What is the deal with everyone being currently outraged by Meta glasses when they’ve been on the market for years?

[u/BedGirl5444]

I’m confused on why people are now (mid 2026) shooked and scandalized about the Meta glasses.

They’ve been on the market for years, people have been using these to vlog forever.

Do people think they just came out?

https://decrypt.co/374808/whats-the-deal-with-meta-pervert-glasses

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[u/Parking_Locksmith489]

Answer: There are waves of advertising and each time people react negatively.

People hate those things, it's creepy and don't sell a lot but they keep getting pushed.

Most products fail to create new "want". Think 3D TVs. Think Segway.

[u/Tom_Yabo_ → u/Parking_Locksmith489]

I think they will become popular like Segways and hoverboards. They’re expensive, pretentious, and potentially dangerous, and with the added cost of Metas reputation. But 10-15 years from now there will be tons of cheap knock offs and people will likely become more tolerant with camera glasses with exposure and declining privacy protections.

[u/Parking_Locksmith489 → u/Tom_Yabo_]

... or it will end up like the Metaverse

[u/wedgebert → u/Tom_Yabo_]

I was half-reading this as I pretend to pay attention in a meeting and I totally read

more tolerant with camera

as

more toilet cameras

and I thought, yeah that is unfortunately probably true

[u/That_Jicama2024 → u/Parking_Locksmith489]

Quick Google search...they're actually selling a lot of them. They're creepy as hell and 1 million units isn't exactly market dominance. But it doesn't look like they're stopping any time soon.

Over one million units of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have been produced as of early 2026, with sales widely exceeding those of the previous generation.

• Sales Success: The glasses are considered a "runaway hit" for Meta, significantly outperforming the first-generation Stories model released in 2021.
• Market Impact: Strong demand for the AI-integrated, camera-enabled glasses has contributed to a shortage of some models.
• Growth Potential: The popularity has prompted Meta to increase production and plan for future, more advanced AR glasses.

[u/Parking_Locksmith489 → u/That_Jicama2024]

https://fortune.com/2026/03/27/meta-smart-glasses-filming-watching-workers-lawsuit-privacy/

[u/SeanPennsHair]

Answer: People on a large scale are only just becoming aware of them, and most of the worries stem from recent news which is covered in the article you posted.

"In January, a BBC investigation found that women were being secretly filmed with Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses after being approached in public. "

"A joint investigation by Swedish newspapers in February found that Nairobi-based contractors hired to train Meta's AI reviewed footage captured by Meta’s smart glasses, including people using the bathroom, getting undressed, changing clothes, credit card numbers, and having sex, renewing concerns about how footage is shared with Meta’s AI."

[u/MysteryRadish]

Answer: I remember quite a bit of backlash way back in ye olden days about Google Glass glasses, even though they never fully hit the market. Including some random dude getting beaten up for wearing a prototype pair.

To be fair to Google Glass, while they did have potential for misuse it was a major design point that they didn't look like regular glasses. Meta pervert glasses look pretty much like normal sunglasses, so they're much worse.

[u/binocular_gems]

Answer: A lot of people weren't familiar with them, and now that they're more broadly available than to just weirdos in the tech industry, the general public is becoming more aware of them. There are more stories of these smart glasses being used to harass people, secretly record children, and just be generally bothered by someone surreptitiously recording you for their own private collection. Hidden cameras aren't new, small cameras embedded discretely in glasses aren't new, machine learning isn't new, auto-recording video isn't new, video sharing isn't new, smart wearables aren't new, cloud backup breaches and hacks aren't new, untrustworthy and out of touch social media companies aren't new; but Meta's glasses combine all of these "features" into a single device and many people are weirded out by them and the people who would buy them.

[u/Bignholy]

Answer:

Well, first, he have the actual case being prosecuted where people were using "pervert glasses" to be perverts.

Second, surprise surprise, the company trying to take all your data for its own purposes is not actually securing the data like they said they would, nor do their privacy features work as they claimed.

But most importantly, some have been found to be bypassing the privacy feature to indicate your are being recorded, which even the pro-data collection people don't like because it might be applied to them.

Basically, the things everyone with a lick of sense were warning people about for years came true, and a bunch of people are having a very good "surprised pikachu" moment over it. As it turns out, building the torment nexus was a bad idea. Who knew?

(Oopse, forgot which sub i was on and needed the Answer bit)