Tech layoffs 2026: Over 92,000 tech jobs vanished by May 2026, with April seeing the worst layoffs in two years. US tech giants like Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon are cutting staff, citing AI efficiencies and past over-hiring. Despite job cuts, major tech firms are investing heavily in AI, signaling a significant industry shift.
Microsoft: Windows is falling apart at the seams, GitHub is forcing people off the platform due to unreliability
Meta: millions of people are abandoning the Facebook platform, VR didn’t pan out
But yeah it’s AI to blame, not the last stage of the well-articulated 4-step cycle of enshittification.
I knew VR would never pan out.
It needs expensive special equipment in the form of a headset that has no other use.
You need expensive powerful graphics hardware for good quality.
You need more special equipment if you wear glasses. Prescription lenses just for the goggles that are not used anywhere else.
It causes headaches, migraines and dizziness.
You need wide open space to utilize it.
I bought and returned a headset at the Microsoft store and am so glad I got that money back.
VR did not take off, but for wildly different reasons than what you state.
A steam deck or a games console also need expensive special equipment (in form of the console) that has no other use. Still they are thriving.
They also need expensive powerful graphics hardware for good quality. (Also, standalone VR totally exists and is pretty good nowadays, to the point where I don’t see much of a reason to pair my headset to my PC, and I am still rocking a Quest 2. Considering you are quoting “a headset at the Microsoft store”, I venture to guess that you haven’t tried VR in over half a decade.)
You don’t need special equipment if you wear glasses for most headsets, you just wear your glasses inside the VR headset. Source: I have been doing that for years. Glasses compatible VR headsets are a thing and quite common.
VR doesn’t cause migraines, migraines are something different. They mainly cause tension headaches and motion sickness. Headsets with better balance (e.g. ones that move the battery to the back of the head or ones that are lighter) reduce tension headaches a lot, and motion sickness differs between people and with practice.
The wide open space is the only actual problem you identified, but also there, VR also works in sitting or stationary standing positions. Full roomscale VR is only required by rather few VR games or apps.
The real issues are:
Clearly my user story about my experience is completely invalid as a factor. Good to know.
You mean your story of buying an unnamed “Microsoft” headset at least 5 years ago and using it so little that you could still return it? Ok. Yeah. That kind of “user story” is pretty insubstantial.
What user story?
You just described everything wrong with cars when they first came out. Large, uncomfortable, slow, needed expensive infrastructure/hardware. And look at cars now. Size hasn’t improved, but everything else has (well, the infrastructure is in place now), and you can’t get away from them.
Im saving up for a Steam Frame. Even if it just operates as a screen for my Steam Deck, that’s enough for me. Add in some freestanding VR, and maybe a new computer that can handle VR in the future, and I’m as happy as can be.
I’m not saying your opinion is wrong, just not universal, and we are still very early on in the VR/AR market.
Cars didn’t give people migraines or require custom lenses to use.
They also get you from point A to point B and without them you had no other choices beyond a horse, bicycle or paying someone else to produce something.
VR gives you a headset you have to wear that is uncomfortable and the end result is that you see the game you’re playing on the screen in front of you.
We already have screens in front of us that we play games on.
This is more like a motorcycle in America. Nobody uses them really, so you have to really commit to it to get use out of it. There’s loads of downsides and the upsides is that it can be fun from time to time. They can technically take you from point a to point b, but odds are you’re gonna want something with walls and a roof when weather sucks or when you need to do something serious like haul some supplies for a home project. Just like how certain things are just better with a mouse and keyboard or with a controller.
Your car analogy fits computers or smartphones better. We already have those, so an accessory computing thing is a frivolous add on for most anything you’d want to do with it, but it can be fun if it works for you. Sure, in Asian countries bikes are cheaper and more common so everything is more suitable to them, but I suspect they will never catch on here to the same degree…. Like VR.
Early cars were worse than trains and horses. It took a lot of effort to make them useful, and then to make them ubiquitous.
The way you talk about VR is the way Trump talks about windfarms.
Windfarms produce clean energy with minimal environmental impact and cost.
VR headsets… don’t quite have the same kind of impact. You can easily spend $2000-$3000 and find that your purchase is not at all what you envisioned.
Windmills are exactly what they look like, cheap energy machines that will lower our total cost of energy and reliance on burning substances that people are literally killing each other over, including the current war partially to raise prices for the venezuelan spoils to make investment sense.
Way to miss the point.
I spent $1000 on a VR headset, and it wasn’t what I envisioned. It was way better. Having played in VR, I don’t even bother with flatscreen games anymore. It’s not just putting the screen closer to your eyes. It’s an entirely different paradigm. And it’s fucking kickass.
Everyone I’ve seen whining about how VR isn’t that great and isn’t going to catch on and various problems that they imagine etc is acting like a boomer complaining about cellphones. Or Texans trying to say electric cars are worse than ICE cars
Congrats, i’m glad you like it and doesn’t give you the issues it gave me.
The headset I bought was the original HTC Vive, which was $800 at the time which adjusted for inflation would probably be close to $1500 today. At the time had a 1080ti which was the fastest gpu. I spared no expense, did drill in wall mounting and the whole nine yards, and devoted an entire room to it. Total waste of time, but glad I tried it to realize just how bad it was for me.
Cars absolutely require special lenses for some people to operate and exhaust fumes will give you headaches and worse
Ah yes, all those glasses people made for each and every car they ever drove! That was so inconvenient!
And the deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning just by driving early cars! OH MY GOD SO MANY DEAD. BILLIONS! more than have ever died before!
It might surprise you to learn, but we were getting from point A to B for a long time, and there are people even today who get headaches from cars, and not even from the noise, which was much worse with early cars. Do you think sitting near an engine with almost nothing between it and you was a relaxing experience, or risking death just starting it was a big sell?