i wonder how far companies are going to take VR/AR stuff if the cost hits rock bottom. they'll cut costs anywhere they can and some companies are already BYOD.

i don't know if it'll take 10, 20 or 30 years, but you can bet your ass that if someone ever invents an actual glasses-like AR thing like the nreal air that can stream a citrix desktop for 8 hours on a single charge for sub-$500, they'd definitely want to replace your office with one of those.

instead of giving you an office and computer, they just give you a pair of glasses and tell you to put them on while sitting in a chair at home and logging into "Azure Virtual Workspace" or some shit. it'd give them the cost cuts of work from home, but they get to keep the micromanagement since there would be a corporate controlled device strapped to your face.

then we'd have to go through the whole process of arguing for our basic right to not plug ourselves into a corporate hellscape the entire day

i'd like to imagine the EU would outlaw it for basic human decency, privacy and mental health reasons.

but who knows about america, that place could end up plugged into a corporate matrix for all we know. but looking at how america's doing, perhaps they'll collapse anyways before we ever reach this point

current VR/AR glasses and tech will probably remain an enthusiast and specialized thing. but if AR glasses can replace your office by the time gen z is in control of companies, THAT'S when i'll start worrying

@quad in Germany, as a working from home employee, you can charge your company for work usage of infrastructure (as in cost basically), and the company is required to provide furniture and stuff for you to be able to work. That includes basic necessities as in chair and desk if your current furniture would be breaking law (yes, there are laws for minimum requirements).

And I think you could even charge rent if the room is almost exclusive used for work. But haven’t looked much into that.

@kura well yeah, hence why i'm not super worried about the eu (and europe by extension)

heck my workplace offered to reimburse my internet bills even though i only work from home like 10 hours a year

@quad i hope it remains a gimmick...

@wolf480pl same, definitely same

@quad well yeah. America has the best labor laws. Where you go to black market like lengths to trade holidays or sick days.

If those vr or AR goggles get to the stage that they are light enough to wear for 8-13 hours, universally usable (I use glasses for example. Mainly because one of my eyes is slightly off) and not unhealthy (like you can get dizzy easily for example), I can see America making use of it.

But then enough money has to be spent into developing a virtual workspace, as well as to provide the needed server hardware. Headsets can work standalone already which is quite scary if you think about it.

Ps: I still want “full dive” like devices.

@kura
>If those vr or AR goggles get to the stage that [...]
That's what I'm saying, I'm worried what will happen if they become as light and practical as regular glasses, or close to it.

>But then enough money has to be spent into developing a virtual workspace, as well as to provide the needed server hardware.

Companies are already doing this, in fact they've been doing it for 20 years. Azure already has multiple products as well, "Windows 365" for less complex deployments, and "Azure Virtual Desktop" for more complex setups.

This is already a thing all over the world, many lower-end office jobs (data entry, warehouse managers, purchasers, etc.) already do not get proper computers. They get a computer that's as cheap as possible, and its only purpose is to let them remotely connect to a large shared server (In other words, be a thin client). Many employees first got a taste of this during the pandemic, they might have been asked to download some client on their personal device and then just sign in to some cloud computer.

For places like schools with many shared computers, this model is even more common.

All they'd have to do is make this work on those practical AR glasses and voila. They'd just have to reimpurse you for a recliner in your living room and part of your internet connection, then ship you a pair of glasses so you can plug into the corpo cloud rather than giving you any office space.

P.S: I also want full-dive stuff.
It would be a catastrophe for humanity because way too many people would escape into a fantasy world. But I'd still want to see it happen.

@kura The only thing preventing companies from doing this is:
1. Old people wouldn't be able to figure it out
2. The tech won't exist for a while (or perhaps never)
3. Hopefully regulation will stop it before it gets too bad

Heck the apple vision already does all the things they'd need. It just needs to be cheap enough for companies to want to go that route.

Companies would 110% do this to become "office-free". They don't want to pay for offices either. The reason they want employees back in the office is to micromanage them and put them in the mental space that they're "at work".

If they could strap a device on your face at home instead which only let you do work stuff it would work just as well. If you ever took the thing off your face they'd immediately know you weren't working. And of course anything you did inside the virtual office could be logged, just like a regular corporate laptop.

Companies could:
- Cut office costs
- Cut hardware costs for employees
- Employ people from anywhere
- Still be able to micromanage them

Of course it would mentally obliterate the workers in the process, but that wouldn't stop companies until some actual regulation gets made

@kura Work-from-home costs and (employer) flexibility, with in-office control and monitoring is a dream that every megacorp would bet all their chips on

@quad Also that reminds me that I pretty often feel like companies should face basic human decency regulation regardless of where the worker is.

@lanodan i don't know what "human decency" you think needs protection since that's a pretty broad term

but imo things like requiring an employee to always smile at customers should be illegal. "just put the fries in the bag" as the kids would say, no smile needed please

@quad The kind of stuff we've had for like 100 years or so at least, broadness intended since it's a pretty big list.

@lanodan frankly it would be nice to have some global entity managing this, perhaps as a proper certification or something.

it'd be nice to buy something and know that the amazon driver didn't have to piss in a bottle and the chinese factory worker could afford a normal dinner that day

@quad I think that's what the Ethical/Fair Trade™ stuff is supposed to be but it's kind of a mess as usually it's pretty small organisations compared to the amount of trade going on.

And well, I'm not a huge fan of ethics being a market option, means that people that are broke/poor end up supporting their own doom.

@lanodan the problem is that an organization couldn't manage without tons of funding via something like the UN

at the same time i'm pretty big on decentralization so i don't really like enforcing such a thing globally.

and frankly even if we defined it as a human right or something, companies like amazon would do everything to skirt the line like they currently are.

imo the best we can do is start with some certification organization funded via something like a mandatory contribution to the UN, and then further down the road countries would have to set requirements like at least 10% of imports would have to be certified, then 20%, then 30%. and if we kept going like that for 10-20 years we'd hopefully fix working conditions in countries we import from, while cutting off those who refuse.

the problem is that giants like america and china would never agree to such a thing, and they'd have the power to break it all

@lanodan so for now I'll just buy my Fairphone with fairtrade gold or whatever, and i pay double for my shirts that use US cotton and are at least mostly made outside of china.

unfortunately other consumers tend to not do the same as long as the capitalism/consumerism oroboros exists

@quad I think I'd rather have it be enforced by the country relevant to the Company HQ rather than like UN, that's still somewhat decentralised at least as far as global trade is concerned.

Which sadly would mean Amazon continuing to treat their employees like sub-humans.

@lanodan no i meant UN would manage the certification, not that the UN would personally go around doing all the work. It could alternatively be standalone like ISO is.

Once we have a common, global standard, countries like Norway could have whatever local organizations or agencies they use certify companies in accordance with those standards regularly.

@quad Ooooh yeah that would work.

Even if yeah you're right that like US and China would never, except maybe for things like parts / basic goods if that kind of certification goes turtles-all-the-way-down.

@lanodan Yeah. We currently have tons of certifications (like for example fair trade). The problem is that there's so many of them and the more it expands the more complex and confusing it would be, especially if they're all independent.

In the current system a chocolate manufacturer can just make a new thing called "SafeCocoa" and stick it on the chocolate bar with zero meaning because most consumers wouldn't care enough to check if that certification means anything.

Similar to ISO, imagine having UNS 0001 for cocoa, UNS 0002 for coal, UNS 0003 for beef, etc.

And then a country could say "10% of all imports must be UNS certified", while gradually ramping it up.

This is the only somewhat realistic way I can imagine we would get decent working standards, extraction and production somewhat enforced across the globe.

@lanodan Then after 30 years a company could make their clothes in a non-UNS certified factory, but they'd effectively have to give up 75% of the world's market or something.

The only problem I don't know how to solve are:
1. authoritarian countries like china won't listen to anyone, and ultra-capitalist nations like america won't raise production costs either if possible
2. Certification would be a burden on small businesses. Giving further advantage to large corpos. Maybe a tax benefit or something could help but it'd still massively bump startup costs.

@lanodan oh and of course it would be an individual fight in every country to require these certifications

@quad @kura how to describe the "metaverse" facebook rubbing its hands already

@stefan @kura while i do think a metaverse might eventually succeed, I've always doubted it'll be facebook.

honestly stuff like Fortnite and Roblox are closer to successful metaverses.

But it would not surprise me if corporations pretty much force employees to plug into a Microsoft, Google or whatever-future-big-tech-corp metaverse in 20 years.

@quad @lanodan Apparently there's more "certified free of slave labor" cotton out there than there is actually cotton produced under ethical conditions. Because basically all cotton is certified under multiple labels. I should look more into what I can buy without getting blood on my hands.

@besserwisser @lanodan I just buy Gildan T-shirts in bulk for like $4 a pop prior to custom fees.

No matter what smaller brand or merch brand I go with they typically just print on Gildan T-shirts anyways.

Every single brand out there seems to make good claims like using local cotton or good factories, which just makes me trust none of them.

The Gildan T-shirts I receive are mostly made in Bangladesh, Haiti or Nicaragua. So they're probably not from some amazing factories either, but I honestly doubt the T-shirts that cost $20-30+ come from anywhere better either.

@besserwisser @lanodan If there's a brand selling a simple black T-shirt at a higher price, where I know the money goes to the people making the T-shirt rather than into the brand owners' pockets I'd very much like to know.

Realistically I tend to pay ~$10-12 per shirt because I don't buy in large enough bulks for the best pricing and I have to pay some customs to get them into Norway. I also don't buy the cheapest ones.

But I feel like every local store trying to sell me T-shirts for 399kr (~$40) isn't of any better quality than my Gildan shirts (typically worse in fact), with no proof whatsoever that their supply chain is any better. Often it's literally just a Gildan shirt with a print on it and 500% markup.

@quad @lanodan I've seen some tests of shirts and some of the more expensive brands did tend to have better quality. But that says very little about worker conditions, of course.

@besserwisser @lanodan Quality is fine. I prefer thick 100% cotton shirts anyways, so I mostly buy 205g/m² T-shirts, the thicker fabric makes the shirts more duable too by brute-force. Although the stitching might still be a bit bad, even Gildan stiching I've never had an issue with except having to cut off a loose thread here or there.

And yes, every single company claims to make their T-shirts ethically but there's typically zero proof besides a "trust me bro" webpage telling you how much they care.

@quad @lanodan There are several brands which provide "blanks" for other companies to print on. Gildan is the most popular one because they're the cheapest but I don't know if any of the other options are better.

@besserwisser @lanodan Frankly the main problem I've had with other brands is that they try to do fancy "fits".

I don't get it, they all seem to make T-shirts with overly broad shoulders and "hourglass' like shapes. Gildan's T-shirts are pretty much just a square with two tubes at the top for your arms.

I like how they're "just a square". Other brands I've tried throughout the years usually simply cost more yet fit worse.

@besserwisser @lanodan I CAN find a blank T-shirt that claims to for example be made in France.

But why the fuck does it need to have this "sport" shape or whatever? Just give me a square with armholes like gildan does please

@quad @lanodan I would expect hourglass shapes for women's t-shirt. But yeah, I would just like a simple shape, good quality and made without literal slave labor. Not even asking for cheap, I'm willing to compromise on the price here.

@besserwisser @lanodan I don't know how it is in other countries, but here in Norway every bloody T-shirt has these weird shapes. I thought beauty standards were and issue women had to deal with, not us.

Every single T-shirt typically has overly board shoulders, and sometimes a loose chest, almost as if they think you have breasts. Sometimes they're looser along the bottom as well but not always.

@quad @lanodan There's probably some overlap between people who want a t-shirt made in France and who want that specific shape. But somehow I doubt they're actually "built differently" and this somehow fits them better.

@besserwisser @lanodan I think that's part of it. Part of the problem with fashion is that people who want to pay anything but the bare minimum usually do it for clout, not quality (even though they claim it's for quality).

Although for the fast fashion brands I think it's even simpler. I think they just produce unisex T-shirts even though they're labled as men's T-shirts. They likely get Unisex T-shirts, then they're sorted as female or male depending on stuff like colors and prints.

Hance why male T-shirts have a weird shape as if they were designed to fit on women as well.

Because buying 2 million unisex shirts from a factory is cheaper than 1 million men's shirts and 1 million women's shirts. Gotta maximize that profit margin.

@besserwisser @lanodan Of course the problem with a unisex shirt is the same as every other 2-in-1, it just means it fits on both but fits well on neither

@quad @lanodan Ah, now the hourglass figure makes sense. At some point I should do some actual research on this. Last time I did, I just eventually gave up.

@besserwisser @lanodan Yeah, at least if I was a greedy fast fasion owner that's what I would do. If it lets me save $0.10 per shirt that's decent bump to the profit margin.

I first moved out and had to buy my own clothes in 2015. While stuff like pants and underwear was no problem, for whatever reason I quickly realized that every T-shirt out there had a weird af fit, especially for someone like me who is slightly overweight.

By 2017 I gave up and just started ordering my T-shirts from outside the country. After going through different blank brands for a year or so I realized that Gildan were pretty much the only ones making a T-shirt which was genuinely just a square with straight sides, and the fit was amazing. They're not even that cheap to me, buying Gildan shirts costs me about the same as shirts at local fast fasion or sport outlet stores.

Hence why I just order Gildan shirts in bulk, it's because they have a "regular" fit rather than whatever every other brand seems to be doing.

@quad @besserwisser Reminds me that some shirts for me can end up tight on the chest so sometimes I get a more loose one…

So I've like the opposite problem.

@lanodan @besserwisser Well it's not like most people are actually average, that's not how it work.

But you'd think that these "regular" t-shirts they sell would at least fit most people who aren't extreme outliers

@quad @lanodan I'm not really overweight, so I guess it wouldn't make that much difference for me. Most t-shirts I have are baggy enough they don't have to be a perfect fit anyway. Must be because I buy them in XL anyway because I'm tall, so I get the shirts which are for bigger people anyway.

@besserwisser @lanodan I'm 191cm. I could wear gildan shirts that are 2XL, but i tend to buy 3XL because i like my t-shirts to fit very loose.

@quad @besserwisser Yeah and like personally I'd be fine going in the women's section if I wanted a fitting t-shirt.

@lanodan @besserwisser Maybe T-shirts should just be grouped by fit instead of sex tbh.

@quad @besserwisser Yeah quite like jeans where you have slim, straight, bell among others.

@lanodan @besserwisser every brand just has their own "classic fit" and it seems to always be wrong