Ditching Facebook Log-Ins Won't Free VR From Meta's Stranglehold

thegamer.com:

Back when Meta was called Facebook and the Meta Quest 2 was called the Oculus Quest 2, Facebook promised that you wouldn’t need a Facebook account to log-in to your headset. I know this may shock you, but Facebook lied, and it caused all kinds of problems for Quest 2 owners. Not only did this put unnecessary limitations on sharing and selling hardware, it also meant that Facebook could take away your purchases and brick your headset without any explanation or recourse. For years, Quest 2 owners have bemoaned Facebook logins as more and more people found their accounts disabled or banned and their headsets deactivated. I personally experienced this when my Facebook account was locked down for several weeks because of a new account protection policy, and I had no way to recover it.

But that won’t be a problem any more. Zuckerberg announced that starting next month, Quest owners will be able to use a new Meta account rather than a Facebook account to log into their Quest. Apparently a Meta account is different from an Oculus account, which many of us already had before the Quest 2, so that’s a bit strange. Nevertheless, this is good news and it should be celebrated. It took almost two years, but Meta has finally done the right thing.

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Now that we’re done celebrating, let’s talk about the other ways Meta needs to change immediately. Its approach to exclusivity is strangling the VR market when what it needs most right now is to be flexible and give people easy access. Its focus on productivity and second-life functionality is a waste of time and resources that out to be invested in expanding the gaming potential of VR. Oh, and also, Meta should probably stop