Hardware

https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/my-prodigal-brainchild

Read his post. This article is lazy, he at no point says it will "never happen". What he does do is argue that there's not much of a business case, they aren't really doing anything with it that's new and good enough to warrant that, which makes it unlikely to ever be a major success. He also concedes that after the $80 million dollar failure of the metaverse his opinion might be worth ignoring. So, he isn't really drawing a hardline on any of these opinions either.

Even meeting him where he is i.e. headsets replacing pocket computers, "never" is a long time. I am no sort of expert but I don't think there's any technical reason we couldn't achieve some kind of headgear that's a suitable replacement for a smartphone. After that, it's only a matter of time before everyone living is used to them being around, at which point I think they'd be just as easily accepted as cars or skyscrapers, for better or worse. My money's on it happening eventually.

80s

So, the issue is basically that a lot of people

I think including Stephenson, given his portrayal of the Metaverse in Snow Crash

expected that the bar was getting viable VR headsets, and then getting over the hump of writing enough initial software, and then it'd just explode.

The thing is that we have VR headsets that more-or-less work for playing VR games. We don't have as many VR games as we do games designed around conventional hardware, but they're out there. But...we haven't really seen that explosion. People haven't said "hey, I'll drop maybe $300-$1k to have a larger FOV with more peripheral vision, some additional immersion, and the ability to use my head as an input."

Like, you're saying "I can get a VR headset and play VR games in 2026", which is true. But the state of the field is just nowhere near where advocates hoped it would be.

I don't see a point to AR without cameras. Text translation and context-based information are all I would want, maybe a navigation aid, everything else just seems annoying to have right in front of me.

AR without cameras is kind of pointless, imo. The creep factor is huge, though. It would be reasonable (not easy, but reasonable) if people could curate what information about themselves was available to whom, but that would preclude the corporations having access to whatever information they could glean about everyone. And if they have it, why couldn't they provide it to whoever is willing to pay them a small monthly fee for it?

Until that problem is solved, AR is going to be a very tough sell.

Other than a steering wheel, I would put a vr headset as critical for a racing Sim setup. I can't go back to screens after that level of immersion. Its so insane being able to stick your head out of the window while you're drifting. I'd take a quest 2 over the most expensive screens you can buy.

Stephenson actually specifically addressed how people would feel uncomfortable around AR users from a privacy standpoint back in Snow Crash (as well as the fashion side).

It's a gargoyle, standing in the dimness next to a shanty. Just in case he's not already conspicuous enough, he's wearing a suit. Hiro starts walking toward him. Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider, these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all of the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.

Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light, infrared, millimeter. wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there measuring the length of Hiro's cock through his trousers while they pretend to make conversation.

I thought it was supposed to be a cash grab because Stephenson was hurting for cash so wrote a book that was real campy and targeted edgy geeky crowd that wanted more fantasy than harder scifi and it ended up being even more of a success than he had anticipated. So to a degree satirical and maybe a bit eye rolling to who the expected readership would be. Not mean but I remember reading the book and thinking these characters are like how someone would poke at super geek scifi fantasies

I don't consider it satire, but I believe it was originally going to be a graphic novel which explains some of its silliness/campiness.

I listened to a podcast where the main people argued that it was parody. Mona Lisa Overpod, Ep 20 / MLOP 20: Snow Crash. Spreaker link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/mlop-20-snow-crash--65322706 . Or choose your favorite podcast site.

When you can get 480hz and high quality optics you can get rid of the nausea problem from your brain seeing not matching up with what your balance feels. You'll also need wireless power and wireless high bandwidth low latency video streaming, then you can have a fairly light set of large glasses that aren't sweaty. That's all achievable fairly soon, within two decades maybe.