Comment by solardev

Comment by solardev 8 days ago

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It's a clunky, heavy, $3500 nerd-alert flight helmet with a googly-eyes-of-doom projector up front. It has like four apps and two uses cases, one of which is "luxury paperweight". They're still trying to find the other one.

To buy (and keep) one, you have to be rich enough that a couple months' rent is nothing, self-confident (or socially oblivious) enough that you don't mind looking like a Star Wars droid knock-off, and masochistic enough to want to take your neck to the gym every time you want to watch a movie. Not a very big target audience...

It's too heavy and limited to be a useful personal screen. It's useless for gaming. It's too expensive to be an occasional-use-only device. It's a solution to a problem nobody had, and it solves none of the problems people do have. Sure, it had a lot of fancy tech, and maybe made sense as a laboratory prototype, but not a consumer device. You can do more with the $300 Facebook goggles for 10% of the price, or get one of the pricier but slimmer AR glasses (Xreal, etc.)

askafriend 8 days ago

I like your comment and framing, I think it highlights a lot of salient points about the device. But to be fair similar-style criticisms were levied against the iPhone (right down to price point, nerd-factor, lack of physical keyboard etc). So it's important to see the promise in things too.

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  • solardev 8 days ago

    > But to be fair similar-style criticisms were levied against the iPhone

    Really? That was a long time ago, but I don't remember that sort of criticism towards the iPhone... though maybe my memory is just foggy? It seemed to all happen so quick, with Google copying them with the G1 soon afterward, and then... well, the rest is history. The iPhone was a streamlined evolution of an existing niche (PalmPilots, Blackberries, Nokia Communicator, etc.).

    When I first heard about the Vision Pro, I really hoped that they made a much simpler, slimmed-down version of the Oculus, something more like the Xreal glasses. I was surprised when they went the other way instead, doubling down on all the extra-fancy tech that just added more bulk and expense. I don't think anyone ever thought, "Man, the thing VR really needs? A scary recording of my eyes on the front." They somehow managed to find the nightmarish "sweet spot" between dorkiness and the uncanny valley, and then jacked up the price 3x-10x compared to all the other VR headsets...

    On the other hand, I do remember similar criticisms towards the first iPod, famously compared to the Nomad and other MP3 players of that time (https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...)... is that what you're referring to?

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MeetingsBrowser 8 days ago

> $3500

> rich enough that a couple months’ rent is nothing

I largely agree, but I would like to know where rent is $1750/month,

I live in a low cost of living state and my rent is $3000

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  • solardev 8 days ago

    $3000 for what? That seems high outside of in-demand urban areas. In the rural parts of Oregon and California where I've lived, $2000 would get you a nice house with 2 or 3 bedrooms, and $1750 would get you a studio or 1 bedroom pretty easily. It just depends.

    As a single dude, I don't think I've ever paid $3000 for rent, anywhere I've lived, urban or rural. I think $2200 was the max and that was for a nicer short term rental.

    Some figures: https://www.apartments.com/rent-market-trends/us/

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    • MeetingsBrowser 8 days ago

      3 bed 2 bath house in the suburbs. In an above average, but not affluent area outside of a major city.

      Average rent for the city + suburbs is around $2400/month but that includes houses as well as apartments.

      It looks like the link you shared is focused on 700sqft apartments. The national average rent for a 3 bed house shows to be $2400

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      • solardev 7 days ago

        Yeah, I can believe that.

        I've never been rich enough to be able to rent a single-family house to myself, only with several roommates or a partner. So to me "rent" has always been "cheap small apartment in a relatively safe but not luxurious part of town". It's all relative :)

        Even now, with a steady partner, both mid-career and in our late 30s/early 40s, we can only afford to rent one half of a duplex (for about $2000). That gets us 2bd/2ba next to a nice little hiking spot though, so we feel quite lucky!

        It's a very different life than the millionaire FAANG folks live, I assume. We barely scrape by month to month, but we're content and grateful for what we do have :)

        Just means no Vision Pro in our futures, lol. But if someone comes out with a good $300-$500ish wearable virtual monitor, I'd love that. Curious about the Xreals...

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    • mettamage 7 days ago

      Detroit Michigan rents out studios for like 600-700 bucks

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  • vunderba 8 days ago

    Lots of places (specially southeastern portion of the US) if you work remote - studio sized apartments in Georgia can easily be found for around 1000 / month.

    I lived in the Stone Mountain area a few years back in a small house (2bd 1ba) for about $1200 / month.

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    • MeetingsBrowser 7 days ago

      It looks like my gut reaction was due to a mismatch in what is being rented.

      I live in the suburbs where apartments are rare. The average renter is a family renting a 2-3 bedroom house for around $2400/month.

      > I lived in the Stone Mountain area a few years back in a small house (2bd 1ba) for about $1200 / month.

      a quick peak at zillow shows only one house listed for less than 1400/month in Stone Mountain. Average for a 1200sqft 2b1b today seems to be around 1800/month.

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    • boogieknite 6 days ago

      i live in Portland OR and we visited your area 3 years ago. i was amazed by the affordable price of big, nice houses in fantastic locations outside Atlanta. always front of mind when i think of best-value places to move if we ever decided to uproot

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  • sralbert 8 days ago

    Have you ever wondered where the people who make less than $70k/year live?

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    • MeetingsBrowser 8 days ago

      No, I know people who make that much.

      They are either married or have roommates and spend roughly %20 of their income on housing.

      At $140k/year that works out to about $2300/month.

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      • mettamage 7 days ago

        There are also countries outside the US. Rent is different per country and region and lifestyle and age range and a whole bunch of other factors

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