6 ms·

It's disappointing to see a company that has better tech than its rivals playing these games. I have been singing Zoom's praises, but this really makes me want

by devin 7y ago

It's disappointing to see a company that has better tech than its rivals playing these games. I have been singing Zoom's praises, but this really makes me want to look elsewhere. What a bummer.

mulmen 7y ago
Zoom has always been shady as hell. Between the ridiculous web server on MacOS, web client anti-patterns and other endless nonsense the only explanation for their popularity is good marketing.
- AlphaSite 7y ago
  I dont know, their competitors are probably the reason for their popularity. It’s definitely a space with a lack of genuinely UX focused competitors.
  - mulmen 7y ago
    Sure but that’s kind of like saying Wells Fargo has competitive interest rates. The advertised product isn’t the problem. It’s everything they make you take along with it.
- netflixandkill 7y ago
  The explanation for their popularity is that it isn't a constant struggle to use zoom for meetings. Their software may have other problems, but people can run it and get into a meeting with minimal effort. Yesterday by comparison half the people on a Skype meeting had to dial into an audio bridge with their cell phones because their computer audio didn't work for no fucking reason, and screen sharing kept lagging unless restarted every so often. The good marketing for zoom is that webex is awful.
  - Loughla 7y ago
    >The good marketing for zoom is that webex is awful. 100% this. We switched to zoom as stay home orders came out. And only because it worked 100% every time, with little to no fiddling. The non-tech literate employees at my place are patting themselves on the back for being able to set up and host a zoom meeting. Because it's one button. And that's why they're used so much. They are the literal definition of it just works. People aren't worried about anything else right now.
    - dexterdog 7y ago
      I would never call them "just works." I had it completely lock up my macbook (no mouse movement or anything until it finally black screened) on joining a conference this afternoon. No program has done that to me in the past year.
- bloopernova 7y ago
  I think it's more incompetence on the part of their engineers. Engineers code shitty apps to fill requirements. Lie to project/product managers about what is complete, or have a "good enough" attitude. Managers communicate to marketing that Zoom is end to end encrypted.
mtthwn 7y ago
Honest question, what do you find is better about zoom? Compared to webex, skype, slack call… What do people like about zoom?
- DangerousPie 7y ago
  Video/sound quality is much better than any alternative I have tried. You can see video from up to 25 (or even more now?) people at the same time. It's easy for people to set it up and join meetings. Easy to share screens/audio.
  - extra88 7y ago
    I think seeing up to 25 people in Gallery view is the default but there's a checkbox to enable seeing up to 49 people. Schools like it because it can handle hundreds of participants in a single meeting and you can pay for extras to handle over a thousand.
- johannes1234321 7y ago
  It works. I tried multiple other tools over time, zoom was the first one where all attendees had it working on all systems without problems.
  - cosmodisk 7y ago
    Second this.I used to use Skype back in the day and even with astronomical Internet at the time it used be painful. Zoom managed to pull it off somehow.
- slgeorge 7y ago
  It works. 1. It's actually cross-platform: - Still can't use Webex across Linux, Windows and Mac in 2020. - Same goes for Skype, plus half the users who have Skype don't realise it's Linc and the two are completely different. 2. It's far more bandwidth efficient than things like Slack. The codecs are much more resilient, this applies (from what I can tell) to all the embedded options that are just using the browser. 3. It's going to be around. - Google Hangouts has previously been renamed and deprioritised. They also dropped their low-bandwidth codecs and cpu usage went through the roof in my personal experience. I'm unclear on some of the items against Zoom. But there's a lot of hate and emotion around it in the last 10 days - my sense is that some people have an axe to grind - I'm always cautious of a crowd with pitchforks.

by devin 7y ago

It's disappointing to see a company that has better tech than its rivals playing these games. I have been singing Zoom's praises, but this really makes me want to look elsewhere. What a bummer.

mulmen 7y ago

Zoom has always been shady as hell. Between the ridiculous web server on MacOS, web client anti-patterns and other endless nonsense the only explanation for their popularity is good marketing.

AlphaSite 7y ago
I dont know, their competitors are probably the reason for their popularity. It’s definitely a space with a lack of genuinely UX focused competitors.
- mulmen 7y ago
  Sure but that’s kind of like saying Wells Fargo has competitive interest rates. The advertised product isn’t the problem. It’s everything they make you take along with it.
netflixandkill 7y ago
The explanation for their popularity is that it isn't a constant struggle to use zoom for meetings. Their software may have other problems, but people can run it and get into a meeting with minimal effort. Yesterday by comparison half the people on a Skype meeting had to dial into an audio bridge with their cell phones because their computer audio didn't work for no fucking reason, and screen sharing kept lagging unless restarted every so often. The good marketing for zoom is that webex is awful.
- Loughla 7y ago
  >The good marketing for zoom is that webex is awful. 100% this. We switched to zoom as stay home orders came out. And only because it worked 100% every time, with little to no fiddling. The non-tech literate employees at my place are patting themselves on the back for being able to set up and host a zoom meeting. Because it's one button. And that's why they're used so much. They are the literal definition of it just works. People aren't worried about anything else right now.
  - dexterdog 7y ago
    I would never call them "just works." I had it completely lock up my macbook (no mouse movement or anything until it finally black screened) on joining a conference this afternoon. No program has done that to me in the past year.
bloopernova 7y ago
I think it's more incompetence on the part of their engineers. Engineers code shitty apps to fill requirements. Lie to project/product managers about what is complete, or have a "good enough" attitude. Managers communicate to marketing that Zoom is end to end encrypted.

mtthwn 7y ago

Honest question, what do you find is better about zoom? Compared to webex, skype, slack call… What do people like about zoom?

DangerousPie 7y ago
Video/sound quality is much better than any alternative I have tried. You can see video from up to 25 (or even more now?) people at the same time. It's easy for people to set it up and join meetings. Easy to share screens/audio.
- extra88 7y ago
  I think seeing up to 25 people in Gallery view is the default but there's a checkbox to enable seeing up to 49 people. Schools like it because it can handle hundreds of participants in a single meeting and you can pay for extras to handle over a thousand.
johannes1234321 7y ago
It works. I tried multiple other tools over time, zoom was the first one where all attendees had it working on all systems without problems.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Second this.I used to use Skype back in the day and even with astronomical Internet at the time it used be painful. Zoom managed to pull it off somehow.
slgeorge 7y ago
It works. 1. It's actually cross-platform: - Still can't use Webex across Linux, Windows and Mac in 2020. - Same goes for Skype, plus half the users who have Skype don't realise it's Linc and the two are completely different. 2. It's far more bandwidth efficient than things like Slack. The codecs are much more resilient, this applies (from what I can tell) to all the embedded options that are just using the browser. 3. It's going to be around. - Google Hangouts has previously been renamed and deprioritised. They also dropped their low-bandwidth codecs and cpu usage went through the roof in my personal experience. I'm unclear on some of the items against Zoom. But there's a lot of hate and emotion around it in the last 10 days - my sense is that some people have an axe to grind - I'm always cautious of a crowd with pitchforks.