Call me a pessimist, but I don't agree with this blog post at all. The author's views seems a bit biased and narrow based on their social circle perhaps.

> VR is no longer experimental

Till it has practical everyday uses and is at least semi affordable, I would categorize it as experimental still

> Meta shipped a wearable that normal people actually use, thanks to a clever Ray-Ban partnership (and associated equity stake). 3D printers have become real household products.

I don't know a single person who actually owns a Meta wearable device or a 3D printer. Isn't Meta actually shifting their focus away from metaverse?

> Design matters again. In our devices, and in our lives

Design has been forgotten. Just look at your phones and computers and most of the web.

All I see around me are people swiping away at their screens (most of the time not using their headphones), getting their fix in bursts of 15 seconds, rinse and repeat.

It's getting harder to have fun with tech when you have to deal with things like:

* Operating systems that are actively hostile to their users (Windows and OSX).

* iPhone and Android being the only 2 choice when it comes to phones (the author did mention this). The chances of getting a 3rd player here seems negligible.

* Everyone trying to shove AI down your throat. At no time in the past did we need mandates to use a "useful" thing.

* A couple of players consolidating all the power in the AI space and millions of people having no ethical issues about using products from these companies, or opening up their source code and data for these companies to come suck it all up.

* No real disruption or competition in the browser space. It will be a long time before Ladybird will be usable.

* Bloated, heavy websites with popups galore.

* Everything getting a redesign every couple of months for no reason

* You don't own anything anymore. Even building your own PC seems like it will become a thing of the past given how price are rising.

I could go on.

> I don't know a single person who actually owns a Meta wearable device or a 3D printer

I whish I could say the same :p I just bought another 3d printer and have no place to put it - I have another 3 active printers in my home office. And yes, I keep telling myself its for "work reasons", but its mostly for hobby stuff.

> Till it has practical everyday uses and is at least semi affordable, I would categorize it as experimental still

I have a Meta Quest 2 from half a decade ago. It's old, but still feels like a mature gaming device (though relegated to more of an occasional fitness device for me).

Sure, it's failed to be anything more (commercial, education, media), but perhaps it's not fated to be for simple entertainment, in which case it's still an interesting new category. And I think the entry price point is like half that of a PS5?

> I don't know a single person who actually owns a Meta wearable device or a 3D printer. Isn't Meta actually shifting their focus away from metaverse?

I think the Ray Ban partnership is consistent with their shift away from the metaverse. The grandiose visions are put on ice, while they shift towards a fashion-accessory with a camera and audio.

Young people seem to be very into 3D printing. My father runs a photography store and a steady portion of the customer base is high schoolers requesting 3D printed models of things they've found online. I presume they'll own their own 3D printers in the future.

> Operating systems that are actively hostile to their users (Windows and OSX).

Never been a better time to give Linux a try. The days of fighting with audio drivers for 3 days after the install are largely in the past

> Everyone trying to shove AI down your throat

There is some backlash against this. SaaS used it to justify price increases, but ironically AI may make it more difficult for them to sustain their very high per seat pricing model

> * No real disruption or competition in the browser space. It will be a long time before Ladybird will be usable.

I still use Firefox for now. But they, unfortunately, have to own their bad decisions.

> You don't own anything anymore. Even building your own PC seems like it will become a thing of the past given how price are rising.

I do worry about this, though less from a cost standpoint, which tend to be cyclical. Deeply embedding and integrating everything does come with some advantages that make DIY builds more difficult to justify outside of seeking peak performance. Though computers like the Framework are actively trying to push against that for some segment of the market.

> * iPhone and Android being the only 2 choice when it comes to phones

Not exactly true. Sent from my Librem 5.