VR is not tech’s ‘next big thing’
You have to be careful making confident-sounding prognostications about technology.
In 2007, then-CEO of Microsoft Steve Ballmer famously dismissed the iPhone — it didn’t even have a keyboard! — and we all know how that turned out. History is littered with assertions that some new innovation is pointless or doomed, only for it to then take over the world.
Yet, despite years of covering technology and knowing just how hard the future is to predict, I still insist on living dangerously and arguing that virtual reality, or VR, simply isn’t going to be the “next big thing” in tech.
Virtual reality is the term given to tech that completely immerses your senses in a virtual world with a headset that projects images into your eyes and sound into your ears.
It sounds very futuristic, but there’s increasing evidence that such technology is far less desirable than it appears. It was reported this week that electronics giant Sony recently halved production of its latest PSVR2 headset after low preorder numbers indicated weak demand. The Bloomberg article reporting the news suggested that the move “exacerbates lacklustre momentum for (the) VR sector.”
So, fine: Early technology isn’t selling well. That was true of MP3 players and 2-in-1 laptops, too, and they eventually got popular. The low uptake for VR is also understandable: The current tech is both clunky and heavy, while also lacking the sort of visual fidelity to be truly immersive.
Those, however, are problems that almost undoubtedly will be solved with time. Technology shrinks and its capability grows; that seems inevitable.
Rather, what plagues virtual reality is its central premise: That people want to be immersed in a digital world that cuts them off from their own. It is not only inconvenient and, for social applications, far less compelling than traditional devices — it is also fundamentally escapist and niche, and misses what people actually want out of tech
You wouldn’t know it looking at some big tech companies, though. Meta rebranded entirely around the promise of a virtual reality “metaverse” — think, 3D Facebook — and has poured billions into the idea. Microsoft has committed to Meta’s vision, while everyone from Apple and Amazon to Nvidia is actively investing in the concept. For big tech, the arrival of VR and the metaverse is fait accompli.
There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical, and not just because Sony can’t sell headsets — or that Meta, despite investing billions into VR, has almost nothing to show for it.
For one, think of the practical use case. In order to virtually socialize with friends, one would have to put on a headset and log on to a virtual world, only to see cartoon representations of them. It’s not only awkward from a practical standard, it’s also far less appealing than a simple video call in which one can still move unimpeded.
Secondly, the assumption is that because we adopted smartphones so easily, any tech that purports to connect or immerse us will be as eagerly used. That’s a mistake.
Part of the reason a smartphone is so universal is because it is portable, but also adaptive without being isolating — that is, you can use it at home, on transit, at work, at a park, all while remaining aware of one’s surroundings and connected to them. The same cannot be said of a VR headset.
That is not to say that there are no virtual reality applications with a bright future. To the contrary, gaming will continue to evolve and become more appealing. And corporate or professional applications will undoubtedly be useful. Imagine immersing oneself in a 3D design of a building or being able to peer into a virtual replica of an industrial machine. That part of VR is immensely promising.
But there is a chasm of difference between those limited implementations and VR becoming the next great thing in tech. That matters because, too often, people are sold a bill of goods by tech companies promising the world, but who are lost in their own dreams of domination.
Consider: This holiday season, it was impossible to get away from a thoroughly annoying ad campaign for Canadian Tire’s VR Tree Decorator — an inexplicable app for the tiny fraction of Canadians who own VR headsets to plan out their decorations on a virtual Christmas tree.
The whole enterprise would have been funny had it not in fact presented an image of Christmas so achingly sad: a lone mum or dad, plugging a headset into a computer in order to find a specific app, and then decorating a virtual tree with virtual ornaments — all so they could eventually get around to doing the same in real life.
Technology might be notoriously hard to predict. But if that’s a sample of what VR has to offer us, it’s seems plain as day that it’s not only not the next big thing, but may barely be a thing at all.