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Oh, everything popular before Zoom sucked so bad. Getting on a call was incredibly complicated, getting someone else in a call even more so. I got deflated when

by bipson 3y ago

Oh, everything popular before Zoom sucked so bad. Getting on a call was incredibly complicated, getting someone else in a call even more so. I got deflated whenever I saw a WebEx mail. There were alternatives... But Skype was getting worse by the day, moving from decentralized to MS servers for all calls, and support for everything besides MS and the official App was also non-existant. Google Calls/Hangouts/Meet/? was mistrusted by all MS shops (and still is) Teams was nowhere it is right now beginning of the pandemic, and required buying into the Ecosystem. In fact, Zoom was a (!) low entry, mostly platform-independent solution that was easy to set up if you had nothing to start from. And joining a call was not asking much from customers, students, business partners, etc. All the competitors learned a lot from Zoom and we take these things for granted now. There were other solutions of course, but sometimes you're lucky, and ads help.

jnsie 3y ago
> I got deflated whenever I saw a WebEx mail. I literally don't think I ever had an issue getting on a WebEx call, using it many times a week every week for as many years as I can remember. Not that I'm passionate about WebEx, it just so happens to be the tool we used before we used Zoom.
- bipson 3y ago
  Well, all of what I said does not apply if you're used to it I guess? ;)
  - jnsie 3y ago
    I don't think it had anything to do with familiarity to be honest - you noted that "Getting on a call was incredibly complicated, getting someone else in a call even more so." I suspect you overstated this point and, anecdotally, my experience was quite different to your own. I met with colleagues ranging from the technically proficient to technically incompetent and never had an issue. I'm not trying to repudiate your own experiences, just that I don't think things were so bad before Zoom that video conferencing was consistently awful Edit: Hope that didn't sound argumentative - was not my intention

by bipson 3y ago

jnsie 3y ago

> I got deflated whenever I saw a WebEx mail. I literally don't think I ever had an issue getting on a WebEx call, using it many times a week every week for as many years as I can remember. Not that I'm passionate about WebEx, it just so happens to be the tool we used before we used Zoom.

bipson 3y ago
Well, all of what I said does not apply if you're used to it I guess? ;)
- jnsie 3y ago
  I don't think it had anything to do with familiarity to be honest - you noted that "Getting on a call was incredibly complicated, getting someone else in a call even more so." I suspect you overstated this point and, anecdotally, my experience was quite different to your own. I met with colleagues ranging from the technically proficient to technically incompetent and never had an issue. I'm not trying to repudiate your own experiences, just that I don't think things were so bad before Zoom that video conferencing was consistently awful Edit: Hope that didn't sound argumentative - was not my intention