Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#201

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

numbsafari wrote: post #195

crazygringo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has extremely valid market reasons. Google Hangouts = the original chat+video product which was semi-popular, but never got huge traction and mindshare the way WhatsApp, Slack, the original Skype, or the newer FaceTime did. And now Zoom and Teams. So Google realized it had to compete better against all of those, all of those being very separate communications channels with different priorities. Hangouts could neve…

Funny ... none of those other "competitors" seem to feel the need to have 4 different products in order to operate in this space. Each of them is expanding its reach and capabilities, coming from a place of strength. Google is just practicing "me-too"-ism and not really trying to solve a problem except some engineer is bored and some product person thinks these tools could become a threat to ad dollars if allowed to…

Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram are all run by Facebook and have variously incompatible messaging capabilities.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#202

Post by throwaway123x2 » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

Google has yet to build a chat tool better than the old GChat / GoogleTalk-Gmail integration. It had voice and video (though not amazing quality, but it was 2006) and the chat was top-notch. It worked, it was integrated in my Gmail and it had text statuses which was honestly the best social media I ever used in my college days.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#203

Post by bdcravens » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #199

> Here are just a few of our default-on safety measures: > • We do not allow anonymous users (i.e., without a Google Account) to join meetings created by individual accounts. So, all participants need to create Google accounts. How convenient for Google. I don't necessarily want to ascribe maliciousness here—there are certainly user-centric reasons to set it up this way. But, isn't it interesting how many of the secu…

Freedom and privacy are often at odds with security in most areas in life. During war-like situations, security (speaking in the general sense, rather than purely technical) becomes a greater concern, so those companies that have positioned themselves that way will have increased opportunities.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#204

Post by yoden » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

alec wrote: post #75

I work for Google, but not on anything related to Meet. I'm most excited about this because the video/audio quality is much higher. When I use Zoom with friends, everyone is usually 320x240, or maybe 640x480 if there's only one person. Doom was 320x240 in 1993. In Google Meet, I usually see people at 1280x920. A 4k monitor will fit 6 people at that resolution. I value this higher resolution because it makes me feel m…

Weird, I have the opposite experience. Meet for years was much worse video/screen share resolution/latency/quality than Zoom or Gotomeeting. In fact it was so bad originally that a bunch of our team members requested we keeping paying for gotomeeting even though we had meet for free in GSuite.

It's gotten a bit better to the point it's mostly tolerable now, so we might actually switch over. Still, I wonder how much the web client is holding it back.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#205

Post by kristofferR » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:45 PM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #201

numbsafari wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny ... none of those other "competitors" seem to feel the need to have 4 different products in order to operate in this space. Each of them is expanding its reach and capabilities, coming from a place of strength. Google is just practicing "me-too"-ism and not really trying to solve a problem except some engineer is bored and some product person thinks these tools could become a threat to ad dollars if allowed to…

Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram are all run by Facebook and have variously incompatible messaging capabilities.

Sure, but Facebook didn't name them Facebook Groupchat, Facebook Chat and Facebook Talk.

People actually understand the difference between the various Facebook products, unlike the Google products.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#206

Post by dastbe » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #201

numbsafari wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny ... none of those other "competitors" seem to feel the need to have 4 different products in order to operate in this space. Each of them is expanding its reach and capabilities, coming from a place of strength. Google is just practicing "me-too"-ism and not really trying to solve a problem except some engineer is bored and some product person thinks these tools could become a threat to ad dollars if allowed to…

Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram are all run by Facebook and have variously incompatible messaging capabilities.

For Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instragram they all started as distinct platforms and companies, so the question would be should they consolidate. IMO Facebook has made the right decision not to consolidate, as individuals bought into those platforms pre-acquisition and don't necessarily see themselves as part of a homogenous Facebook customer base.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#207

Post by walshemj » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

alec wrote: post #75

I work for Google, but not on anything related to Meet. I'm most excited about this because the video/audio quality is much higher. When I use Zoom with friends, everyone is usually 320x240, or maybe 640x480 if there's only one person. Doom was 320x240 in 1993. In Google Meet, I usually see people at 1280x920. A 4k monitor will fit 6 people at that resolution. I value this higher resolution because it makes me feel m…

with most people working from home using the crappy webcam and mic they a don't have cam capable of doing 1280x920 or the bandwidth and/or computer capable of streaming at that res.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#208

Post by sixothree » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #202

Google has yet to build a chat tool better than the old GChat / GoogleTalk-Gmail integration. It had voice and video (though not amazing quality, but it was 2006) and the chat was top-notch. It worked, it was integrated in my Gmail and it had text statuses which was honestly the best social media I ever used in my college days.

When they took that away it affected who I communicate with.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#209

Post by subhobroto » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

eitally wrote: post #196

subhobroto wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Hangouts, Google Chat: Products that worked real well, had a lot of 3rd party integrations built for it and now deprecated because Google does not want to deal with legacy services. Their incentive structure there is to build the "next thing". Both were pretty "groundbreaking" apps when they came out. Hangouts managed to figure out and resolve a lot of issues of team chats and voice/video streaming issues over…

You have no idea what you're talking about (re: Meet & Duo). Duo is included in the standard Android distribution image and even included on Samsung phones. It's a broadly adopted "Facetime for Android" and works very, very well. It's not going anywhere. Meet is clearly a business-first product and a core part of the G Suite offering set. As another poster described, it goes beyond just desktop & mobile apps and cont…

> The only remaining question marks are around what happens with classic Hangouts, and what additional features is Chat going to get that make it more consumer-oriented before it replaces Hangouts in Gmail.

Google is killing off Hangouts slowly and surely. Over time it will start showing its age so bad, that people will move on.

I loved the Hangouts Dialer integration. Had to replace it with Voice.

I loved the Hangouts/Voice - GMail integration where I could send/receive texts from within GMail. Had to replace it with Voice.

Before I could do most tasks from within GMail. Now I HAVE to use atleast 3 different apps that don't talk to each other.

The competition on the other hand is going the opposite direction with great integrations in place.

> For one thing, you can't purchase Meet by itself -- it's an entitlement within G Suite

Have been using Meet ever since it came out.

Free/personal tier users could always join a Meet (not create one).

Before this announcement, Meet could only be hosted by a G Suite customer

> the Meet announcement this week explaining availability for "all users", you should see it as a side-effect of the business product's maturity, not as a consumer-first offering.

It's a knee jerk reaction to Zoom.

Everyone on this planet has a GMail account and if Google understood what customers want, Meet would have had Zoom for lunch.

Today, anyone who works remotely and is not tied into Teams, have heard of Zoom.

Very few, including GMail users, know about Meet.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23030326

Meet missed a big - perhaps once in a decade opportunity.

Users already have Zoom on their phone and computers. There is 0 reason to use Meet if they were not already.

Re: Google Meet premium video meetings–free for everyone

#210

Post by subhobroto » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

anon102010 wrote: post #162

subhobroto wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Hangouts, Google Chat: Products that worked real well, had a lot of 3rd party integrations built for it and now deprecated because Google does not want to deal with legacy services. Their incentive structure there is to build the "next thing". Both were pretty "groundbreaking" apps when they came out. Hangouts managed to figure out and resolve a lot of issues of team chats and voice/video streaming issues over…

What's up does chat / does duo? We use zoom at work despite being on Google - meet really doesn't always work across even Google account tyoes. Ie Gmail vs gsuite vs some admin left some setting off for an external users domain and they cannot join. Zoom I can host a no account conference that everyone can join (waiting rooms driving us all crazy)

Exactly!

Everyone on this planet has a GMail account and if Google understood what customers want, Meet would have had Zoom for lunch.

Today, anyone who works remotely and is not tied into Teams, have heard of Zoom.

Very few, including GMail users, know about Meet.

Meet missed a big - perhaps once in a decade opportunity.

Users already have Zoom on their phone and computers. There is 0 reason to use Meet if they were not already.