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Why I Changed My Mind About Virtual Reality
I thought it was nothing more than a fun gimmick. I was wrong.
I was skeptical of virtual reality. For the past few years, I’ve been reading articles and watching videos about the technology as it has rapidly risen in popularity, but I wasn’t so impressed by what I saw.
VR looked fun. I’m a lifelong science-fiction reader, and it was certainly cool to see a futuristic concept that I’ve read about in books suddenly become real-world and mainstream.
But, despite my interest, I still couldn’t understand how VR would possibly live up to the hype that it’s received from its most ardent fans. Could it really revolutionize the internet? The world?
To me, VR appeared at best a fun toy or gimmick. It was a way to make video games a little more immersive or to get a 360-degree view of interesting locations.
Last month, I finally decided to stop reading about VR and actually try it out. Fortunately, the prices aren’t nearly as steep as they used to be. Initially, consumer-facing VR sets were priced at one thousand dollars or more, but over the past few years they’ve rapidly fallen in price. These days, a refurbished Quest 2 is just $250.
