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Google is capping Meet’s group video calls to an hour for free accounts
- Snoddas 5y agoAnd noone was surprised
- factorialboy 5y ago1 hour unlimited participants group video call is fair. Google is a business and Meet must justify it's investment. I am vary of BigCorpGoogleApple as much as the next HNer, but this seems fair to me. Or perhaps my expectations were so low anticipating another product shut down ;)
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y agoCan’t wait till I have to click “skip ads” twice during a meeting.
- demarq 5y agothe fun part is when the group call is interrupted by an ad based of a participants browsing habits "30% of our special ointment just for you!"
- charcircuit 5y agoWe have the technology to run different ads for each person.
- throwaways885 5y agohttps://goomics.net/335/ https://goomics.net/335/
- da_big_ghey 5y agoSay "McDonald's!" to end commercial. https://old.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/7k6v05/sony_patent_yell_a_brand_name_at_your_tv_to_skip/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/7k6v05/son...
- ajot 5y agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/1ggg4u/please_drink_a_verification_can/ https://old.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/1ggg4u/please_drink_...
- to11mtm 5y ago"Google Fi, Listen to my badly rhythmed jingle. Using buzzwords from a corporate meeting!"
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- WhyNotHugo 5y agoZoom is pretty close, they require lots of training data (captcha) to join each meeting.
- heavenlyblue 5y agoMaybe Google should get a huge fine or be split for being a monopoly that uses it's market position to under-price the actual cost of providing services such as e-mail, video calls, etc. If Google wasn't dumping prices this way there would already be great alternative services that provide this, but it's hard for someone else to have a selling point when there's a huge conglomerate basically providing this service for free. I would say generally I am happy where this is going. The more Google makes decisions like these the more opportunities there are for customers to learn what they are actually "paying" for and they would be more willing to give away money for a better service.
- tallanvor 5y agoFor a relatively low cost you can already get an account from Zoom, WebEx, or the like for a low price. Microsoft even offers options through Skype (although it's limited to 100 people and the calls are limited to 4 hours), and Teams Personal accounts also allow free calls with similar limits. Since these various services seem to be doing fine, it's hard to say there's a problem with competition in this space right now.
- bnt 5y ago100 people, 4 hours.. that’s not a call, that’s a conference.
- whatever_dude 5y agoYes but what about when we need all hands on deck to brainstorm synergy ideas Bob? Better call a meeting with everybody.
- anonymfus 5y agoSimilar vibes from that Brennan Lee Mulligan's Skype CEO impression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI0w_pwZY3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI0w_pwZY3E
- sundvor 5y agoSkype is all good and fun, until you just want to exit the application.
- only_as_i_fall 5y agoCharging is fair but the entire model of free service that turns into premium after a critical mass leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not sure how you could sensibly guard against this behavior but it seems anticompetitive.
- zinekeller 5y ago> Charging is fair but the entire model of free service that turns into premium after a critical mass leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It was clear that Meet for individuals' limits were waived due to COVID-19. They have done an announcement about lifting the limits and even stated that it was originally slated to end at September 30 last year. I was a bit surprised they extended it though.
- tyingq 5y agoPredatory pricing is the usual term.
- viztor 5y agoIn Google's defense, they aren't the market leader, that's zoom, they are the market challenger. So by definition, they can't be anti-competitive in the market of video conferencing tools, even though Google's otherwise enormous.
- nicoburns 5y agoYou can definitely be anti-competitive as a market challenger. Uber (with their subsidised fairs) would the obvious example of that.
- viztor 5y agoIf anything, Uber was competitive instead of anti-competitive. Anti-competitive by definition only applies to potential monopoly. see FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices
- nicoburns 5y agoThis is good. It's a sign that Google is actually moving Meet towards a sustainable business model.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoUntil they kill it, and replace it with a new chat/videocall product, again.
- cromka 5y agoI think what OP specifically meant is that it's a first they actually charge for a product like this, so your predicted outcome is less likely.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoThe problem with google killing and making new "same" products is not monetization, but internal power struggles, where noone wants to be just a maintainer, but every boss wants to be the one to bring a new product out, even if it essentially does the same thing as before.
- nicoburns 5y agoIt's at least partly about monetisation. Nobody is worried about Google discontinuing their search or ad businesses.
- deelowe 5y agoDiane is basically running the business now and the vision is fairly clear at his point. I doubt that will be happening for meet. Google is organizing itself around key verticals (websearch, cloud, media, office/collab, and devices). Meet is a key feature for their office suite.
- twentythree 5y agoDiane Greene left Google over two years ago.
- Laremere 5y agoFrom 2020-04-29: https://blog.google/products/meet/bringing-google-meet-to-more-people/ https://blog.google/products/meet/bringing-google-meet-to-mo... > Until now, Meet has only been available as part of G Suite, our collaboration and productivity solution for businesses, organizations and schools. Going forward, Meet will be available to anyone for free on the web at meet.google.com and via mobile apps for iOS or Android. > Meetings are limited to 60 minutes for the free product, though we won’t enforce this time limit until after Sept. 30. This is clearly stated as the intended policy at the launch of the free version. They temporarily lifted this restriction at launch due to COVID. They then delayed enforcing this restriction by ~9 months, because guessing the future of COVID was hard, especially in April 2020.
- m-p-3 5y agoThey also launched Google Workspace for Individuals in some countries, which grants access to unlimited Google Meet calls (and other perks) for a monthly fee as well.
- oauea 5y agoOh, it's only available in some countries? That explains why the docs reference options that don't exist!
- m-p-3 5y agohttps://blog.google/products/workspace/google-workspace-everyone/ https://blog.google/products/workspace/google-workspace-ever... > Workspace Individual is available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and coming soon to Australia.
- oauea 5y agoI signed up recently from NL and half of their signup flow was pushing me towards personal workspaces, but I never got the option to actually select them. Was very confusing.
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- zabhi 5y agoThey should have charged for this feature. People I know would have paid a bomb for a feature that put hard limits on call duration.
- danuker 5y agoIf it would be seen as a luxury service people might want to pay for it, in spite of it actually being cheaper for Google to supply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
- foobar33333 5y agoMake it part of google one. "Buy any google one storage plan and get google meet for free". At least then they can tie it to something people are used to paying for.
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoThe issue is nobody really read terms & conditions expecting that Meet will go the way all Google communication apps went. Now that it proved useful for some people, people are expecting that it will stay the way it made it useful. But it will not, limited free calls means less usage, and Google will eventually shut it down. It's funny that a company with unlimited resources can't be successful in creating something that is basically a commodity and a solved problem.
- wffurr 5y agoLimited to an hour is hardly "no free calls".
- londons_explore 5y agoHow many meetings go on more than an hour? Does the time limit really save Google much bandwidth/cpu/money? Is this just to prevent people who use it as a baby monitor? Or perhaps the limit is just to persuade people to start paying for Google Apps for your Worksuite?
- icebraining 5y ago> Or perhaps the limit is just to persuade people to start paying for Google Apps for your Worksuite? I'd say this is the case. Individuals might work around the limit, but companies will be persuaded to pay even if most meetings are under 1h.
- michaelt 5y agoEven if 99% of meetings are less than an hour, occasionally people will want to do two-hour pair programming sessions, all-day training courses, meetings where people can connect 15 minutes early to check their equipment works, and suchlike. A lot of people will pay $$$ to avoid needing something different for that 1% of their needs - just like people will choose a 300-mile-range electric car when 99% of their journeys are <100 miles.
- jon-wood 5y agoIn a company where everyone is working from home Meet is used for much more than meetings - we regularly use it for pair programming which can run all day, and product development workshops which are very hard to fit into a single hour. Way back when I even once used it as the only remote employee in an otherwise co-located office as a telepresence solution, with a constantly open call to the main office so that people didn't forget I existed (protip: don't be the only remote employee in a colocated company).
- benhurmarcel 5y agoI work in a large company and I very rarely see meetings that last less than 1 hour.
- simonswords82 5y agoI don't know a single person (personal or business) that uses Google Meet. I'm in the UK though - it it popular in the US or elsewhere?
- caturopath 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Meet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Meet claims (with citations) > During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the use of Meet grew by a factor of 30 between January and April 2020, with 100 million users a day accessing Meet, compared to 200 million daily uses for Zoom as of the last week of April 2020.
- simonswords82 5y agoThat's nuts - 100 million users and I don't see a single one. Crazy how enormous ecosystems can grow and still be outside of one's radar.
- cromka 5y agoWhat other product people in the UK use, then?
- simonswords82 5y agoFor business it's a pretty even split between Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Some still uses Skype for Business - which as you can imagine is a pretty awful experience. Note that we work with global financial services organisations with fairly strict infosec policies and antiquated architectures. For personal video calls it's Zoom, WhatsApp video or Facetime.
- cromka 5y agoHaving worked until recently for a European bank, they were still using Skype for Business, and I agreed it was a horrific experience. Naturally they now migrate to Microsoft Teams. I agree with others in this thread, however, that Meet is quite popular in US otherwise. I guess it's because pretty much everyone here has a GMail account, and it's super easy to get everyone join the meeting without any hassle.
- daniel_iversen 5y agoIs this maybe to lend a bump to their new 'Individual' Google Workspace Plan? [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27831735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27831735
- tolmasky 5y agoI’d pay extra to have my meetings capped to half an hour.
- aetherspawn 5y agoI’d pay extra to be absent and imitated by an AI perfectly trained to behave as me, based on the sheer amount of data they have on me already.
- Toutouxc 5y agoThis, but for my whole job :)
- qzw 5y agoIt'll work great until one day the AI responds to a simple question by regurgitating every line of dialogue Samuel L. Jackson ever spoke.
- bierjunge 5y agoPM: "Why did we miss the sprint commitment?" AI (in Samuel L. Jackson's voice): "Legacy code motherf****r" This could be awesome.
- iNane9000 5y agoBe careful what you wish for.
- Toutouxc 5y agoMy opinion is that if programmers are replaced by an AI, then almost everyone will be fucked too, so why stress.
- xenophonf 5y agoThe problem is that any AI able to perfectly imitate my behavior would also be me and doesn't want to be stuck in that meeting, either.
- staysaasy 5y agoUnlimited is a Ponzi Scheme https://staysaasy.com/product/2020/12/12/unlimitted.html https://staysaasy.com/product/2020/12/12/unlimitted.html
- asah 5y agoUgh, wish it were 70-75 minutes to account for meetings that run over... (Please no hate, I'm just being practical - high value conversation can happen in the final minutes and if participants aren't running off to another meeting, then it's best to just give them a few extra minutes)
- swhitf 5y agoEven a 60 minute cap is generous. If they made it 75 minutes why would anyone ever pay for it? The point of the cap is to be annoying enough to temp and upgrade without making the service unusable.
- Terretta 5y agoSet meetings for 50 minutes. Overrun problem solved.
- what_ever 5y agoIf you can't finish your meeting in 60 minutes, you won't finish it in 75. Set the meeting length to 55 minutes. Use the 5 minutes to take water/bathroom break before the next meeting.
- easton_s 5y agoThis is entirely due to the record meeting feature has been decimating their google drive infrastructure.
- singhrac 5y agoIf I can suggest a change to the title for clarity (and still remaining in the character limit): "Google is capping free Meet's formerly unlimited group calls to an hour". Not perfect but more clear.
- sib 5y ago"Google is implementing its previously-announced one-hour cap"
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoUnlimited time version is available if adsense ads, and voice & video recording with telemetry is permitted for all users. */S*
- crazypython 5y agoI use https://meet.jit.si https://meet.jit.si It's open-source, you don't need to sign-in, and in my experience it survives bad connections better than Google Meet.
- linsomniac 5y agoBeen a fan of Jitsi, but switched our group lunch meetings over to Meet a year ago because one coworker was having quality issues. Now that his entire network at home has been replaced (Ruckus AP, symmetric gigabit fiber ISP, AP moved to a better location), we're just on Meet because that's the URL we are in the habit of going to. We were hoping to have some of the Meet features to filter out background noise, but our old Google Business account is grandfathered in as free, but doesn't get those upgrades apparently.
- pgo 5y agoTry our free demo (uncapped for the near future) with collaborative plugins at demo.dyte.io (YC W21)
- dschuetz 5y agoI'm surprised anyone would ever want to use Google Meet, but now Google wants you to pay for it. Oh the irony.
- Taylor_OD 5y agoYeah they are no longer allowing unlimited time because covid seems to be coming to a close (or at least the USA is treating it like it is). It wasnt free before. I don't love the move but it's not surprising at all.
- iamgopal 5y agoCan’t there be just another meeting back to back ? After ending the first ?
- hamidchowdhury 5y agoVesy good
- dreyfan 5y agoZoom caps to 40 minutes and has an easy "upgrade now or this meeting will end" button. Very effective conversion tool.
- 0xbadcafebee 5y agoSo, about a year and a half until Meet is canned?
- WhompingWindows 5y agoGoogle Meets is not as good as Zoom for our major use case: multiple couples of family or friends, each with a laptop. If you try this with Google, at least when we used it, it didn't have multi-display: You could only see the "main group" talking, which might be someone laughing or ruffling a bag of crisps. Furthermore, the sound quality was straight up worse than Zoom, borderline inaudible with the same equipment Zoom gets.
- nrmitchi 5y agoHonest question: When did you last try using Google Meet for this purpose? At the beginning of 2020, I agree with you that Google Meet was a pile of hot garbage. It got drastically better at everything you mentioned throughout 2020 (when I assume people at Google had to actually start using it regularly).
- s09dfhks 5y agojust a reminder jitsi still has an unlimited free tier