Of course its going to be a mass market phenomenon. Its going to be a mass market phenomenon for the same reason the smart phone was a phenomenon. It takes the internet which in the smartphone's case was something you had to go seek out at a desktop or computer and put it in your pocket. It took a dopamine hit and put it in your pocket.
AR is the same thing, it takes the dopamine hit and puts it on your face. Subsequently you get a lot more dopamine hits.
Hmm. I like your argument, but the more I think about it, the more I disagree with it. :)
I think you're correct that the smartphone was a phenomenon because it put the internet in your pocket, but we already knew the use case for the internet. People use their smartphones to do everything computers do, and sometimes more: browse the web, read books, find restaurants, make reservations, get directions, use social media platforms, pay for purchases with NFC, listen to music and podcasts, manage their calendars, control their home entertainment systems, check the weather, (...deep breath)
Anyway: "Great dopamine hits, man" falls, I think, into the "necessary but not sufficient" bucket. AR needs to do that, but it needs to do more, too. I agree with "the smartphone was a phenomenon because it put the internet in your pocket," but I think we're still looking for the correct X and Y values of "AR will be a phenomenon because it puts [X] in your [Y]."
I think the gaming potential is huge, it would take games like Pokemon GO and turn them into something like Pokemon Stadium, or can you imagine playing Wizards Chess? Obviously gaming isn't something that makes something must have, its just the area I've thought the most about. I guess I have a hard time imagining that a tool as robust as AR(especially if you add leap motion) would fail to find a set of "killer apps" that make it a market phenomenon.
People often say "of course this is going to be a mass-market phenomenon". And sometimes they're right. But sometimes, it just doesn't happen. 3D TV is the obvious one, and right now I'd be guessing that VR is next on the line. Who knows what happens with AR at this point.
for me, being in tech my whole life and growing up solidly a nerd and in the cyberpunk culture of the 80s, when the iphone
hit, it was more of a sigh of relief of "ok finally we are making the steps into the cyberpunk future weve been fantasizing and thus building for decades"
it wasnt until the snowden stuff hit and all the current tech problems we have that the sentiment is "oh crap, the dystopian cyberpunk future is a heck of a lot more of a slippry slope than we were ready to deal with as a society"
People picked up SnapChat though, then used it to send really intimate content. Like I see your point, but I don't think consumers are that smart when they're getting dopamine hits.
AR is the same thing, it takes the dopamine hit and puts it on your face. Subsequently you get a lot more dopamine hits.