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Comment by notJim | Hacker News Reader

> They never planned ot be mission critical

How do you figure? Wouldn't any enterprise-focused video conferencing software be considered mission critical?

Before COVID most non-remote companies could still function if their VC was broken; now it's impossible without VC.

Is video really that important? Sure it has benefit of being a bit more cozy, but in reality phone is sufficient to discuss work. Screenshare is much more important, especially for knowledge workers.

With the exception of the involvement of a webcam, you can't do screenshare without being able to do video. Even if we assume video is irrelevant and screenshare is everything, you wind up in the same technological position.

Videoconferencing is used for a lot of things that don't involve reviewing a document or pair-programming. Many people find video quite helpful for such situations.

The problem with phone calls isn't the lack of video, but the lack of a "click here to join the meeting" interface.

Group meetings are much less hassle through Skype, or Teams, or Zoom, or whatever computer-based option you choose, than waiting for everyone to drag out their phones, dial the right number, type in the right meeting code.

> The problem with phone calls isn't the lack of video, but the lack of a "click here to join the meeting" interface.

If "dial this number to join the conference call" is too hard for modern professionals, what the hell is happening to our society? (I do not believe it's actually too hard for them. I think it's incredibly patronizing to suppose that dialing a phone number might be too hard for otherwise capable members of the general public.)

My experience with conference calls overwhelming confirms that dialing in and entering a code will waste ~10 mins of any meeting.

I didn't say it was too hard, but frictionless wins out more often than not.

Why wouldn't frictionless + more features win over tedious and incapable of screen sharing?

Friction isn't a binary, and nothing is truly frictionless. Zoom requires you to install an application, while conference calls only require you to have a phone. I would say the former is more friction, particularly since this particular application is one I'd not like to install on any of my personal devices.

Plain phone tends to have worse audio quality

Absolutely. A lot of real work involves face to face talking, not looking at a shared screen or document.

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