I like this idea. Discord has it for audio. Our fully-remote company pretty much uses zoom in a somewhat similar way. "Always-on" doesn't have to mean everyone

I like this idea. Discord has it for audio. Our fully-remote company pretty much uses zoom in a somewhat similar way. "Always-on" doesn't have to mean everyone is always in the room, it's simply an analogue of a physical meeting room or even an IRC channel directory. You can see who is currently in it and what the topic is (if there is one), and choose to hop in. That said, I would probably disable audio and video if I'm idling in a room I'm interested in until someone joins and starts talking. It's a video meeting channel directory. I think a lot of comments are focused exclusively on the "always-on" wording, which I feel misses the point.