Why the Facebookening of Oculus VR is bad for users, devs, competition

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On Tuesday, Facebook found another way to aggravate millions of users-though this time, the outrage came from its virtual reality department. The company announced that it would soon mandate the use of Facebook accounts within its Oculus ecosystem, all in order to "unlock social features." In Facebook's ideal world, you'll be your Facebook self on the Facebook VR system... instead of using an existing, separate "Oculus ID."

What's the big deal, you may ask? This isn't the first time a major tech company has tried to combine various services under a "unified account" umbrella. But while Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others have spent years building such empires, none has pulled quite the bait-and-switch as Facebook did yesterday. And it's not a matter of tech business as usual. Facebook's latest decision deserves fierce scrutiny, right now, before it explodes like a virus outside of the niche that is virtual reality.

The Facebookening isn't new-just more extreme

For older, existing Oculus VR products, this mandated switch from Oculus ID to Facebook accounts will begin January 1, 2023-and older devices will still function in an "offline" capacity (and will support tweaks like side-loaded, non-Oculus apps). What's more, buyers of "new" Oculus hardware-including sleeker, higher-performing VR headsets-won't have those old Oculus IDs as an option. Should you buy the company's next fancy-pants headset, your purchase alone will not suffice; you must also log in with a valid Facebook account before that new headset will function.

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