Your story also describes my personal disillusionment with technology more generally. Not with just VR, but with technology in general.
All the time, I see ideas and technologies that have huge unrealized potential - they could be so much more - but they aren't, because they're being purposefully crippled by the companies who develop them, patent the shit out of them[0], and proceed to milk people for all they're worth using that tech. Everything is exploitative. And what about all that potential? Companies see it, alright - they wax about it in their marketing materials. Then they make sure it doesn't happen.
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[0] - While intended to protect from other alike competitors, this has a side effect of shutting off anyone who would like to develop technologies up to their potential.
I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my life, and the more I know about technology, the more apprehensive I am about working with it. However, I do also believe that those of us who feel this way have something of a responsibility to fight back a little, in whatever way we can.
Hopefully we can continue to keep a little space cleared of the FAANG's, and open for L/OSS. Or at least a neutral ground, where we can be reasonably sure that there isn't any nonsense going on.
I feel it too, the optimism has hit an organizational wall. I remember being worried about AOL’s take over of the internet and relieved when AOL went belly-up. I have the same worry about FANG and keep my fingers crossed that decentralization will replace them and they will go bankrupt from over-leveraging.
Employee ownership in companies has to get better. Direction has become so opaque, hidden, and now quite frankly tasteless and borderline tacky.
All the time, I see ideas and technologies that have huge unrealized potential - they could be so much more - but they aren't, because they're being purposefully crippled by the companies who develop them, patent the shit out of them[0], and proceed to milk people for all they're worth using that tech. Everything is exploitative. And what about all that potential? Companies see it, alright - they wax about it in their marketing materials. Then they make sure it doesn't happen.
--
[0] - While intended to protect from other alike competitors, this has a side effect of shutting off anyone who would like to develop technologies up to their potential.