Oculus Creator and Reddit Co-Founder Appreciate the Joys of “Tech Nostalgia”
At a recent CES event, the creators of Oculus and Reddit, Palmer Luckey and Alexis Ohanian, held a joint talk on “tech nostalgia.” Despite being founders of a virtual reality company and a social media platform, they both expressed a longing for the days of dial-up, insisting that things used to be better. However, they weren’t necessarily criticizing the technology itself, but rather the aesthetics of it. Luckey even expressed his support for AI, stating that it was changing workflows for the better. Their contention was that vintage consumer technology products are superior to today’s ones, and that the styles and shapes of the past will define the future of technology.
“It’s not just about nostalgia for the old; it’s about the fact that it’s just objectively better,” Ohanian said, referring to some older products. Luckey, who also reminisced about the first-person shooter game, Quake: Arena from 1999, expressed his admiration for old-school media. He mentioned the intentionality involved in creating a music library, either by creating whole albums or mixtapes, and how this is being lost in the age of endless downloads.
The Resurgence of Retro Designs and Physical Media
Luckey also observed that young people are showing an interest in periods that they don’t personally remember or have a connection to. He suggested that the youth perceive some old stuff as simply better. With nostalgia permeating daily life and media – from Hollywood’s reimagining of the 1980s to the resurgence of vinyl and cassette collections – it seems that Luckey and Ohanian may have a point. The Clicks Communicator, a new low-tech device with a retro design that debuted at CES, is just one example of this trend.
Given the direction of consumer interests, the duo’s enthusiasm for vintage technology could be a promising business strategy. If there is a sense of nostalgia among Americans, why not monetize it?
ModRetro Chromatic: A Nostalgic Business Venture
Luckey has already capitalized on this trend with his 2024 project, ModRetro Chromatic. The device, reminiscent of the Game Boy, costs $199 and plays classic cartridges from the 1990s. It has been hailed as “the best ever made” of its kind. At the CES event, Ohanian proudly displayed a ModRetro unit to the audience, expressing his own desire to create a vintage-style game.
There were several colorful moments in the conference, with Luckey admitting he used a fake ID to attend CES when he was just 16, even though the entry age is 18. He shared this to the amusement of the audience, recalling how he pretended to work for a company exhibiting at the event.
Anduril: A High-Tech Defense Startup
But it’s not all fun and games. Luckey has been largely focused on his defense startup, Anduril, since 2017. After a Series G fundraising round, the company’s valuation reached $30.5 billion. Recently, the company collaborated with Meta on helmets for the US military.
Towards the end of the event, Luckey briefly discussed foreign policy, admitting that he was part of the problem by manufacturing his products in China. He stated, “Geopolitically, the United States and China are divorcing; it’s a complicated divorce – and if people think it’s going to end in reconciliation, they’re blind.”
Whether it’s through nostalgic tech design or cutting-edge defense technology, Luckey and Ohanian are shaping the future of the tech industry in their own ways. It’s a testament to their belief that the past can inform the future, a belief that is increasingly being reflected in consumer trends.
Source: Here
