Technology

I don't sign in with a Facebook account. I decoupled that stuff because it is something you now can do after Meta caved to the pressure.

Which I've noticed you're no longer claiming didn't happen, so I guess for all the bold all-caps Internet yelling we're making progress. But still, that's what this thread was about, before you got here all yelly and screamy and weird latching onto some random comment about monitors.

Now, what you're saying is confusing because you seem confused about what you're angry about. One, Oculus (not Meta, this was pre-Facebook) backed off on its pre-release claims that it would not require a separate store to use the device and deployed the Oculus store with no cross-purchase options with Steam. And yes, that meant you needed to log in to Oculus (not Meta) to use the Rift and the Rift S. That sucked because the app sucked and it didn't always play nice with Steam VR and was basically bloatware. That remains in place, although Meta has shifted to being all Quest-first, so it's pretty residual.

And then there's the Quest, which is, again, a self-contained platform and has the same login requirements from any other self-contained platform. It also happens to have software support to be used as a PC display wired and wirelessly. Wirelessly this is pretty straightforward: you simply do not want to wirelessly stream your display to ANYTHING that isn't locked out from public access. That is a big duh.

For wired display your mileage may vary a bit more, but it's very likely not trivial to use the device as a HMD without going through the device, just technically. It definitely seems like a disproportionate amount of rage, though, considering that a) there are plenty of alternatives for "dumb" HMDs, and b) Meta is famously subsidizing the crap out of the Quest (which is, again, the point of this thread), so it's a bit weird to be screamy mad about them not engineering a way to use it while it's turned off as a simple HMD.

That is so far above and beyond the original reason people were mad about it's absurd. It no longer is "Oculus backed down into not having its own exclusive store purchases", it no longer is "Meta backed down on not forcing to link the Quest with Facebook accounts", it is now "Meta should let me use its heavily subsidized device without ever interacting with its OS to repurpose it as a cheap HMD for a different device". Not only are they not alone in doing that (Sony is only now allowing the PSVR 2 being used on PC, and that requires an additional purchase), but it's so above and beyond of a fringe use case it warrants exactly zero anger. Go buy a device that... you know, doesn't have an Android OS and a SoC in it. What are you mad at Meta about?

And for the record, I do NOT like Meta at all. I actively avoid most of their products any time I can. If I have to interact with anything Meta in my browser I put it on a Firefox container with nothing else. I actively believe they should be split up. They are a big part of a larger dynamic around social media eroding the very concept of liberal democratic statehood.

But also... that's enough to get mad at them? Like, I don't need to make up additional, random, factually incorrect, entirely unreasonable entitled customer whiney crap to be mad about. There is plenty of reasonable stuff that doesn't make me sound like ranting lunatic on the Internet, and if they want to sell me VR hardware at half price or whatever I feel no need to do mental gymnastics to avoid it. I will ride that train and suckle on that teat for as long as good old Zuck wants to give me cheap hardware. Believe it or not, it's entirely possible to hold those two stances at the same time.