I'm not saying video conferencing needs 4K 60fps video. I'm saying that 5Mbps might suffice for the shit quality video most laptops will generate, it's insuffic

I'm not saying video conferencing needs 4K 60fps video. I'm saying that 5Mbps might suffice for the shit quality video most laptops will generate, it's insufficient for the much better quality video even modest 1080p cameras will generate. Most laptops have terrible cameras. Their best output can be encoded at a few hundred Kbps and would be neigh indistinguishable from video captured by the same camera directly to disk. A good 720p or 1080p camera needs quite a bit more bandwidth to maintain good visual quality. If upstream bandwidth is constrained the software will dial back the visual quality to potato levels. For anyone that needs non-potato quality this is problematic. Cable Internet companies patting themselves on the back for handling a dozen potato streams is just sad. Not everyone is ok with such quality. In an online classroom setting, the students don't necessarily need great quality upstream video but the instructor trying to capture a white board or switch between live video and a detailed presentation does want that high quality upstream video. Video quality from streaming services is immaterial here. There's a lot of quality/bitrate tweaks that can be done with offline encoding that are not workable for real-time encoding.