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Google products ( and other tech company products ) are discontinued when they don't take off. Meet has a 100 million daily call participants. And really with

Google products ( and other tech company products ) are discontinued when they don't take off. Meet has a 100 million daily call participants. And really with video conferencing product, I don't get the whole trope of "but they might discontinue it." - the utility is immediate in terms of the calls that you make with it, and time boxed till by when a call ends.

brynjolf 6y ago
Reader?
pfranz 6y ago
There's also the product "treadmill" for chat and video apps that Google and Microsoft have had over the past handful of years. There is buy-in even for a chat app. I often have to shuffle browsers, may or may not have to install something, have to judge if the other person is interested in trying new software. Does everyone have a Google account? If I'm joining someone else's meeting, what's the process? Is there a meeting id? Password? URL? I think "mental space" is quite appropriate.
- eitally 6y ago
  Joining a Meet meeting is easy, just like joining a Teams meeting is easy. Both are much, much easier than Webex & Zoom, which irritate with attempts at forcing client software installation.
  - robertony 6y ago
    Not really... You have to log out of one account, then login to the other; but then you need to use 2fa; but now 2fa is mad about something and making you jump through hoops while people are getting angry you aren't showing up as scheduled...
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      It sounds like you aren't taking advantage of browser profiles properly. I have two Google accounts, one personal and one for work, and they live in two separate Chrome profiles, both of which are always open. On MacOS the shortcut for switching between the two windows (when both are open) is command-`
      - olyjohn 6y ago
        That's totally missing the point. You shouldn't have to have browser profiles to call somebody on a video app. Most people don't even know how to use them.
        koheripbal 6y ago
        You don't have to - there's an account switcher in the top right on all Google products. Is it somehow missing on Meet?
        CydeWeys 6y ago
        The browser profiles are quite necessary for dealing with every other Google product too. Every day I'm using Gmail, Meet, Docs, Sheets, Drive, Keep, YouTube, Search, and more. If I was trying to do this all in one profile I'd be logging out and logging in dozens of times per day. This isn't unique to Google; it applies to any kind of single sign on with lots of different products. You're always better off maintaining separate browser profiles so you can seamlessly switch between them than forcing everything into a single profile and endlessly logging out and logging in on all these different sites. I used to do this with Facebook too back when I was using a different account for work development. And there's also the "poor man's" version of this which even many non-technical users know about, which is to use Chrome for one account and Firefox for another.
  - pfranz 6y ago
    I /used/ to prefer stuff built into the browser, but after years of pain I greatly prefer standalone software for a/v stuff. When Firefox transitioned their plugin format they dropped support for over a year (after receiving more than a year of deprecation warning). At the time it require a separate installed plugin (which defeats most of the purpose of integrating with the browser). Safari support has also been spotty. I really hate Google's account system. I don't even use Google, but find myself juggling 4 or 5 accounts for work, school, family. If I go to `classroom.google.com` I get a "Verify it's you <account I don't intend to use>". I'm expected to click "Next" and click a few more times before I can select the right account. I don't have direct experience with Teams (I assume it's similar to Google). Being all-in is clearly the easiest solution--using it every day, having it as your only video solution, having an account and staying signed in. The annoyance is the friction that it can't be your only solution and when it's one of many there's a lot of mental energy to jump through the hoops. Zoom does have a web version and the native app is almost inappropriately too easy to install. Joining a video chat just means having a meeting ID or clicking a URL.
jedberg 6y ago
> And really with video conferencing product, I don't get the whole trope of "but they might discontinue it." - the utility is immediate in terms of the calls that you make with it, and time boxed till by when a call ends. Not true at all. I have a bunch of recurring meetings in my calendar, and each one has a Zoom link in it. If I wanted to switch to Meet, I'd have to redo each of those invites with a new link, and then hope everyone noticed the update. They won't, so I'll spend the first few weeks individually pinging people reminding them of the new conference software, and then waiting 10 minutes for them to download, install, and configure it before joining us. And then if I decide to switch back, I get to do it all over again.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  > Not true at all. I have a bunch of recurring meetings in my calendar, and each one has a Zoom link in it. If I wanted to switch to Meet, I'd have to redo each of those invites with a new link, and then hope everyone noticed the update. If you use Google Calendar, I believe a Meet link is automatically added by default. > They won't, so I'll spend the first few weeks individually pinging people reminding them of the new conference software, and then waiting 10 minutes for them to download, install, and configure it before joining us. That doesn't make sense. Meet is done exclusively through the web browser. > And then if I decide to switch back, I get to do it all over again. What stops you from having both so you can try both? Those Zoom links aren't obsolete the moment you add a Meet link.
  - La1n 6y ago
    >Those Zoom links aren't obsolete the moment you add a Meet link. You should edit them out though, otherwise you are going to have people click the link they always used to click.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    > If you use Google Calendar, I believe a Meet link is automatically added by default. For a new event, yes. For an existing event, I'd have to replace the existing Zoom link. > That doesn't make sense. Meet is done exclusively through the web browser. You're assuming the person I want to meet with already has a Google account. > What stops you from having both so you can try both? Those Zoom links aren't obsolete the moment you add a Meet link. Because of the confusion I mentioned before. You'll end up with some people in the old meeting and some in the new. I speak all of this from experience of being in a corporate environment that moved from WebEx to Hangouts. It took weeks to get everyone to switch over and was a ton of work updating all the recurring meetings. But the overall point is that the switching cost is much higher than just the time boxed meeting.

brynjolf 6y ago

Reader?

pfranz 6y ago

There's also the product "treadmill" for chat and video apps that Google and Microsoft have had over the past handful of years. There is buy-in even for a chat app. I often have to shuffle browsers, may or may not have to install something, have to judge if the other person is interested in trying new software. Does everyone have a Google account? If I'm joining someone else's meeting, what's the process? Is there a meeting id? Password? URL? I think "mental space" is quite appropriate.

eitally 6y ago
Joining a Meet meeting is easy, just like joining a Teams meeting is easy. Both are much, much easier than Webex & Zoom, which irritate with attempts at forcing client software installation.
- robertony 6y ago
  Not really... You have to log out of one account, then login to the other; but then you need to use 2fa; but now 2fa is mad about something and making you jump through hoops while people are getting angry you aren't showing up as scheduled...
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    It sounds like you aren't taking advantage of browser profiles properly. I have two Google accounts, one personal and one for work, and they live in two separate Chrome profiles, both of which are always open. On MacOS the shortcut for switching between the two windows (when both are open) is command-`
    - olyjohn 6y ago
      That's totally missing the point. You shouldn't have to have browser profiles to call somebody on a video app. Most people don't even know how to use them.
      - koheripbal 6y ago
        You don't have to - there's an account switcher in the top right on all Google products. Is it somehow missing on Meet?
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        The browser profiles are quite necessary for dealing with every other Google product too. Every day I'm using Gmail, Meet, Docs, Sheets, Drive, Keep, YouTube, Search, and more. If I was trying to do this all in one profile I'd be logging out and logging in dozens of times per day. This isn't unique to Google; it applies to any kind of single sign on with lots of different products. You're always better off maintaining separate browser profiles so you can seamlessly switch between them than forcing everything into a single profile and endlessly logging out and logging in on all these different sites. I used to do this with Facebook too back when I was using a different account for work development. And there's also the "poor man's" version of this which even many non-technical users know about, which is to use Chrome for one account and Firefox for another.
- pfranz 6y ago
  I /used/ to prefer stuff built into the browser, but after years of pain I greatly prefer standalone software for a/v stuff. When Firefox transitioned their plugin format they dropped support for over a year (after receiving more than a year of deprecation warning). At the time it require a separate installed plugin (which defeats most of the purpose of integrating with the browser). Safari support has also been spotty. I really hate Google's account system. I don't even use Google, but find myself juggling 4 or 5 accounts for work, school, family. If I go to `classroom.google.com` I get a "Verify it's you <account I don't intend to use>". I'm expected to click "Next" and click a few more times before I can select the right account. I don't have direct experience with Teams (I assume it's similar to Google). Being all-in is clearly the easiest solution--using it every day, having it as your only video solution, having an account and staying signed in. The annoyance is the friction that it can't be your only solution and when it's one of many there's a lot of mental energy to jump through the hoops. Zoom does have a web version and the native app is almost inappropriately too easy to install. Joining a video chat just means having a meeting ID or clicking a URL.

jedberg 6y ago

> And really with video conferencing product, I don't get the whole trope of "but they might discontinue it." - the utility is immediate in terms of the calls that you make with it, and time boxed till by when a call ends. Not true at all. I have a bunch of recurring meetings in my calendar, and each one has a Zoom link in it. If I wanted to switch to Meet, I'd have to redo each of those invites with a new link, and then hope everyone noticed the update. They won't, so I'll spend the first few weeks individually pinging people reminding them of the new conference software, and then waiting 10 minutes for them to download, install, and configure it before joining us. And then if I decide to switch back, I get to do it all over again.

cameronbrown 6y ago
> Not true at all. I have a bunch of recurring meetings in my calendar, and each one has a Zoom link in it. If I wanted to switch to Meet, I'd have to redo each of those invites with a new link, and then hope everyone noticed the update. If you use Google Calendar, I believe a Meet link is automatically added by default. > They won't, so I'll spend the first few weeks individually pinging people reminding them of the new conference software, and then waiting 10 minutes for them to download, install, and configure it before joining us. That doesn't make sense. Meet is done exclusively through the web browser. > And then if I decide to switch back, I get to do it all over again. What stops you from having both so you can try both? Those Zoom links aren't obsolete the moment you add a Meet link.
- La1n 6y ago
  >Those Zoom links aren't obsolete the moment you add a Meet link. You should edit them out though, otherwise you are going to have people click the link they always used to click.
- jedberg 6y ago
  > If you use Google Calendar, I believe a Meet link is automatically added by default. For a new event, yes. For an existing event, I'd have to replace the existing Zoom link. > That doesn't make sense. Meet is done exclusively through the web browser. You're assuming the person I want to meet with already has a Google account. > What stops you from having both so you can try both? Those Zoom links aren't obsolete the moment you add a Meet link. Because of the confusion I mentioned before. You'll end up with some people in the old meeting and some in the new. I speak all of this from experience of being in a corporate environment that moved from WebEx to Hangouts. It took weeks to get everyone to switch over and was a ton of work updating all the recurring meetings. But the overall point is that the switching cost is much higher than just the time boxed meeting.