like your second post with this same exact
link is dead. It seems HN has anti-duplicate code.

------
Pxl_Buzzard
> John Carmark: _The experience is too obviously powerful, and it makes
> converts on contact. The fairly rapid involvement of the Titans is
> inevitable, and the real questions were how deeply to partner, and with
> who._

Carmack is correct in saying the Titans will get involved, but I think many
people (including the post author) are disappointed that Oculus has forgone
becoming a Titan themselves. Committing to such a deep partnership at this
stage feels like a big misstep. Imagine where Facebook would be if they had
sold out to a company like Apple right before they allowed non-college kids to
use the service.

~~~
CamperBob2
Another point I haven't seen raised: when it comes to VR hardware and
software, anyone who doesn't get in bed with a Titan will end up mired in one
bullshit patent suit after another.

------
greendestiny
I feel like we've gone full retard about the potential of VR again. Facebook
has bought a promising headset technology, but we're a long way off people
living in a virtual world controlled by Facebook. While I fully expect
Facebook to data mine any hardware they control I'm not certain how it
corresponds with the nightmare vision here.

If anything Facebook buying Oculus so early is a good thing for people scared
of Facebook's impact on VR. I think there is a long and involved period of VR
being refined by hardcore gamers before it tentatively ventures into virtual
sports and virtual meetups et al. I just don't see the big gaming companies
wanting to do deals with Facebook - they hate Steam for its platform control
and its communication overlays - they'll be very wary of a Facebook chat
overlay finding its way into to Oculus driver v1.2. And I just don't think
Oculus as funded by Facebook is going to be living or dieing with gamers
feedback like they would as an independent company. I doubt they are going to
sacrifice enough to meet those demands and be reshaped by them.

~~~
gravitasaxe
The problem with buying them early is that Oculus could become the Microsoft
of the industry on PC. They could set precedents/biases we'll have to live
with for decades to come. For example there might be other headsets that rely
on Oculus API/SDK, etc. IDK we'll just have to wait and find out.

------
burntroots
Unless you've developed games for the facebook platform, it can be hard to
understand why so many devs reacted so negatively to the news. I've made
facebook games and decided not to spend money on the second dev kit, so maybe
I can shed some light as to why.

As a gaming platform, Facebook sucks. Pure and simple. The APIs we need to use
to make money change, sometimes on a daily basis. We get no notification when
these changes happen. We find out because our games suddenly stop working.
Facebook also has a history of trying to screw game developers over in an
attempt to get a bigger chunk of cash for themselves. Case in point, they
tried to mandate that everybody use Facebook Credits for in game currency. Not
only did facebook take 30% off the top (effectively slashing our existing
revenues by 30%), but we had to use their API to process transactions. Their
buggy, buggy API. That lasted for maybe 6 months? I'm not sure, I got out of
it just before the facebook credits thing went down.

Before everybody jumps on me about Facebook not necessarily locking Oculus
game devs into their platform, that doesn't matter. Facebook has a history of
treating game devs poorly and as a result I have absolutely no desire to deal
with the company again.

------
jhuckestein
In a second comment, John Carmack wrote this:

> _I 'm not a "privacy is gone, get over it" sort of person, and I fully
> support people that want remain unobserved, but that means disengaging from
> many opportunities. The idea that companies are supposed to interact with
> you and not pay attention has never seemed sane to me._

> _Being data driven is a GOOD thing for most companies to be. Everyone cheers
> the novel creative insight and bold leadership that leads to some successes,
> and tut tuts about companies ending up poorly by blindly following data, but
> cold analysis of the data is incredibly important, and I tend to think the
> world will be improved with more and better data analysis._

> _I have never felt harmed by data mining, and I rather like the
> recommendations that Amazon gives me on each visit. Educate me. What
> terrible outcome is expected from this? Be specific._

I find this slightly alarming. Apparently John Carmack was lucky enough not to
have been unfairly prosecuted and doesn't have any secrets that could cost him
for example his job.

But what happens if one day John Carmack's activities and opinions become
illegal? This has happened many times in history and there's no reason to
believe it won't happen again.

The scariest thing about data collection is not what is currently happening
with it, but what oppressive regimes could do with it. Imagine what if the
gestapo or the stasi had all the information at its disposal that Facebook
has? Or the NSA even?

~~~
VexXtreme
To me it just underscores that even a lot of smart people don't really think
about far reaching consequences of data mining. Sure, most people don't care
that [insert company here]'s algorithms are crawling your data and sending you
product ads based on that, but what about the NSA and their secret courts and
secret warrants forcing companies to hand over that data? Even if companies
don't comply, SIGINT agencies will just hack their systems and get their hands
on the data anyway.

And even if there is absolutely nothing incriminating about that data NOW,
there's no evidence that will stay the case forever.

I've just lost a massive amount of respect for Carmack. I actually thought
he'd have an intelligent opinion on subjects like this.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Perhaps you should offer up your intelligent opinion as a counter? There is no
risk in being thrown in jail because of data mining--NSA can directly observe
what you do. There is no reason to mine to deduce that you may be or become an
X sympathizer (where X is dangerous to the current power structure), they can
simply observe you communicating with known X's or viewing information in
support of X. Your concerns about data mining are misplaced and overblown.

There is simply nothing of interest to the government that can be learned
about you by mining that they can't learn through direct means already
deployed.

~~~
VexXtreme
I have already offered my opinion in the parent post but here goes again:

> There is no risk in being thrown in jail because of data mining

Not now. What about in 20 years when the concept of thoughtcrime finds its way
into the legal system? Some countries already/still (whichever you like)
already have that and people there routinely die because of accessing
"illegal" information online.

> There is simply nothing of interest to the government that can be learned
> about you by mining that they can't learn through direct means already
> deployed.

False. Let's imagine someone likes to play out their wildest fantasies in a VR
world using a device like Rift. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that
person has fantasies about gay unicorns. It just so happens that the state has
reverted to fundamentalist ways and such fantasies are now punishable by
death. With all this data mining in place, what prevents law enforcement
agencies from subpoenaing FB and tapping directly into that data feed and
making arrests based on that? I know it's a far fetched scenario, but the
principle applies to almost anything. Replace gay unicorns with whatever you
like. People have murdered other people over more inane things.

Also, if you haven't heard about law enforcement agencies doing parallel
construction based on tip offs from SIGINT programs, you should read up on
that.

> Your concerns about data mining are misplaced and overblown.

No, my concerns are well placed. Just because there is no abuse happening now
(and there likely is), doesn't mean there won't be any in the future - with
the data that's being mined as we speak. Better to be safe than sorry and stop
this nonsense dead in its tracks, don't you think?

And even if there was zero danger of getting harassed by the system based on
the information you consume online, I don't want anyone to know what I think
based purely on principle.

~~~
hackinthebochs
I don't disagree with your reasoning at all--I have made those same arguments
myself at various times. Where we disagree is on the meaning of data mining.
When I think of mining, I think of deducing facts that are not directly
present in the data. For example, imagine the government deducing your
attraction to gay unicorns by some tangentially related facts about you {likes
unicorns, watches teletubbies, is a brony} -> {attraction to gay unicorns}. My
argument is that such a thing is impossible. There is nothing of interest that
a government could learn about you through indirect means (mining
relationships out of disparate data), that they can't learn through direct
observation. That is, instead of having to deduce your attraction to gay
unicorns, they would simply observe it in the virtual world (leak regarding
monitoring of WoW). Under this understanding of data mining, worrying about
the government mining is misdirection--they will simply watch your avatar get
sodomized in real time.

------
codeflo
What's interesting to me, and we've seen this with WhatsApp only a few weeks
ago, is that being acquired by Facebook seems to _destroy_ the public image of
a product.

Positive public perception has value, and can (at least in theory) be measured
in dollars. In accounting terminology, it's part of what's usually called a
company's "goodwill".

If Facebook continues to so negatively effect the public's opinion of every
company it acquires, this means that Facebook might get a lot less out of
those acquisitions than they might have hoped.

~~~
whistlerbrk
Really? Is the public image of instagram 'destroyed'? You're in the tech
bubble. In the consumer world _no one_ cares as long products perform well and
cheaply.

~~~
avenger123
This is really it. We in our techno bubble care about these things. For normal
people, its basically a non-issue. Heck, I even forget that Facebook bought
Instagram unless I'm reminded of it here and there. This goes to Facebook''s
credit that they do seem to leave their acquisitions alone.

~~~
pfraze
Instagram and Whatsapp are really different than Oculus, though.

~~~
morgante
> Instagram and Whatsapp are really different than Oculus, though.

Indeed. They're much closer to FB's core product and hence that much more
tempting to meddle with.

------
Zaephyr
There seems to be a disconnect between the the way those in the SV startup
community see FaceBook and those outside do.

My view of Carmack is positive and I think he does want to understand the
FaceBook revulsion, but to quote Sinclair

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it"

~~~
pjscott
I don't think John Carmack, of all people, has to worry much about his salary.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
He does. He wants to fund Armadillo. He ran out of money to sink into it.

~~~
wavefunction
I have a feeling working on VR outweighs Armadillo for J Carmack. One is
achievable in short order and the other is more of a gamble and passion-play.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
I wasn't speculating, he actually said this. Armadillo is a bigger goal for
him, and it requires a lot of money.

------
hibikir
I'd expect that Facebook will do for Oculus as much as Zenimax did for id.

The best that could happen is that the Zuckster just sends bigger checks to
Oculus to expand operations, turning this purchase into more of a round of VC
funding than anything else.

The worst case scenario is that it's a purchase like we see in the business
world. How many products do better when the company that makes them is bought
by IBM or Oracle?

~~~
benihana
Facebook isn't IBM or Oracle. Instagram is still doing fine, it's kept its own
identity and I would never have known they were bought by facebook if it
wasn't such huge news. To me, on the surface, it's following the exact path
same as it was before the purchase, but it would be naive to think that
Facebook's infrastructure and experience with scalability has nothing to do
with the fact that instagram is always up and always works as its grown.

------
ipsin
I'm not really worried about Facebook "exerting control" in one way or
another, per se.

I hope Facebook doesn't kill Oculus as a product. If it goes to market, my
sole criteria for purchase will be "does it require a Facebook login, or a
connection to Facebook servers"?

I'm fine with hardware that also has a flagship Facebook Space, or whatever. I
can choose to avoid that. That's really what I'm hoping for, as it seems like
one of the most benign outcomes.

But if it's a fundamental part of the design is that Facebook has to
participate in every Oculus experience, well, no sale.

------
ghostunit
I feel a bit embarrassed to have to say the obvious but:

When you sell your company, you don’t own it any more

[http://pando.com/2014/03/26/a-reminder-to-founders-when-
you-...](http://pando.com/2014/03/26/a-reminder-to-founders-when-you-sell-
your-company-you-dont-own-it-any-more/)

------
netcan
One almost off topic reason is that it seems like today an innovative and
successful tech company will face irresistible acquisition offers from one of
the "titans." When the offer make the founder a billionaire it will be rare
that they are rejected. If they are, I bigger offer will soon follow. Everyone
has a price and these cashed up companies have deeper pockets than any company
has ever had. The near inevitability of this acquisition (hinted at by
Carmack) is IMO the significant element.

In this environment, Google could have gotten near their IPO value years
earlier from an acquiring company. Current crop of titans would have been
owned by the previous crop and we would be poorer as a whole.

When acquisition offers outpace revenue to this degree it seems almost
impossible for a company to stay independent.

------
cm127
> "Honestly, I wasn't expecting Facebook (or this soon). I have zero personal
> background with them, and I could think of other companies that would have
> more obvious synergies."

This is the heart of the controversy. Facebook could have easily written an
application / demo to integrate with Facebook, but instead they bought the
whole company.

~~~
mentos
This stood out to me too. What hardware has Facebook brought to market? I
don't recall anything specific.

What companies might have offered more obvious synergies? Google, Amazon,
Apple who have shipped successful hardware?

------
Arjuna
Carmack had this to say earlier, in a 3-part Tweet:

 _" Everyone has had some time to digest the FB deal now. I think it is going
to be positive, but clearly many disagree. Much of the ranting has been
emotional or tribal, but I am interested in reading coherent viewpoints about
objective outcomes. What are the hazards? What should be done to guard against
them? What are the tests for failure? Blog and I'll read."_

Also, this:

 _" I would expect Facebook to not exert any overt control over Oculus unless
Oculus fumbles badly a few times, at which point they SHOULD."_

~~~~

My personal take: At the end of the day, it takes more than vision and hard
work to drive a dream into existence... it takes _investment_. It takes
_capital_. This is what the deal brings to the table.

Not only that, as you probably know by now, Michael Abrash has joined the
team. I mean, read Michael's blog and note all of the technical challenges and
issues with implementing VR. Read Carmack's technical writings on latency
issues. There are a lot of problems to solve, on top of building and
delivering a solid, commercial-quality hardware and software experience. For
example, there is tracking head position and orientation, rendering without
shearing and judder, latency issues, etc... everything must be perfect in
order to deliver the perfect experience.

Facebook brings the needed investment, plus the scaling infrastructure
experience to the table. John has said, _" I have a deep respect for the
technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at
this scale."_

I have a lot of confidence in Oculus VR and their extremely capable team.
These good people are experienced and they know the technical and business
challenges that are ahead. This is why the acquisition occurred.

The passion is still there. I mean, watch this video again [1]. John hasn't
changed. After the acquisition, he said, _" For the record, I am coding right
now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several
embarrassing scaling crisis for VR."_

And with Michael coming on board, it's a veritable VR Dream Team with the
already talent-heavy team of Palmer Luckey, Tom Forsyth [2], Atman Binstock
[3], et al.

As Michael said, _" That worry is now gone. Facebook's acquisition of Oculus
means that VR is going to happen in all its glory."_

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYa8kirsUfg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYa8kirsUfg)

[2] [http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/category/tom-
forsyth](http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/category/tom-forsyth)

[3] [http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/welcome-atman-binstock-chief-
ar...](http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/welcome-atman-binstock-chief-architect)

~~~
noonespecial
Its all sunshine and roses until "the meeting" in which Carmack says _" I've
started this awesome feature that I feel defines the future of the product
and..."_ a hand goes up and a suit says _" that really doesn't fit with 'our
vision' for where we want Oculus to go"_. Game Over.

~~~
grannyg00se
I find that very difficult to imagine. JC isn't some mid level manager with a
pet project in mind. He's one of the founding technical leads in the company
FB just acquired. He has high political capital as well as personal financial
independence. A close minded brush off like that would be likely to get that
suit fired.

~~~
forgottenpass
It'd be easy to believe that, because it is reassuring in a way that calms
anxieties about the future of Oculus.

But you only have to look back to Doom 3 to see the cracks in that idea. Many
design decisions of that game were unpopular when it was released, and over
the following years it came out that those decisions were driven by technical
aspects of the engine. Where rather than the engine sacrificing for the
design, design sacrificed for the engine.

So it'd be easy to make the less immediately appealing argument that they
should push back on Carmack's vision when they think it's gone off the rails.

~~~
dvogel
links? As I remember it, most of the issues were around the fixed frame rates
that were an attempt to unify PC development with console development. Perhaps
I am confusing Doom 3 for another game though.

~~~
forgottenpass
The poster child is the flashlight, sounds stupid now but I remember how much
shit it stirred back then. The rest I don't remember off the top of my head,
and don't feel like scrubbing through days and days of Bombcast to find.

"Carmack has also admitted that the flashlight was not attached to the weapons
in the original version of Doom 3 due to performance issues" ...
[http://www.dsogaming.com/news/john-carmack-speaks-30fps-
on-c...](http://www.dsogaming.com/news/john-carmack-speaks-30fps-on-
consoles-60fps-on-the-pc-doom-3-levels-more-taxing-than-rage/)

------
FD3SA
Cross posting my comment from the original article:

\----

Hi John, huge fan of all your work.

I think the biggest issue with the FB acquisition is over one variable:
control. The Oculus team has, by definition, relinquished control of their
platform to FB. This is not a decision to be brushed aside, as it has some
very severe consequences.

Let's for example, consider Oculus' partnership with developers. Prior to the
FB deal, Oculus had a direct relationship with developers and would work in
tandem with them to guarantee the best user experience. Now, there is a
massive Facebook middleman, with all of the decision making power, wedged
between Oculus and developers. This is the real reason why Notch and many
others have abandoned the platform.

Oculus can give us their word, swear an oath, and cross their hearts. But
their destiny is no longer in Palmer's, your's or Michael's hands. It's in
Mark Zuckerberg's. And if there is, at any point, any sort of disagreement
over the smallest issue, there will be no debate because the Oculus team are
now nothing more than employees, and will have to put up or shut up when it
comes to crucial decisions.

Of course, as long as there are no problems, and everything is rosy then all
is well. But the second rough seas are encountered and tough decisions need to
be made, I fear that the Oculus team will understand that they've made a
serious mistake by relinquishing control of their destiny to Facebook.

If the Oculus team was short on cash, I'm sure there would have been a great
many investors willing to pour additional money into the venture at very
generous valuations. This is because Oculus was a darling of the industry,
with legends such as yourself on board. The developer community knew that you
would not compromise on the experience, and because you answered to no one but
the Oculus team and your investors, you were free to make the Oculus
experience the best it could possibly be.

Personally, I have watched many interviews with yourself describing the
challenges of the Oculus and how you are working on overcoming them. I was
sold based on your vision, determination, and most importantly, the freedom
and control to deliver the best experience possible. I cannot help but feel
that the FB deal has put a sword of Damocles over your heads, as the technical
leads will always be the first to have to accept defeat when faced with
executive meddling on critical decisions.

I would point to Elon Musk, and how he has maintained control of Tesla and
SpaceX, not because it was the correct financial decision, but because as a
product company he would have been doomed if non-technical executives began
vetoing his critical design decisions. Sadly, this latter scenario is the one
I believe Oculus has put itself in. I truly hope you can weather these storms
as they arise, but history and experience tell me it will be extremely
difficult.

Forever a fan,

FD3SA

~~~
dmoy
I don't know John Carmack's financial background, so what I'm about to say
might be totally wrong.

Your comparison to Elon Musk is kind of odd. Elon Musk's first company sold to
a larger company for a giant pile of money. Actually even his second company
sold for a giant pile of money. It appears (at least from my perspective) that
only after he sold two companies for billions of dollars did he follow the
route we see with Tesla & SpaceX of not selling.

~~~
FD3SA
And where are those products today? Elon Musk has openly said that PayPal has
become a disappointment since he sold it.

Relinquishing control of design decisions for a product company is suicide.
Product companies make things whose functions are the selling point. Tesla,
SpaceX and Oculus all fall into this category.

~~~
dmoy
Ah yes, sorry. I should have been a bit more verbose in my response.

I totally agree with you about the long term health of the product/company
itself. I have no doubt that they could have raised capital by other means,
and continued to do cool things for VR.

What I don't agree with is the comparison to Elon Musk, because Elon Musk
already sold companies for billions of dollars. When someone offers billions
of dollars, that changes things for a lot of people. Elon Musk did exactly
what Oculus is doing right now. He sold, because that's a hell of a lot of
money. In some respects, it has allowed him to do whatever the hell he damn
well pleases, to great effect (launching space rockets and making incredible
cars).

So I understand why the fan base of VR & Oculus is upset, but I cannot at all
fault them for selling, because giant piles of money, holy crap.

~~~
jamesisaac
From what I gather, Musk had aspirations to make advancements in renewable
energy and space travel from has early as his time in college, but obviously
those industries have rather large barriers to entry. So I believe Zip2 and
Paypal were acting as stepping stones so he could build up capital/experience
before he could move onto his true passion.

Virtual reality has a low enough barrier to entry that the kickstarter and
existing investments had already solved that problem. And as far as I'm aware,
VR are some of the highest aspirations held by the Oculus team, take this
recent quote from Palmer Luckey for example:

> "I’m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night
> dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined
> we’d come so far so fast."

So I personally see the comparison with SpaceX/Tesla as a fairer comparison
than Musk's first two businesses.

------
cwp
I have to agree with Carmack here. Companies, governments or individuals
having lots of data isn't a bad thing in its self. It's what they _do_ with
that data that matters, and what they do can be positive as well as negative.

This is not to say that we should blindly trust data-holders to behave
responsibly. We should watch them very closely! The recent kerfuffle about
Microsoft reading a blogger's mail is a good example: MS took an action many
people felt was wrong, it got widely publicized, and MS decided they weren't
going to do it again, and made a policy change to codify that decision. What
was a grey area became a bright line that they've vowed not to cross.

The existence of big data is new, and our civilization hasn't figured out how
to deal with it yet. I'm confident that we _will_ figure it out, and the good
that comes from it will be much greater than the evil.

~~~
pfraze
> It's what they do with that data that matters

Not technically wrong, but it's a bad show to introduce that risk. I say this
a lot, but - IT ethics is like medical ethics: you're obligated to protect
your clients with expertise regarding things they don't understand. Personal
information needs to have strong guarantees of segmentation and authority
controls. That's not an open question; it used to be called "good system
administration."

There's no middle ground on this. Either you're doing your job as an IT
professional, or you're exposing users to risk from data-sale, breach
exposure, or government overreach.

~~~
cwp
So it's our duty as IT professionals to prevent people from using IT?

The services that large-scale IT provides could not exist without gathering
the volume of data they do. Google couldn't provide relevant search results
with just an index of the web, it also relies on vast amounts of data about
user behaviour. The same is true of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

It's non-sensical to talk about risk without talking about the actual
scenarios you're worried about. How bad are they? How probable are they? What
can we do to reduce the harm and/or likelihood of harm? How much, if at all,
will those measures reduce the benefits of the services based on big data?
That's the discussion we should be having. Most of the "concern" about big
data boils down to an appeal to emotion: "Just think what they could do with
all that information!"

~~~
pfraze
> So it's our duty as IT professionals to prevent people from using IT?

Yes, within reason. I advise people not to use Facebook, and I spend a fair
amount of working hours on alternatives to Google's app infrastructure. For
the grayer areas like improving search, you deal with complicated questions
and push the industry to innovate on effective distributed designs. You're
making a big assumption saying that collecting a centralized database on users
is the only way make good search results. It's certainly one of the _easiest_
ways...

> It's non-sensical to talk about risk without talking about the actual
> scenarios you're worried about. How bad are they? How probable are they?

If you don't have personal control over your information, detailed knowledge
of how the information is used, or the ability to revoke access, you basically
have to assume the probability is 100%. There's barely any legal framework in
place on the issue, and so we're left with social pressure and business
ethics.

Can you really not guess at a negative outcome for personal information
collection and passive surveillance?

~~~
cwp
Can you really not specify the negative outcomes you're trying to prevent?
You're accusing me (and most of the members of this forum) of a moral failing,
an abrogation of our responsibility to the world. That's a serious accusation,
and I'm taking it seriously.

If you're right, then I should go into the next room and tell my wife not to
post any more pictures of our daughter to Facebook. I should tell my mother
that she won't be seeing any more pictures of her grand-daughter, and we're
going to have to stop having video chats on Skype. Of course, if I do that,
they're going to want to know why. What should I tell them? It better be good,
because if not, they'll think I'm just being a jerk, and they'll be right.

I agree with you that Facebook has data that could be used in undesirable
ways. But it's already being used, right now, on a massive scale, in ways that
are clearly and demonstrably desirable. I think the best way to live up to our
responsibility is to do two things:

    
    
      • clearly enumerate the scenarios we want to avoid, the reasons why, and advocate for public and private policies that prevent them
      • be on the lookout for unintended consequences and negative effects that we didn't anticipate, so that we can prevent them from occurring on a large scale

~~~
pfraze
Ok, that's fair. Here's a list of things that worry me, specifically related
to Facebook, but they can apply in other cases.

\- Private messages. These can be really dangerous for personal relationships
and community standing if leaked.

\- Profiling data: friendship graphs, location pings, browsing history,
political alignment, sexuality, religion. Can be used to make targeted attacks
on individuals by predicting their behaviors; to track an individual's
influence in communities; to create credible misinformation about the target
or their community; to make strategic decisions that will minimize a
person's/community's influence in the outcome (for instance, politically).

\- Images. Can be used with automated systems to deanonymize crowds and thus
passively surveil.

The issue isn't so much zero-sum. I'm not worried about a sudden crackdown on
citizens that's orchestrated through this data, because there are other more
relevant safeguards (like cultural health and the functioning political
process). I'm more worried about the value of the information as intelligence
in political strategy.

Anthony Weiner's embarrassing blow-up is a good extreme example - not that he
was targeted (it appeared to have been self-inflicted) but it shows what
embarrassing information can do to a politician. Facebook has that in spades,
and I'm certain there will be politicians looking to buy.

The more subtle applications are more troubling. Applied well, the dataset
could be queried for potential or active dissidents and used to discredit
them. It wouldn't be hard, either. Make an anonymous tip to someone's SO that
they cheated once, perhaps - if their marriage blows up publicly, that's a
success. Think of a pastor or a CEO, in that case.

This sort of thing doesn't happen yet (I hope) but information "wants to be
free," which is why you can't let it out once. As I suggested before, there's
system breaches, unethical sale of data (perhaps even by employees) government
mandates. It's not like any of it is unheard of even before the big data era.
And even if most citizens are not a target, by complying with the arrangement,
we endanger the people who could protect us by dissenting. The health of our
cultures and our republics relies on distributed pockets of inalienable
authority - in this case, over private information.

Should you stop using Facebook? I don't know, it's all about trade-offs. I do
my best, but I've still got a gmail account and a linode setup, the former
because I'm more worried about system breaches with my email, the latter
because I can't afford dedicated hosting. I don't like either situation. You
can call me a bit hypocritical for that too, but the situation is partially
social, so I advocate for change as hard as I can.

Lately I've been thinking the best strategy possible would be to call for
Facebook to release self-hosting software that's still compatible with their
network. But there's also the possibility of somebody creating a really
superior alternative, and that would be nice too. That's what I work on, but
it's really hard to beat the featureset.

------
bsaul
A very simple reason is the difference in business model between an hardware
company, and a ad-based web site. Everyone doubts a single company can sustain
the two in parallel. Occulus original vision is to focus on the hardware, sell
it with a margin and keep improving at it ( and the software on top). And have
an ecosystem of service providers using your device. Much like Apple.

Facebook wants to create free services that gets as much information from
their user as possible, and create new features ( or buy concurrents) only
when they see them slip away.

It's pretty easy to predict where the two won't match.

------
RobotCaleb
I don't use this platform. Where is the response from Carmack?

~~~
jeroen
[http://peterberkman.tumblr.com/post/80827337212/wrong-and-
ri...](http://peterberkman.tumblr.com/post/80827337212/wrong-and-right-
reasons-to-be-upset-about-oculus#comment-1310233365)

~~~
njloof
Still not seeing a comment from Carmack. Can someone cut&paste?

~~~
sehr
_I share some of your misgivings about companies "existing and operating only
to be acquired". I am a true believer in market economies, and the magic of
trade being a positive sum game is most obvious with repeated transactions at
a consumer level. Company acquisitions, while still (usually) being a trade
between willing parties that in theory leaves both better off, have much more
of an element of speculation rather than objective assessment of value, and it
definitely feels different.

There is a case to be made for being like Valve, and trying to build a new VR
ecosystem like Steam from the ground up. This is probably what most of the
passionate fans wanted to see. The difference is that, for years, the industry
thought Valve was nuts, and they had the field to themselves. Valve deserves
all their success for having the vision and perseverance to see it through to
the current state.

VR won't be like that. The experience is too obviously powerful, and it makes
converts on contact. The fairly rapid involvement of the Titans is inevitable,
and the real questions were how deeply to partner, and with who.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting Facebook (or this soon). I have zero personal
background with them, and I could think of other companies that would have
more obvious synergies. However, I do have reasons to believe that they get
the Big Picture as I see it, and will be a powerful force towards making it
happen. You don't make a commitment like they just did on a whim.

I wasn't personally involved in any of the negotiations -- I spent an
afternoon talking technology with Mark Zuckerberg, and the next week I find
out that he bought Oculus._

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 _I did skip the data mining issue, mostly because I just can 't get very
worked up about it.

I'm not a "privacy is gone, get over it" sort of person, and I fully support
people that want remain unobserved, but that means disengaging from many
opportunities. The idea that companies are supposed to interact with you and
not pay attention has never seemed sane to me.

Being data driven is a GOOD thing for most companies to be. Everyone cheers
the novel creative insight and bold leadership that leads to some successes,
and tut tuts about companies ending up poorly by blindly following data, but
cold analysis of the data is incredibly important, and I tend to think the
world will be improved with more and better data analysis.

I have never felt harmed by data mining, and I rather like the recommendations
that Amazon gives me on each visit. Educate me. What terrible outcome is
expected from this? Be specific._

------
shazow
My biggest worry is the destructive effect the acquisition had on the
community. Many developers feel that their expectations were betrayed.

And of course, the unnoticeably slow corruption through bureaucracy and
politics which inevitably seeps in as acquisitions get merged into the greater
fold.

This thread prompted me to write more about this, so I wrote a letter to
Carmack (no response yet, though):
[https://medium.com/p/f8589a747d11](https://medium.com/p/f8589a747d11)

------
pron
_Facebook is smarter than to include ads directly. There is more value to them
in having a happy, captive audience._

Don't know about you, but that sounds sinister to me...

------
snarfy
I recently bought a mechanical keyboard (razer). It has programmable macro
keys, but in order to install the driver I have to create an account on the
manufacturer's site and log in before the installer will continue. It's
complete crap and I will never buy anything from that manufacturer again.

Am I going to have to log in to facebook to use the occulus headset or install
the software? Probably.

~~~
scott_karana
> Am I going to have to log in to facebook to use the occulus headset or
> install the software? Probably.

That's not true about WhatsApp or Instagram. Nothing suggest it'll be the same
with Oculus.

The only company to blame for your poor experience is _Razer_.

~~~
snarfy
I mentioned the story about Razer to give an example of shitty things
companies do to leverage a user base.

G+ and YouTube. Microsoft and Skype. Anything Apple.

Even without a suggestion that this might happen with Facebook and Oculus, it
happens all over the industry. There might not be a suggestion of it, but
there is definitely a fear of it.

------
DonGateley
Cross posted from the blog:

The only thing that I really don't like about the acquisition is that it is
certain to delay the consumer product by some significant time. The shot that
Sony fired over their bow (almost into their ship) made them fully understand
that their time was up. Their planned time frame wouldn't work in competition
with Sony because their pockets weren't deep enough to technologically one-up
Sony. To come out with something at best on par but further down the road than
Sony would sink them like a stone.

Now those pockets are deep enough and there will be substantial delay as they
order the development of new tech and cost reduction engineering to create
something truly competitive. This is not speculative, they have stated that
they are going to do that but without mention of the time it will take.

This may be good in the long run but I think the run-up to their product has
been far, far too long already. What this all means is I want one, I want it
now and it just got further away, perhaps much further.

------
panzi
Well, I guess would only use the Rift if there are open source Linux drivers
in the mainline kernel. I guess such drivers would only land in mainline if
they are technologically and morally ok (then the driver is really just a 3D
display driver and has no usage data collection function etc.).

How likely is that to happen?

------
ancarda
> there will be a plethora of information to mine along with the ability and
> intent to do it. It is infinitely easier to mine data in a completely
> simulated reality - Facebook will know where you’re looking, what you’re
> doing, and how long you do it.

Free software is the solution. I've never been that interested in Oculus so
I'm not aware if the device is flashable or how much control a developer has
when writing software for it.

------
pasbesoin
If Facebook treats it as they've treated some of their hardware work and
initiatives, we may find we can live with it.

If they treat it as they've treated their "platform", we are likely to have
problems.

Which way will it go? Nobody knows...

I think most of us feel that the technology itself needs to be "open" and
platform agnostic. We've just observed a major change that places this in
question. Concern is justified.

------
mcphilip
The FB acquisition seems to imply that the deeply talented Oculus team will
help pioneer VR as a new mechanism for social interactions online. Call me a
simpleton, but I'm more interested in Carmack et al revolutionizing gaming.
Maybe that will still happen, but this acquisition makes me less interested in
VR, for the time being.

~~~
nitrogen
In the long run, gaming will probably be a small but awesome percentage of the
total VR industry.

------
Gracana
Hey, with the Facebook acquisition it's even more sci-fi than ever. What's
more cyberpunk than amazing virtual reality technology that's owned and
controlled by a corporation with more money than some countries, whose purpose
is to gather information about every aspect of its users lives in order to
sell them junk?

------
jgon
We all bring our own perspectives and experience to our day to day lives and
our perspectives, and so I make no bones here about the following being the
fruits of my own perspective. Please keep that in mind as you read the
following and judge its content.

I myself have recently undergone the acquisition of my company, a private
company that was well regarded in the field it was operated, by a large multi-
billion mult-national. When I read Carmack's comments I feel pulled in two
different directions.

On the one hand, I am old enough to have grown up with Castle Wolfenstein and
Doom being formative experiences in my life on the computer, and my life in
general. I can still remember downloading to the first Quake shareware,
playing the original Team Fortress, and installing Navy Seals Quake long
before its creator had moved onto Counter-Strike. And so Carmack is like a
hero to me, he really did make an impact on my life growing up.

On the other hand, I see in all of his comments the same sort of sentiment
that I saw in all of the upper management and senior members of my firm. They
all expressed the exact same sorts of sentiments, that the acquisition would
allow our company to reach the next level, giving us greater capital to expand
our reach. Of course, now that push has come to shove, actually getting some
of that money to spend is proving to be a bit more difficult than they had
initially imagined or been promised. It turns out that our parent company was
perfectly happy to acquire us for the market position that we help and the
money that we could bring in without a substantial capital infusion. I know
that the immediate argument will be that facebook will be totally different
and will no doubt fund oculus to their heart's content, but I guess it is my
cynicism showing when I hear these pronouncements through the same filter I
now apply to announcements from our own parent company.

Anyway, as I said, we all view our lives through our own filter, and maybe I
am totally swayed in my views. But I can't help but seeing the same sort of
naive optimism in Carmack that permeated our organization before it came down
to dollars and cents, and cheques had to be signed. And maybe, just like some
in our senior management, Carmack is now older and less idealistic, and
reflects this is the same way that some in my firm did, in their ability to
say one thing publicly, and know something else in their heart, as long as the
zeroes added up properly. Something funny happens as you get older, I feel it
happening in myself, maybe you just don't feel as ready to go out on your
shield. But I got the feeling from at least a few people in our acquisition
that they knew how things would go, and were happy to say differently because
it would work out better for them.

I don't know where John's head is, and so I can't charitably assume negative
things, but then again I don't think assuming the best is any more honest or
charitable, especially where facebook is concerned. I hope for the future of
VR, but when I read the hopelessly positive and/or naive visions of this
acquisition I can't help but asking myself "What do they know that I don't?"
How can these people be that optimistic, unless they aren't actually that
positive. We'll see how it goes, but I don't begrudge anyone feeling
pessimistic at this point, especially given the history of tech acquisitions.
We'll see how it goes, but in my heart of hearts, I hope for another Oculus
and another Palmer, maybe slightly less focused on the bottom line, bringing
the promise of VR to us all.

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
I agree with your analysis.

In my opinion, everything that facebook says is true, today, but could be
different tomorrow.

Like a marriage, when you are young and life is good is very different from
when you get older, and life gets tough.

Today facebook is incredible rich because they convinced millions of people to
buy shares of the company. They promised a good return from their investment.

Being rich they could buy Whassapp, Instagram and respect them like in when
you are in love everything is seen with rose colored glasses.

Now, when investors get nervous because facebook profit does not grow enough,
their market sinks, the Federal Reserve stops pumping the stock market, or the
good people inside starts cashing out their money and leaving.... then
suddenly life becomes different.

------
briantakita
The vision of Free Software & Hardware is now more relevant than ever.

------
MisterBastahrd
On the one hand, I don't see how Oculus could have survived competing in the
consumer market against the likes of Sony and (eventually) Microsoft without
large-scale financial backing. On the other hand, Facebook is not a consumer
product company, and Oculus has never successfully brought a tangible consumer
product to market. I'm not convinced at this point that money is enough to
make them successful, but it'll be interesting.

------
igl
Pay back all kickstarter contributions. Let carmack build a rocket and admit
beeing puny sellouts. Facebook has a record of running a php app and bad
policy making. If this isn't about money then it's about carmack thinking
Zuckerberg has a sweet ass. Orrrr Facebook was the only place that allowed
carmack to open source all things.. Dream on.

------
soccergee
My only gripe with the sale to Facebook is that it was originally funded by
contributions on Kickstarter, and those "funders" will get nothing in return.
I just don't see gamers and developers supporting Facebook as much as they
supported Oculus... which makes it seem like they did something sleazy by
selling to FB.

~~~
maqr
I backed them on kickstarter and got my dev kit as a result. I'm really
unhappy about FB being the first to bring VR to the masses, but it doesn't
have anything to do with kickstarter.

------
gm
There's a right reason to be upset about something one does not control?

The buyout is not good or bad, it just is. Don't get upset people, you
couldn't prevent it before and you cannot undo it now.

~~~
sgarman
This is not entirely true. In a market like ours we often can vote with our
wallet. There is not an obvious product here that we can or can't buy or use
but I would not say that we are powerless.

~~~
gm
Key word was "upset".

Vote with your wallet, that's fine. My point is that it's stupid to place your
emotional state on something you do not control.

