Virtual reality is among the most hyped technologies of the last three decades. It’s been the next big thing since I was a child. I remember excited TV reporters donning huge VR headsets to navigate blocky and pixelated landscapes as far back as the nineties. But, in the last three or four years, it looked as if the hype was becoming a reality. Companies like Facebook and Microsoft were plowing big money into VR initiatives. Silicon Valley venture capitalists wrote huge checks for VR startups. Major movie studios created VR production units. Pundits declared that we were entering the VR age and that every industry would be transformed, including eCommerce.
But the VR hype seems to have died down. Companies like Facebook’s Oculus continue to iterate on their hardware, but there’s less palpable excitement. Investment in VR startups has declined. The VR gold rush saw billions of dollars invested in startups focused on creating VR hardware and software. In 2018, Silicon Valley investment fell by 81%. Across the US, funding for augmented and virtual reality declined by 46% to $809 million. A lot of money, but a fraction of what we’d expect if VR had taken off in the way the ...
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