Virtual, augmented and mixed reality have a competition problem.

But while most AR/VR companies will tell you how much better they are than their closest direct competitor, they’re picking the wrong fight. The main event isn’t between Oculus, HTC, Sony, Samsung, and Google for VR, or Microsoft, Magic Leap, Meta, and ODG for AR (including mixed reality). There are much bigger and scarier competitors out there.

Status quo

Status quo is AR/VR’s biggest competitor (and I don’t mean the gang that opened life support).

People spend nearly 11 hours a day using electronic media. That means that of the average 79 years that people spend on the planet, more than 34 of them are dedicated to the media. What could be so fascinating that we spend almost half our lives on it?

TV (live and on-demand) accounts for 48 percent of media time, phone/tablet 20 percent, radio 18 percent, online computer 9 percent, and everything else 6 percent. And while most media is depressed, smartphones and tablets have done what was once thought impossible: increase the media market. Phone/tablet time has more than doubled to more than two hours a day in the last two years alone. And this biases even more strongly the younger you are. Old people who complain about young people glued to their phones aren’t just grumpy, they’re right.

So the bigger question is how does AR/VR compete with TVs, phones and tablets?

Everything else

And that’s not all.

While people choose to spend half their lives with electronic checkouts, they spend even more time doing things they can’t avoid. Work and sleep each take up nearly seven hours a day on average, which, when combined with media time, adds up to the full 24 hours it takes for the Earth to go around once.

There’s not much AR/VR can do about sleep, as even powerful mobiles haven’t broken that barrier. But what about work (and other aspects of life)? This is where the triumph of mobile has clear lessons for AR/VR, but also where VR and AR begin to diverge.

plurality rules

Keen eyes will have noticed that the 24 hours of media, sleep and work do not give time to eat, play sports, do housework, family, socialize, travel to work and other noble activities, which clearly some of us like to do. This is where plurality comes into play. He has been one of the main drivers of the success of mobile devices.

Plurality (or second screening in relation to television specifically) is where people do more than one thing at the same time. 87% of people use their phone, tablet, or (to a lesser extent) PC as a second screen while watching TV. Some would say that television has actually become the second screen, with people watching it while using their phones.

But that’s not all for plurality and mobile. The average person checks their phone more than 40 times a day (more than 70 times a day if they are younger). People eat, do chores, take care of family, socialize, travel, and more while wearing them. The smartphone is the first thing many people see as soon as they open their eyes in the morning (and other unspeakable things in the morning, hence waterproof phones).

Yes, yes, but what about virtual reality?

The beauty of virtual reality is its total immersion. That’s one of the reasons it will be big.

But virtual reality is all-consuming by nature, giving it a plurality challenge that mobile hasn’t met. Try walking down the street or meaningfully interacting with someone outside of your headset while in VR. And while you can make a second screen of your TV or smartphone with VR streaming, you’re still doing it within VR rather than the world around you.

So in terms of time, VR has to cannibalize one of the other demands of the allotted 24 hours a day. This is a difficult competition problem with mass consumers (so his grandfather and niece, not the main players). Virtual reality will have to knock something else off its pedestal to take up a lot of your time without the benefit of plurality. He’s fighting head-on with the status quo and everything else.

And RA?

AR has tougher technical challenges to solve than virtual reality, which is why it is currently targeting more forgiving business users and not mass consumers yet. But more aggressive AR roadmaps are rolling out to mass consumers in 2017 going into 2018 – so it’s just a matter of time.

When the consumer AR gets here, it will have the same competitive advantage that mobile had: plurality. In fact, AR could have an even bigger advantage over mobile devices.

No need to take it out of your pocket. Without looking down to check. No small screen to limit what you see. Nobody looks over your shoulder to see you playing Candy Crush at work. Don’t bump into things while checking WeChat.

And this is not just a guess. Have you ever seen a couple of kids walking down the street playing pokemon go together? Even with such a basic type of AR, its plurality is already well proven.

What about the competition within AR/VR?

AR/VR Leaders

The industry competition is even more exciting because, as of yet, no one is dominant anywhere in AR/VR. It is too early in the development of the market for anyone to dominate it yet. So while there is a healthy level of competition, everything is on the line and the rules are being written right now.

One of the nice things about seeing this from within the industry is that while people talk trash to each other, the community remains collaborative. There seems to be a good understanding that the better everyone does, the better everyone does (which is why our quarterly VR/AR CEO forum reality check you get hundreds of competing CEOs, corporate division heads, and venture capital partners making deals and working together).

So let the AR/VR competition begin. It will be great.