Zuckerberg is a Glasshole

Image: Badly edited by author

Mark Zuckerberg, the genius who envisioned there would be one billion people in the Metaverse — he only got that wrong by a billion and nearly blew up his company in the process — is now bullish on wearable glasses.

More specifically, he’s excited by a new wearables prototype built by his company, called Orion, that was released into a select few hands this week. In one interview, he lauded that "it's going to be the next major computing platform."

Is it just me, or is this all sounding like a broken record? More tech overlords and their obsession with the Next Big Thing. The man pivots the direction of his company so quickly and so often that he must be suffering a terrible dose of whiplash. It's gone from social media to the Metaverse, to pushing AI sludge, and now to trying to stuff that AI sludge into wearable glasses. He's adamant that this time, his company is onto a winner, predicting that smart glasses will gradually replace phones by 2030.

I don't think that's a prediction — I think that’s a commercial dream at best and wishful thinking at worst.

It's important to consider why Zuckerberg is pushing wearable glasses as the next frontier for computing platforms. It’s because he needs it to be.

• Zuckerberg needs wearable glasses to be the next major platform because Meta got burned by Apple's ad tracking changes. It was another blunt reminder that building software for a device is very different from owning the device the software is built for.

• Zuckerberg needs wearable glasses to be the next major platform because he has sensed, at least since the Meta rebrand, that the writing is on the wall for social media platforms.

• Zuckerberg needs wearable glasses to be the next major platform because at present, his last big venture in the Metaverse burned billions of dollars and achieved almost nothing.

• Zuckerberg needs wearable glasses to be the next major platform because it gives the company yet more data points to suck dry, more personal information, moments, experiences and preferences to be absorbed, all to feed their advertising machine that drives the stock price. We've become bad enough at capturing every moment (most not worthy of capturing); imagine how it plays out if we're essentially wearing a form of surveillance tech.

• Zuckerberg needs wearable glasses to be the next major platform because if you can cement yourself as a market leader in a product category, you have the keys to the castle. Talk as he might about connection through holograms or improving productivity, there's an obvious and much more sinister motive behind the project—advertising. If Meta can get a pair of internet-connected glasses in front of your eyes and dial them into the company's network of apps, they can inject advertising into your eyeballs, day in and day out and not have other companies blocking that money flow.

I've seen many people be quick to call this Meta's iPhone moment.

I disagree.

We've already seen this movie with the Metaverse. Well, we would have, but everyone walked out before it had barely got started. Meta has a history of being shit at innovation, instead favoring a mantra of 'copy, kill or buy.' I hold no faith whatsoever that the company will deliver a product that will be widely adopted by the consumer. I expect they'll get distracted by whatever new shiny thing appears, get sidetracked by a drop in their stock price, or get rocked by a scandal well before they turn these glasses into the future of computing.

At the heart of it is a fundamental problem, one that's potentially insurmountable—the majority of people will not wear smart glasses and will push back against those who do. We've already experienced this with the infamous Google Glass project.

Wearables are such a sensitive product category. Watches and headphones aside, the battlefield is strewn with failed projects. Even the arrival of generative AI — and the idea that this could truly unlock hands-free use — hasn't led to any successful wearable devices, and we've always seen some epic crash-and-burns with the Humane AIPin, the Rabbit r1, and the soon-to-be dead Friend. They always face the same justifiable pushbacks, typically focused on security, data protection, rights to privacy and a worry about the damaging effects it may have on society. I expect no different from a set of glasses that interacts with the environment and the people in its view and can capture much of what it sees.

Sure, glasses are a better form than a headset, which is an absolute non-starter for most people. But the act of moving computing devices to our faces — at a time when people are looking to spend less time on their devices or are returning to laptops and computers so they can actually step away from screens — requires an enormous societal shift and a complete rethink about how we use technology hardware. The public has wisened up to the downsides of devices, and the pushback against the last run of wearables was stronger than ever. If we can’t control our use of device we have to actively pick up and hold, how are we going to manage if it’s literally strapped to our faces?

The shift required to make these glasses a legitimate case for the next computing platform is not coming anytime soon. It’s going to be the Glassholes all over again.

Bonus rant: In this interview about the glasses, Zuckerberg is asked whether creators could be compensated for their work being used to train AI. He bemoans, "I think individual creators and publishers tend to overestimate the value of their specific content."

That's coming from a guy who has never had a good original idea in his life. It's a friendly reminder that, despite his recent PR glow-up, he's still an asshole who doesn't give a fuck about the creators and their content that helped build his platforms and make him one of the richest people alive.