I am out of the loop as to why Zoom is suddenly "blowing up". Even my workplace is using it now. Previously, we were using either Skype, Webex, or Jitsi. What does Zoom offer that the other three doesn't?
1. The gallery view (aka 'Brady Bunch' view) works significantly better than any other system, with a large number of users. Especially now where everyone is working remotely and you have large group chats IMO this is the biggest factor.
2. Related to the above, I have rarely, if ever, had a problem with Zoom quality.
3. The onboarding for new users (basically just share a link) is dead simple. Zoom realized that the install process was a significant barrier and did more than anyone else to lower that barrier (of course, with lots of security/privacy issues to boot, but your average Joe isn't aware of those).
4. A smaller factor but perhaps a bigger one for people using Zoom for personal reasons (e.g. teenagers and college kids) are the 'fun' features like virtual backgrounds.
> 2. Related to the above, I have rarely, if ever, had a problem with Zoom quality.
Massive factor here. You can use it and it mostly works extremely well. Much better than almost anything else, including the previously beloved Google Hangouts. In fairness to Microsoft, Teams is probably up there for quality nowadays too, but does lack a good gallery feature.
Compare this with WebEx. I can only assume Cisco are gradually winding it down to EOL because I haven't been on a WebEx call that was anything other than an absolute shitshow since around 2014. Even before this it was really just the best of the worst.
> 3. The onboarding for new users (basically just share a link) is dead simple. Zoom realized that the install process was a significant barrier and did more than anyone else to lower that barrier (of course, with lots of security/privacy issues to boot, but your average Joe isn't aware of those).
Again, agree. Zoom "just works"(TM) for most people, most of the time. And for most people, most of the time, that outweighs any security concerns.
It frustrates me that a certain segment of IT security professionals do not understand this. If you're one of these people, you need to realise that security is necessary but not sufficient. Security is a minimum requirement, but it is not even close to the bare minimum.
Your product actually needs to be good within the context of what users are trying to achieve with it. It needs to do exactly what it's supposed to without drama and fuss. The product is the means, not the end and so, by implication, is the security product.
Human nature is generally to choose things that reduce friction over those that add it, so find a way to build a product that is both secure and gets out of the way.
> 3. The onboarding for new users (basically just share a link) is dead simple. Zoom realized that the install process was a significant barrier and did more than anyone else to lower that barrier (of course, with lots of security/privacy issues to boot, but your average Joe isn't aware of those).
I really don't get why Jitsi hasn't taken over the world yet, given that it's even simpler: just share the link, and the receiver doesn't even have to install anything.
(Also, doesn't the gallery view exist in every major videoconf platform? I've seen it in at least Jitsi, Whereby and Gotomeeting... And Zoom's browser mode (which is less accessible than Jitsi's) doesn't even support it.)
The gallery view in other videoconf platforms doesn't even compare. I've had flawless experiences with 12-16 people, all in a grid across my screen. Every other system I've used had some version of rotating people in/out when there are more than 4 people. Was a night and day experience.
My therapist tried a whole bunch of different services with different clients. We first tried doxy.me which is a HIPAA approved tele-medical service. But the quality was HORRIBLE, it was unusable, so she asked me if I would be ok using Skype (since Skype is not encrypted) I said ok (since I need the session more than it being secure). It was fine. Then we tried Zoom next time around. I thought Zoom was better in terms of quality and "just works out of the box". Just a datapoint. Getting video streaming correct is actually pretty hard, it's part of what I'm working on for my day job, and it's a very challenging problem.
It's hard because it's dependant of other systems that are often not fully functional.
The things that needs to work for a video call is: The network must be reasonably reliable and not overloaded. The camera must be configured and not privacy blocked. The correct recording device must be used, it must be recording (opportunity for both user error and OS issues here). If hardware codes are used (a requirement on lower end devices) it must support low enough bitrates, must have the right options.
Typically all these things are slightly different between different devices and operating systems. It's typically easy to build a proof of concept with great quality and reliable connections between two given devices over a given network. It's super hard to make a product that is reliable enough that millions of users only rarely run into issues.
When you stream a Youtube or Netflix video, you can download several seconds ahead over boring old HTTP. It's a one-to-one link, you don't have to upload anything, and you don't need access the user's camera or microphone.
To be competitive in videoconferencing these days, you need:
* Low latency, so people don't talk over each other
* Video and audio compression that doesn't get confused by dropped packets.
* Setup so easy first-time users won't be late to their video job interview.
* Group calls for 10+ people
* HD quality
* Adaptive bitrates, for users on different speed links
* Skip-free audio even if a user's link goes from uncongested to heavily congested.
* Reliable support for every webcam and USB headset on the market, and hot-plugging them during the call, and changing OS permissions during the call.
* Reliable support for unreliable bluetooth headsets and unreliable bluetooth dongles.
* Echo cancellation that works with every device and room configuration going. Including devices that have their own built-in echo cancellation.
* Audio that's clear even in the presence of background noise, and different people at different distances from the microphone.
* Users behind every type of misconfigured firewall you can imagine.
* Roaming between different Wifi access points, and between wifi and cell data while on a call (including links with no connectivity sometimes)
* Never (or almost never) forcing a user to update their software at the moment they're trying to join an important meeting or job interview.
* Update support (or long-term compatibility) for users who don't have administrator rights.
* Graceful recovery if the user sleeps then resumes their device.
* Screen sharing that retains good readability, even if a user has unwisely made the text on their presentation a bit small.
* Screen sharing of Youtube videos without making them blurry or choppy, even if they're embedded in presentations.
* CPU and battery efficiency.
* Free of charge
* All the above on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and WebRTC.
It seems like, in the current use case, this one isn't as important? Institutions would pay for something that does everything else really well. Source: All the paid accounts my institution shelled out for on Zoom in our transition to remote work. So I guess n=1.
All the hard bullets are already handled by existing math (codecs), protocols/libraries (reliable networking), operating systems (hardware support), etc., no?
This is not to say it is easy at all, of course; there a thousand things to do to implement it, but I think other fields face similar constraints, like videogame engines and distributed simulations.
The companies selling video streaming and conferencing have other issues, such as service costs. And they typically don't retain very good engineering teams.
> Why did no one else crack this issue? Google has some smart people and so does MSFT. Perhaps just lack of caring?
They're probably not huge revenue drivers (if at all). Why would they be a priority for either of those companies? And I can't imagine they're particularly inspiring projects to work on, which can be a self-reinforcing cycle if the best people don't want to work on them.
My professor uses the whiteboard when giving lectures. Useful as well. Also, he shares his screen and just shows us his pdf files :)
The Uni tried a different software before Zoom (forgot the name but it started with a K, from a company I never heard of before). And it was VERY GOOD but the video was choppy.
There is one huge difference, if I'm not mistaken. In our tests neither Skype nor Google Hangouts allowed the speaker of a talk to view the audience while screen sharing. It's annoying and feels very odd to give a two-hour lecture to your laptop with zero feedback from the audience.
Maybe we did something wrong, though, and missed features in Hangouts and Skype. If that is the case I'd be very happy if someone could point it out to me. (Our whole university is using Google Hangouts right now, because our administration doesn't want to pay for additional Zoom subscriptions.)
Cisco owns Webex, so of course they'd use it. I've suffered through Webex with a previous employer and a current client, and it's just horrible. GoToMeeting is much better, and Zoom is better yet.
The founder of Zoom (Eric Yuan) used to be a respected leader at Cisco but he eventually quit to focus full-time on Zoom.
Cisco didn’t fully understand the opportunity he saw to reduce the amount of friction needed to use most video conferencing (VC) software tools, including the tools by Cisco, which is understandable since Cisco was afraid they might cannibalize sales in their VC hardware business.
My attempts at Zoom meetings were met with distorted audio, and the organizer quickly changed to Jitsi in both cases. It worked much better for whatever reason.
From experience with many options, and having used zoom for over a year now: Video quality is better, audio quality is better, video and audio are streamed separately and during low bandwidth situations audio takes priority over video (video starts lagging but audio remains as perfect as possible), seamless to join meetings even when youre not a 'user' of their ecosystem, and has neat UX like informing you that your microphone is soft-muted when it notices you speaking, etc etc.
Whenever I've used Zoom from my home connection during the last few weeks, I've experienced laggy, blocky video, occasional audio dropouts (with frequent alert messages within the app to restart the Zoom client's audio), disturbingly high CPU usage, and meetings which take minutes for everyone to join.
Honestly in my experience, there's no real benefit when compared with Skype, Hangouts, or Discord except for the frequently mentioned large 50 person+ video streaming.
known zoom for a while... the "it just works" and "it has better quality" comments are very surprising to me and got me skeptical. are skype, slack, gotomeeting, hangouts, meet, webex, &c. all really crashing on people now? in a huge conspiracy?
things i thought could be the real reason: novelty (for some/most people), popularity (someone online famous/influencer mentioned it), shadow marketing, luck.
but wikipedia told me is actually going on: schools have decided that zoom will be the de-facto remote schooling platform. a bunch of young people appropriated the platform it seems.
hope that helps. the superiority talk is just that. but now they are in a good position to become better than any other video conferencing software.
I've been working at remote-first companies for about the last four years, my current and previous company independently tested a bunch of video conferencing apps and both settled on zoom. It just works better than the alternatives. Yes better than skype, slack, gotomeeting, hangouts, meet and webex (and teams, since that's the other big one).
Sometimes it's call quality, sometimes it's stability, sometimes it's usability, sometimes it's features.
> are skype, slack, gotomeeting, hangouts, meet, webex, &c. all really crashing on people now? in a huge conspiracy?
It's astonishing how so much low-quality software gets distributed, but: yes. Hangouts and Slack are a pain to get everyone logged in / invited to. Everything else on your list just breaks a lot.
> but wikipedia told me is actually going on: schools have decided that zoom will be the de-facto remote schooling platform. a bunch of young people appropriated the platform it seems.
That's a non-explanation. Zoom is popular with young people, sure. Why? The same reason it's popular with everyone else, because it works better.
I've used everything on that list, except meet, in an institutional setting. 1-on-1, small groups, large groups. The only one that our institution has used that works straight out of the box 100% of the time for everyone who has access to data, is zoom.
My short time working in higher education taught me that zoom is baked into some education software. If I recall it is part of the barns and noble cloud education suite.
With the lock down, more online classes, more people seeing the Zoom logo?
...and the even more predictable, dismissive, contrarian response: "Look at how silly and repetitive all the critics are. They always point out problems, haha."
Fortunately, we have really enlightened people among us who point that out.
Stage 1: This company you probably hadn't heard of before is blowing up / changing the world!
Stage 2 (current stage): Actually it turns out this company has some unexpected problems!
Stage 3: Actually this company is actively contributing to society's One Big Problem!
Stage 4: Actually here is why Zoom actually isn't as bad as everyone thinks!
Stage 5: This OTHER company you probably hadn't heard of before is blowing up / changing the world!