There are a lot of problems with headset based social media.

First, unless there are major improvements to the base technology, headsets are not going to work that well. They’re big and bulky, maybe not heavy for short term use, but probably heavy enough to be tiring after a couple of hours. They’re ugly, thus no grownup is going to whip out their Oculus in public to use the internet. They’re fairly isolating as well, as you can’t participate in conversations around you while wearing an Oculus— your ears are blocked and no eye contact is possible.

Second, a lot of adult Internet use is done while doing other things. You might surf while watching TV, or while eating or cooking, or talking to other people. And at least for me, I tend to dip in and out of th3 phone or iPad. Adults, in short are casual users of the internet. And if you’re trying to lock people into an environment, that actually doesn’t work well if the typical users of your service are casual users. And herein lies the problem— Zuck is using a technology that’s casual hostile to try to corral a user base that’s extremely casual.

I don’t see this ever actually working because the friction between social media is extremely low. The cost of switching is basically zero, as it costs nothing to join any social media network you choose. The apps are free, the servers are free to join, and unless you’re in a very tight group of friends Theres no reason to choose one network over another. I can get the same stupid memes on X, insta, facebook, threads, blue sky or truth. And the interfaces are similar as well, which means that there’s no learning curve preventing a switch. Facebook is proposing to put a lot of negatives on their social media platform in an environment where Theres literally nothing to compel people to put up with those negatives.