Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #97

TeMPOraL wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that must have been embarrassing. Also, from the article: > In some cases, though, many are just wondering how this service hardly anyone had heard of became so popular. Yeah, the first time I've heard of Zoom was when it landed on HN frontpage for doing some shady stuff on MacOS. Fast forward few months, my wife is asking me if I heard of it, because she'll have to start using it... I was similarly blindsided b…

> or maybe I'm just older and don't pay attention anymore. It's that. People make fun of me when tell them I like to talk to teens about technology. Why, they ask. Why? Because I learn about all these new upcoming platforms. I ask them "how do you get music now", "how do you share photos", "what do you use instead of Facebook". And I learn about Snap, TikTok, Instagram, etc. long before they are popular. These platfo…

Post by disillusioned » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 9:56 AM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #2

Does this give better sound quality? Because the sound quality on meet (Or is it Hangouts?) has been abysmal for the last few years. I also have no idea what meet actually even is these days. Is it just a rebranded hangouts or did they add something and merge Hangouts in?

Post by newscracker » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:08 AM UTC

Post by xuki » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #98

It's as if a world of people have chosen to ignore how Google makes billions of dollars a year. Choosing Google rather than Zoom for privacy's sake doesn't address these concerns. Nothing is free, especially when Google is providing the service. You are the product. How are you the product with Google Meet? I can speculate, based on how it monetizes information in its other products. Google is processing all of the c…

Post by londons_explore » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

tyre wrote: post #36

londons_explore wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. While requiring a Google account to host a meeting makes some sense, requiring an account to join a meeting will simply mean too much friction and users will use another platform. The equation is simple. Users use the first platform they can find where both sound and video works for every person they want to talk to. "Jim can't get into the call" soon leads to someone piping up "shall we try zoom instead?". I…

This is specifically for business meetings and the quoted text says that the restriction is for _individual_ accounts. So this announcement doesn’t target family hangouts, but the product doesn’t either.