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blows my mind that video conferencing software with such low switching costs can be worth so much.

timcederman 8y ago
Have you seen their fully integrated video conference systems for meeting rooms? Or their scheduling integration (e.g. Calendly)? They are the first company to truly solve remote meeting and calendaring for me without any gotchas.
- alexcnwy 8y ago
  I haven’t but I recently used their video conferencing software on calls with 40+ people and it was really buggy. All of those things sound great and important but there are many competitors who also do those and again, the switching costs for the user are low. Meeting room support and scheduling integration don’t sound like they justify the massive valuation but I’m totally open to the possibility that I just don’t “get it”.
yingw787 8y ago
The cost to switching is low until you lose an enterprise sale because your video teleconferencing software sucks.
- alexcnwy 8y ago
  I understand that and perhaps it justifies the valuation but it blows my mind that in 2019 there isn’t an open source solution that works just as well (or better - again, Zoom is buggy) and is easy to deploy and control yoursef. I know the same could be said for many public companies but that doesn’t change my feeling that they many of them are overvalued and overrated.
  - yingw787 8y ago
    I got that feeling when I first started off working, it goes away once you see how the sausage gets made. I think this is a good blog post describing the scale of the problem: https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/ https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/
temp129838 8y ago
I don't think their value is in having a "moat", per se. It's just that despite the plethora of options most still suck for whatever reason and based on experience they seem to provide a better experience than google, cisco, blue jeans, etc.
- alexcnwy 8y ago
  I think you’re right - it’s just surprising that 50 years after humankind put someone on the moon (allegedly lol) we still can’t get video conferencing right. I know it’s a hard problem but is it really that hard?

Have you seen their fully integrated video conference systems for meeting rooms? Or their scheduling integration (e.g. Calendly)? They are the first company to truly solve remote meeting and calendaring for me without any gotchas.

alexcnwy 8y ago
I haven’t but I recently used their video conferencing software on calls with 40+ people and it was really buggy. All of those things sound great and important but there are many competitors who also do those and again, the switching costs for the user are low. Meeting room support and scheduling integration don’t sound like they justify the massive valuation but I’m totally open to the possibility that I just don’t “get it”.

yingw787 8y ago

The cost to switching is low until you lose an enterprise sale because your video teleconferencing software sucks.

alexcnwy 8y ago
I understand that and perhaps it justifies the valuation but it blows my mind that in 2019 there isn’t an open source solution that works just as well (or better - again, Zoom is buggy) and is easy to deploy and control yoursef. I know the same could be said for many public companies but that doesn’t change my feeling that they many of them are overvalued and overrated.
- yingw787 8y ago
  I got that feeling when I first started off working, it goes away once you see how the sausage gets made. I think this is a good blog post describing the scale of the problem: https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/ https://danluu.com/sounds-easy/

temp129838 8y ago

I don't think their value is in having a "moat", per se. It's just that despite the plethora of options most still suck for whatever reason and based on experience they seem to provide a better experience than google, cisco, blue jeans, etc.

alexcnwy 8y ago
I think you’re right - it’s just surprising that 50 years after humankind put someone on the moon (allegedly lol) we still can’t get video conferencing right. I know it’s a hard problem but is it really that hard?