When Google launched Cardboard in 2014 it surprised us with a simple, accesible way to enjoy Virtual Reality experiences. The experiment allowed everybody to experiment and get that first impressions with this kind of content. You didn’t have to invest a lot of money in some previous version of Oculus Rift to marvel at these virtual worlds: you could spend $10 dollars and feel that promise.

Google Cardboard democratized Virtual Reality.

Everything has changed with Google Daydream, the updated version of that first device that is radically different from the original idea. Whereas Cardboard was open to everybody and every device, Daydream is at the moment closed to just two smartphones: Pixel and Pixel XL.

The price goes up as well, and we don’t know for sure what are the specs needed by other hardware makers in order to make their smartphones Daydream compatible. The problem is, there’s no backwards compatibility, so what in the past was accesible to everyone now is just available to a few users.

So Daydream maybe a better product with a better build quality and maybe better content —still no killer app, it seems—, but it no longer democratizes Virtual Reality. Daydream instead goes the other way around..

And that’s a tragedy.