Even though VR headsets are becoming cheaper and more advanced, till the point that some are cheaper than an average phone, personally, I think the reason why VR is pretty much a niche market is because most of its contents still rely on existing technologies added with a few tactics that have not offered the average user a major breakthrough in the way they experience the medium. As Murray quoted McLuhan, “the content of any new medium is an older medium”, from my experience with VR, I personally think that VR is on its way to become expressive. But for now, most experiences in VR, be it 360 videos, immersive video games, or virtual social network is somewhat more on the side of additiveness than expressiveness.
For example, Murray talked about how filmmakers have exploited the properties of film to cut scenes, change focus, create dramatic effects… and that resulted in a transformation of “photo-play” from a recording technology into an expressive medium. While there exists some 360 videos that use spatial sounds and unique perspectives that engage the users in a constant state of self-location and scene-navigation, the majority of them (and also happen to be the most accessible through traditional video streaming platforms like YouTube) are still shot with the same approach used in traditional film-making. The burden of having to move around the immersive world, in this case, is higher than the added benefit of a wider field of view that can be traditionally replicated by using multiple fish-eyes lenses.