Palmer Luckey, the original creator had this to say over on /r/oculus:
I am already getting heat from users and media outlets who say this policy change proves I was lying when I consistently said this wouldn't happen, or at least that it was a guarantee I wasn't in a position to make. I want to make clear that those promises were approved by Facebook in that moment and on an ongoing basis, and I really believed it would continue to be the case for a variety of reasons. In hindsight, the downvotes from people with more real-world experience than me were definitely justified.
A few examples below so people won't make up their own version of what I actually said:
- I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift.
- You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift
- Nope. That would be lame.
- I promise.
Exhibit n + 1 on why when you're acquired you're not in a position to promise anything to anyone despite any assurances from the acquirer. Or, from the consumer's side, why those promises should carry no weight.
As a CEO of a company that is being sold you can not make any binding statements about the future of the company you will no longer own. This is really management 101 and Palmer Luckey does not strike me as an absolute beginner here, he knew how to get funded, how to execute and had a ton of people telling him this would happen. Of course he and FB had a pretty strong incentive to ensure that there wouldn't be an immediate break-off risk to the acquisition, and of course there was plenty of evidence from other acquisitions that this is how the world works.
I'd like to believe him, but it is pretty hard to do so given the historic record of acquisitions to date.
For me the heuristic is simple: I won't believe a word a CEO that is selling his company says about what will happen post deal. They are no longer in control and should know better.
Most of the folks on this thread are commenting from the perspective of 2020, but Facebook had pretty significantly different reputation in 2014, especially around M&A. They had recently brought in both Instagram and WhatsApp without meddling in either their product stacks or their leadership teams. It's easy to claim now that this was all naive, but at the time it was plausible that these organizations and brands would remain fairly independent and autonomous within the Facebook umbrella.
Hopefully Palmer Luckey has more foresight into how technology can be used in unintended ways now that he is building autonomous defense and surveillance system at Anduril Industries.
Palmer is a first class jerk and other things I would maybe get banned for saying, but this is as good and honest an apology as I think he can give. Things change, and it has been many years since he said this.
Practically every corporate acquisition in the history of ever goes something like: day 1: "Nothing will change." Six months later: "All you knew is gone."
Just make a fake FB account exclusively for this purpose. If you're forced to use a FB account at least don't link it to your actual profile. I have a separate fake FB account for every service that requires FB.
Facebook has historically be truly crappy in this regards. The Instagram founders had a similar story, but rather than publish a half-apology, they left the company (walking away from quite a bit of money in the process.
It's gotta be hard to be a founder in a situation like this.
What are we looking for from CEOs? I feel like, if a CEO had made such flatly incorrect promises about something with direct financial implications (sales, costs, the industry in general) they would be seen as failing at their job. Luckey seems comfortable simply pointing out that he didn't make the mistake people have accused him of. It's enough to say he made another (perhaps lesser) mistake. There's nothing in the statement that reckons with his previous understanding of FB or Occulus and what else he might have gotten wrong. It feels disappointing to me.
also interesting from that reddit thread were these comments:
> I'm mostly surprised that they haven't done this with Whatsapp or Instagram thus far, but they are doing it for Oculus accounts.
> > As of a few days ago, they're starting the process of moving Instagram DMs to Messenger, requiring a FB account. So, they are.
> > > The people I know in product at Facebook are certain it is an inevitability for their entire portfolio. That's second-party hearsay, so take it as you will, but it's my operating understanding that is their long term (multi-year) goal.
These promises are made from acquirers to acquirees so that they can save face, and tell everyone that they received these promises so that they have a rebuttal to accusations of being a "sell-out."
They aren't done with a wink and a nudge, but everyone knows that they're bullshit, it lets the entrepreneur maintain his public image while letting the carnivore devour its meal in due course.
He absolutely knew that this was a very real possibility and made the statements anyways to save face at the time. He was probably hoping no one would care when it eventually happened.
I would argue that he was and still is lying. He had the power to make good on his promise in the form of contractual terms during the sale, but didn't.
A lot of people forget just how young Palmer Lucky is.
I absolutely believe his post here. He was young and naive and believed the lies from the Facebook executives. Completely understandable and I hope this doesn't make people think he's a liar.
Don't people realize they're complaining at a billionare and have basically no leverage at all? This backlash should have come BEFORE Palmer got PAID, not YEARS LATER. I don't think Palmer even goes on reddit anymore.
To the extent that Facebook made those promises to someone authorized to disseminate them, I wonder if they've opened themselves up to refund claims well beyond original purchase dates.
If anyone purchased the device relying upon Palmer Luckey's promises, that could be promissory estoppel.
These same type of statements were made by the whatsapp founders regarding ads on whatsapp(they said they will never happen etc.)[1]
All that went out the window once the company was bought for 19B, sure both founders left a few years later, but their statements were false after the sale.
That kind of promise from Facebook should be enforceable on court.
If it is not it's only because the current government judicial system is so full of spam-cases and it is so inefficient that it doesn't have room for these things.
Yeah like when the promised not to use any WhatsApp data. And here we are, I give it 1 year before we see commercials and deep integration with FB messenger. Who believes anything they say anymore?
This is something that still completely baffles me about the "IoT"/"smart devices"/"connected devices"/"whatever you want to call it" space.
If someone advertised a device as capable of doing X without it in fact being able to do X, they'd be liable for false advertising.
If someone sold you a device, then took it back or destroyed it, they'd be liable for theft or destruction of property.
Nevertheless, if someone sells you a connected device and then completely alters the rules by which the device operates at an arbitrary point in time after the sell, that's perfectly fine.
Have we really given up basic consumer rights that easily?
> Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future.
> If you choose not to log into Facebook on Oculus, we won’t share data with Facebook to allow third parties to target advertisements to you based on your use of the Oculus Platform.
- (2020): Facebook accounts are now required.
None of this is particularly surprising, lots of people (even in the press) were calling out how this was going to evolve. But it's still interesting to look back 6 years and see what the initial reactions were and what people were most concerned about.
The takeaways:
- data silos are always temporary
- companies think on a larger timeline than just 2 years in advance
- this kind of thing nearly always gets executed as a slow boil. Facebook didn't buy Oculus and immediately require an account and start advertising to users. But I don't believe for one second that Mark wasn't thinking it at the time.
Well this is horrifying. I bought a Quest for a relative. He loves it, but he doesn't have a Facebook account, and has no interest in signing up. I have a Facebook account, but I don't use it, and I certainly don't want to connect my Oculus account. I guess we'll both have to sell our Quests. That means we'll lose all of our game purchases.
I came to Oculus with eyes wide open knowing it was a Facebook company, but this news still sucks.
What happens if you were banned from Facebook (for example political censorship or other possible reasons I can't think of off the top of my head)? Is your Oculus device bricked and useless? I'm a fan of Oculus, but this is a bit of a turn off. But I guess if Apple makes their own VR headset, they probably require an Apple account but Apple isn't really a social network so feel less of a risk, same for Microsoft's Mixed Reality headsets too I'd imagine.
Then your purchases and stuff are lost too, I guess as WebXR matures though maybe there will be some great apps you can just pay directly for on the web, but I feel like if rumors of Apple making a headset they'll just skip WebXR and force the app store... I know other headsets including the Oculus supports WebXR but sorta feels like it's a conflict of interest to their own stores to me so wonder how much more advanced it'll get.
This was the reason I bought an HTC Vive instead of a Rift; I never trusted that this would hold. I recently considered buying a Quest. I won't ever consider that again.
Don't support Facebook ever, they don't deserve it.
Incidentally here is a comment I made recently about the bullshit they pulled on my wife and I relating to creating a business listing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23959088
> Giving people a single way to log into Oculus — using their Facebook account and password — will make it easier to find, connect, and play with friends in VR.
Ugh. I guess Facebook is making a play to become the Steam/XBox Live of VR. Why can't we just have gaming peripherals anymore without some kind of platform tie-in?
So if I don't have a Facebook account and I buy an Oculus Quest after October, does this mean I may have to submit a copy of my driver's license just to set up a piece of consumer electronics?
Genuinely think VR would be dead by now and considered a flash in the pan fad if it wasn't for the software and hardware Oculus has done. Valve and HTC just really didn't invest the time and money seriously in the platform and think HL:Alyx only shipped because Oculus dragged the format forward and showed the potential.
Just don't get why they're doing this at this point, I'd understand if they had iPhone level sales but although the Quest is selling great it's not there yet and it seems a misstep to push everyone into FB from it so soon lots of people will be turned off by the idea. Forcing the tens of thousand Oculus holdouts and saving a handful of engineering salaries surely can 't be worth the bad press and harm to the growing platform
Hope the 4 people who bought Quests after playing mine don’t whinge to me about this.
Quelle surprise, a big tech company making a big tech company move to drive users into their embattled flagship.
I take this as a negative indicator of how things are going for Facebook. I don’t see any synergy with oculus other than that both products have users. Maybe that is enough from a business standpoint, but I feel forcing login to Facebook is going to kill oculus adoption, it isn’t like 6 years ago, there are viable alternatives if you want a VR rig. It just looks and feels desperate to me.
I recently gave a seminar about how to use Oculus devices in combination with Unity at university. Oculus produces great devices, but man is the software a convoluted nightmare.
A (very patient) student of mine tried to install the oculsu software on a current thinkpad for 4 days in a row. It always failed for various reasons. She used a current Windows 10 and her computer definitly has the specs. She even reinstalled windows. In the end there was an electron error, which we sent to the support - we never got a reply.
A lot of justified outrage here but I would make a separate point: I think Facebook has made a terrible decision here in terms of their platform play. They legitimately had a chance here to own the future of not just consumer but business computing. The apps now coming on the scene for virtual workspaces still have limitations but it is utterly clear to me that this will become a major mode of work and collaboration in the business world at some point in the future. But requiring facebook logins just threw a huge hurdle in front of that. There is no way I am going to suggest our workplace purchase these and then have everybody logging in with personal facebook accounts. And I can't imagine workplaces mandating people have or use facebook accounts.
I guess we will wait to see what Apple and Microsoft now do in the space since Facebook and Google both seem to have (inexplicably) bowed out of the race.
> Using a VR profile that is backed by a Facebook account and authentic identity helps us protect our community and makes it possible to offer additional integrity tools. For example, instead of having a separate Oculus Code of Conduct, we will adopt Facebook’s Community Standards as well as a new additional VR-focused policy. This will allow us to continue to take the unique considerations of VR into account while offering a more consistent way to report bad behavior, hold people accountable, and help create a more welcoming environment across our platforms. And as Facebook adds new privacy and safety tools, Oculus can adopt and benefit from them too.
Isn't oculus just some kind of display device? Last time I've checked LG and Samsung doesn't really policy what kind of content I'm using their monitors for.
This seems to mean that Facebook's account review/policy process and lack of customer service - basically, that you're the product - now decides who can use Oculus.
A week ago, I tried to sign up for Facebook in order to buy some ads[1]. With nothing remarkable about the account or metadata[2], the first page I saw after the signup form was
> Your Account Has Been Disabled. You can't use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, didn't follow our Community Standards.
That page was shown immediately after the signup form. I jumped through their hoops of providing an SMS-able phone number, then a photo, and a few days later got this final result:
> Your Account Has Been Disabled. You can't use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, didn't follow our Community Standards. We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed."
Again, there's no activity on the account because I never saw any FB pages, let alone used it. I'm not concerned - I cancelled my personal account back in 2013 and never looked back, and other than wanting to buy some public-service ads, I still have no interest in it. I sure would care if I had an Oculus, though.
[1]: Because Twitter prohibits or applies extra terms to many types of issue/advocacy ads, and while I applaud their approach, those of us running public-service campaigns get stuck in unpredictable policy enforcement.
[2]: Signing up from a residential Comcast US IP that I'm the only user/client on, using an email address at a domain I own, am the only user on, has been registered for 10+ years, etc.
Honestly, the number of times an acquiring company has promised "we'll never do this" and then "done this" is so staggering, I think any acquisition promises should be codified with the FTC during the acquisition process as consent decrees or the like, and it should require regulatory permission to roll back. And then anything claimed not listed as such should just be assumed to be a lie.
I have a different opinion than most comments here. I love the Oculus Quest. I don’t suggest that anyone waste their time in FB, but needing a FB account to buy VR experiences for the Quest us all right with me.
Off topic, but my favorites are the Star Wars Vader Immortal Trilogy, Racket Ball, and Ping Pong.
[+] [-] atarian|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexandrB|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|5 years ago|reply
I'd like to believe him, but it is pretty hard to do so given the historic record of acquisitions to date.
For me the heuristic is simple: I won't believe a word a CEO that is selling his company says about what will happen post deal. They are no longer in control and should know better.
[+] [-] nrp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daenz|5 years ago|reply
I don't want to assume bad intent, but I find it hard to believe that someone could be so naive about the project and the organization controlling it.
[+] [-] cpeterso|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmonsen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Finnucane|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TedShiller|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ogre_codes|5 years ago|reply
It's gotta be hard to be a founder in a situation like this.
[+] [-] aeturnum|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flanbiscuit|5 years ago|reply
> I'm mostly surprised that they haven't done this with Whatsapp or Instagram thus far, but they are doing it for Oculus accounts.
> > As of a few days ago, they're starting the process of moving Instagram DMs to Messenger, requiring a FB account. So, they are.
> > > The people I know in product at Facebook are certain it is an inevitability for their entire portfolio. That's second-party hearsay, so take it as you will, but it's my operating understanding that is their long term (multi-year) goal.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ic4ye1/new_oculus_u...
[+] [-] ponker|5 years ago|reply
They aren't done with a wink and a nudge, but everyone knows that they're bullshit, it lets the entrepreneur maintain his public image while letting the carnivore devour its meal in due course.
[+] [-] staplung|5 years ago|reply
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his [possible billions] depends upon his not understanding it.
[+] [-] TaupeRanger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nightcracker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aHorseNamedSeve|5 years ago|reply
I absolutely believe his post here. He was young and naive and believed the lies from the Facebook executives. Completely understandable and I hope this doesn't make people think he's a liar.
[+] [-] jacobwilliamroy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlang23|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AaronFriel|5 years ago|reply
If anyone purchased the device relying upon Palmer Luckey's promises, that could be promissory estoppel.
(Not a lawyer, etc etc.)
[+] [-] subsubzero|5 years ago|reply
All that went out the window once the company was bought for 19B, sure both founders left a few years later, but their statements were false after the sale.
[+] [-] fiatjaf|5 years ago|reply
If it is not it's only because the current government judicial system is so full of spam-cases and it is so inefficient that it doesn't have room for these things.
[+] [-] teekert|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] john4532452|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Havoc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pfortuny|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InsomniacL|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bambax|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ando9527|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xg15|5 years ago|reply
If someone advertised a device as capable of doing X without it in fact being able to do X, they'd be liable for false advertising.
If someone sold you a device, then took it back or destroyed it, they'd be liable for theft or destruction of property.
Nevertheless, if someone sells you a connected device and then completely alters the rules by which the device operates at an arbitrary point in time after the sell, that's perfectly fine.
Have we really given up basic consumer rights that easily?
[+] [-] danShumway|5 years ago|reply
- (2014) Facebook acquires Oculus: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237
- (2016) Oculus's privacy policy sparks concern: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410809
Oculus responds to privacy concerns about user tracking (https://uploadvr.com/facebook-oculus-privacy/) saying
> Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future.
- (2019) If logged into Facebook, Oculus data may be used for ads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21770752
From their official statement:
> If you choose not to log into Facebook on Oculus, we won’t share data with Facebook to allow third parties to target advertisements to you based on your use of the Oculus Platform.
- (2020): Facebook accounts are now required.
None of this is particularly surprising, lots of people (even in the press) were calling out how this was going to evolve. But it's still interesting to look back 6 years and see what the initial reactions were and what people were most concerned about.
The takeaways:
- data silos are always temporary
- companies think on a larger timeline than just 2 years in advance
- this kind of thing nearly always gets executed as a slow boil. Facebook didn't buy Oculus and immediately require an account and start advertising to users. But I don't believe for one second that Mark wasn't thinking it at the time.
[+] [-] eugeniub|5 years ago|reply
I came to Oculus with eyes wide open knowing it was a Facebook company, but this news still sucks.
[+] [-] Keverw|5 years ago|reply
Then your purchases and stuff are lost too, I guess as WebXR matures though maybe there will be some great apps you can just pay directly for on the web, but I feel like if rumors of Apple making a headset they'll just skip WebXR and force the app store... I know other headsets including the Oculus supports WebXR but sorta feels like it's a conflict of interest to their own stores to me so wonder how much more advanced it'll get.
[+] [-] evo_9|5 years ago|reply
Don't support Facebook ever, they don't deserve it.
Incidentally here is a comment I made recently about the bullshit they pulled on my wife and I relating to creating a business listing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23959088
[+] [-] AlexandrB|5 years ago|reply
Ugh. I guess Facebook is making a play to become the Steam/XBox Live of VR. Why can't we just have gaming peripherals anymore without some kind of platform tie-in?
[+] [-] Aardwolf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mortenjorck|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|5 years ago|reply
Just don't get why they're doing this at this point, I'd understand if they had iPhone level sales but although the Quest is selling great it's not there yet and it seems a misstep to push everyone into FB from it so soon lots of people will be turned off by the idea. Forcing the tens of thousand Oculus holdouts and saving a handful of engineering salaries surely can 't be worth the bad press and harm to the growing platform
Hope the 4 people who bought Quests after playing mine don’t whinge to me about this.
[+] [-] ohyes|5 years ago|reply
I take this as a negative indicator of how things are going for Facebook. I don’t see any synergy with oculus other than that both products have users. Maybe that is enough from a business standpoint, but I feel forcing login to Facebook is going to kill oculus adoption, it isn’t like 6 years ago, there are viable alternatives if you want a VR rig. It just looks and feels desperate to me.
[+] [-] atoav|5 years ago|reply
A (very patient) student of mine tried to install the oculsu software on a current thinkpad for 4 days in a row. It always failed for various reasons. She used a current Windows 10 and her computer definitly has the specs. She even reinstalled windows. In the end there was an electron error, which we sent to the support - we never got a reply.
If you can avoid Oculus, do so at all cost.
[+] [-] pugworthy|5 years ago|reply
"The HP Reverb G2 does not require a Facebook account today or in 2023."
https://www.reddit.com/r/HPReverb/comments/ic93cn/for_anyone...
[+] [-] zmmmmm|5 years ago|reply
I guess we will wait to see what Apple and Microsoft now do in the space since Facebook and Google both seem to have (inexplicably) bowed out of the race.
[+] [-] ulzeraj|5 years ago|reply
> Using a VR profile that is backed by a Facebook account and authentic identity helps us protect our community and makes it possible to offer additional integrity tools. For example, instead of having a separate Oculus Code of Conduct, we will adopt Facebook’s Community Standards as well as a new additional VR-focused policy. This will allow us to continue to take the unique considerations of VR into account while offering a more consistent way to report bad behavior, hold people accountable, and help create a more welcoming environment across our platforms. And as Facebook adds new privacy and safety tools, Oculus can adopt and benefit from them too.
Isn't oculus just some kind of display device? Last time I've checked LG and Samsung doesn't really policy what kind of content I'm using their monitors for.
[+] [-] bane|5 years ago|reply
http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-rea...
This action feels really connected to the coming Horizon virtual world thing -- which coincidentally is also predicted in the blog post linked above.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/facebook-horizon/
[+] [-] troydavis|5 years ago|reply
A week ago, I tried to sign up for Facebook in order to buy some ads[1]. With nothing remarkable about the account or metadata[2], the first page I saw after the signup form was
> Your Account Has Been Disabled. You can't use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, didn't follow our Community Standards.
That page was shown immediately after the signup form. I jumped through their hoops of providing an SMS-able phone number, then a photo, and a few days later got this final result:
> Your Account Has Been Disabled. You can't use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, didn't follow our Community Standards. We have already reviewed this decision and it can't be reversed."
Again, there's no activity on the account because I never saw any FB pages, let alone used it. I'm not concerned - I cancelled my personal account back in 2013 and never looked back, and other than wanting to buy some public-service ads, I still have no interest in it. I sure would care if I had an Oculus, though.
[1]: Because Twitter prohibits or applies extra terms to many types of issue/advocacy ads, and while I applaud their approach, those of us running public-service campaigns get stuck in unpredictable policy enforcement.
[2]: Signing up from a residential Comcast US IP that I'm the only user/client on, using an email address at a domain I own, am the only user on, has been registered for 10+ years, etc.
[+] [-] soulofmischief|5 years ago|reply
I purchased these devices with the promise that I would not need a Facebook account, and I do not have one..
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|5 years ago|reply
Off topic, but my favorites are the Star Wars Vader Immortal Trilogy, Racket Ball, and Ping Pong.