Wednesday, August 19th 2020
Have Some Facebook With Your VR: Facebook and Oculus Integration to Become Mandatory
Back in 2014 when Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 billion, then Oculus CEO Palmer Luckey said that the acquisition was made with respect for the Oculus ecosystem as a whole, and that its management would be akin to that of a private entity that just so happened to be under Facebook's umbrella. Fast forward to 2020, though, and that seems to no longer be the case. Facebook has announced that Oculus accounts will be phased out; come this fall, all new Oculus accounts will have to go through a Facebook one - if you are one of the holdouts from that particular social network, you'll just have to bit the bullet.
The transition will be gradual; starting this October, new accounts will have to be linked through Facebook. Existing standalone Oculus accounts will still be supported; however, they will only be grandfathered until 2023. According to Facebook, they'll still allow users to run their content on these accounts; but any new apps and content that's acquired for the system after then will not be available for usage in such scenarios. Facebook further said that some content might stop working by then, due to integration of some applications' backends with Facebook-bound accounts, capabilities and servers. And thus, Facebook will finally be fully integrated with Oculus, ensuring a new ecosystem of users, and thus, new data on which to base their publicity and marketing efforts. It's all about the value a user brings; and perhaps some social network integration with your VR environments. Because nothing makes more sense than creating Facebook-bound communities in the VR space, and seeing a Like emote pop up on your most recent spaceflight maneuver.
Source:
AnandTech
The transition will be gradual; starting this October, new accounts will have to be linked through Facebook. Existing standalone Oculus accounts will still be supported; however, they will only be grandfathered until 2023. According to Facebook, they'll still allow users to run their content on these accounts; but any new apps and content that's acquired for the system after then will not be available for usage in such scenarios. Facebook further said that some content might stop working by then, due to integration of some applications' backends with Facebook-bound accounts, capabilities and servers. And thus, Facebook will finally be fully integrated with Oculus, ensuring a new ecosystem of users, and thus, new data on which to base their publicity and marketing efforts. It's all about the value a user brings; and perhaps some social network integration with your VR environments. Because nothing makes more sense than creating Facebook-bound communities in the VR space, and seeing a Like emote pop up on your most recent spaceflight maneuver.
50 Comments on Have Some Facebook With Your VR: Facebook and Oculus Integration to Become Mandatory
I hate offline stuff that needs to have an account linked.
I have to say I'm pretty excited about OC7. There have been leaks of a new Quest II.
make a fake/empty FB account if you care that much, its not like the cameras these headsets use have any detail worth spying on you with (use the passthrough mode and you'll see a blurry grainy black and white mess)
So I never used Viveport minus the first 2 months of owning the Vive to grab my free bundled games.
SteamVR is the way to go. Until Epic Store has a VR version though.
This is a company that manages to follow you regardless of whether you are logged in, regardless of whether you should or shouldn't have your privacy at any given time. Mark doesn't give a damn about you, but does care about your data. Your burner account is just as valuable as any other to him. Now you're sharing tons more data with it, because the headset is full of sensors and other data. They can connect the dots, don't you worry. Almost every service can link accounts to users based on something as simple as dynamic IP adresses already. Wake up. These data models are far bigger than the account itself.
Forgot Cambridge Analytics already? It didn't matter if you had a burner account or not. It doesn't even matter if you actually are on FB. But because so many fools ARE, they can still connect the dots and data mine on you regardless. All that is required is one facebook member to share some piece of info.
But aside from that. I don't see myself logging into Razer Synapse for peripheral use, and neither do I see myself doing so for something stupid like an HMD. The question that needs to be asked is why they demand it, and why it is not optional. That alone should speak volumes and be a big red flag. Matter of principle too. 'Oh, I can still go through SteamVR Store'... as if that is somehow not a fat warning sign and likely to get a mandatory FB login regardless. Not today... tomorrow. When you've invested in the HMDs just a bit more.
Burner accounts are a 1999 Hotmail approach. Wake up, the world is smarter than you by now, they know the trick.Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing. Even just the fact that data ownership isn't in your own hands but, due to the login and connected terms, automatically belongs to FB, should be enough to scare you away. Burner account? Its irrelevant. You're steadily filling it up with your data - and its actual, true, valuable data. Not nonsense posts, but actual sensor data. You're not getting paid for that either.
The idea behind the burner account is that it's not connected to your friends and family which I don't care about. I want to be able to see other people using the tech that I've purchased or quickly find people to play VR.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The tech won't evolve more quickly or slowly if customers make a stand for basic rights, you know. What does happen, is that it evolves in the wrong direction if you allow them to get away with it. You can look back at recent history for proof on how social media are rampaging across the media landscape. To each his own, but supporting that, I don't see how its a good thing.
I am not going to give them any more information than possible. I had a fake account for a couple months and deleted it afterwards. That's all they got from me besides my Oculus account which only has payment info on it.
Suffice to say, I'm never buying another Oculus product again. Fortunately there are just as good devices around now with just around the same price, if not marginally more (aforementioned HP Reverb G2).
(Or is that just Google)
And how about countries where facebook doesn't operate or isn't allowed? I mean this is a whole planet not just the US.
So it might be a case of them shooting themselves in the foot multiple ways.
That's hardly unique.
What you do with that information is entirely up to each individual. But it is wrong to fool yourself into the idea that you are actually anonymous with a 'burner' account. You don't own the data, (in a digital world with no boundaries, ownership means your data is present only on your local device and cannot leave it) when in fact it should be yours. Linking an HMD to an account in that sense is giving Facebook important medical information. It has no weight on your individual life, but it will appear as a piece of information used for FB's next tool or service or product to keep them in business. With an ever greater reach into your private lives.
This is also a company that is fighting a power struggle with those governments that exist to protect your data. Make no mistake. The recent ban waves on certain kinds of content are also part of this power struggle. It is a struggle for who controls the truth and flow of information. Information that influences people, information that IS power. All Mark cares about is to use that power to gain further influence and secure his business, and he really does not care about ethics of any kind - again - we have overwhelming evidence of that.
Use a different headset. That is all I can say. Even if you forget privacy and consider that as a consumer who wants a healthy consumer society - the fact people here are taking the account for granted even if they don't actually really want to, is a sign Facebook has already become too big to ignore, which is not what a balanced market should be about. But the actual fact is, if you vote with your feet, you might enforce a change. That is the only power you have really, everything else including burner accounts is putting your head in the sand.
You and I both know this is not tin foil hat space either.