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796 points _Microft | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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aequitas ◴[] No.22736838[source]
Not that I'm in favor of this practice, but the one key feature that conference software must have is: it just works™.

Nothing turns you off more from a conferencing solution than: any problem getting it working right now.

When there is just the slightest issue, one person not being able to join, one person not getting voice to work, bad audio, your entire team is blocked/distracted. Which results in a collective distain for the solution and video conferencing as a whole.

This extends to getting the solution working for greenfield installs as simple as possible. Because who knows which non-tech users from which department all need to join and can't figure out how to set the permission in their browser right or install/use the other browser that is compatible.

So sadly, from a functionality point of view, you want have the software be able to force itself onto the user in the most usable state it can.

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t0mas88 ◴[] No.22736886[source]
I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't. Because in an enterprise context it is often hard to download an executable and run it with sufficient permissions. While Google and Microsoft both offer a product that "just works" with only a browser. What makes Zoom more "just works" than that?
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jwr ◴[] No.22740219[source]
> I'm still curious why everyone thinks Zoom "just works" while others don't.

I'm also curious. I subscribed to Whereby (https://whereby.com/), where I can send people a URL, which they click and land in my conference room. There is ZERO software they need to install.

[For all the "well, actually" folks: yes, it "only" works in every modern browser out there, and it works "only" for up to 12 people. Fine with me.]

Zoom has more features, but there are many other solutions that work much better and are WAY simpler. It's just that Zoom is well known, and it's easiest to choose the tool that everyone has heard about.

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gentleman11 ◴[] No.22740899[source]
To be more specific, whereby seems to be free for up to 4 people, but then they claim to be able to support 50. Never tested it with 50
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1. jwr ◴[] No.22747178[source]
Specifically, my "Pro" plan allows up to 12 people.