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Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

brookings.edu

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Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#141

Post by anon3280 »

boogies wrote: post #122

The fact that people are being evicted after not using Zoom https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/spring/trial-by-proprietar... is insane. The industrial revolution and all of its consequences may not have been exclusively a disaster for the human race, and I personally don’t share Bill Joy’s fears of mass extinction https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/ , but proprietary software can cause serious problems for members of…

Zoom is important, but zoom didn't evict anyone.

The US government did.

The government is the only organization "allowed" to use physical violence against anyone it wants to.

The author raises many valid points, but I think the logical conclusion of his points condemns the US legal system more than it does zoom.

Author: Having to agree to a contract with a private company in order to access public services is immediately objectionable.

Me: I agree! But unlike the US Government, Zoom doesn't make threats of violence against people that don't want to use it's services.

Author: Second, for the state to require use of Zoom is for it to promote and subsidize that company.

Me: I agree! The but the state wouldn't even BE ABLE to subsidize Zoom if it didn't first threaten me with violence in order to take a large fraction of my money.

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#142

Post by impendia »

scottlamb wrote: post #91
impendia wrote: post #71

I don't buy it. The same factors that made Zoom easy to adopt, make it equally easy to switch to something else. And "when Zoom goes down, teachers can’t teach"? Come on. I am a college professor. In my class this fall I met my students on Blackboard on Day 1 and Zoom on Day 2. If one of them goes down for the day, we'll switch to the other.

> And "when Zoom goes down, teachers can’t teach"? Come on. I am a college professor. In my class this fall I met my students on Blackboard on Day 1 and Zoom on Day 2. If one of them goes down for the day, we'll switch to the other. I think it's for real. Think about elementary school instead. The kids are just learning to use computers. Their parents may be also, and if not they may be trying to do their own work fr…

Fair point.

Perhaps I should add that, this past spring, I had a day where Blackboard failed on me, and where I lacked the presence of mind to think of a good Plan B on the spot. To my embarrassment, I ended up cancelling the lecture. That experience is why I thought to plan ahead this time.

When Zoom goes down, certainly we should expect some disruptions. As you say, some will be more serious than what I dealt with. But "critical infrastructure" still strikes me as a bit much.

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#143

Post by TuringNYC »

soylentcola wrote: post #80
TuringNYC wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about it another way, consider the poor usability and experience of WebEx/Lync and juxtapose that to Zoom -- Zoom just works without any friction. A future Zoom-killer app would need to provide that much better service.

I'm curious as to how Zoom is that much different from Webex (at least from the user perspective). I've been using both working in a university setting with all remote classes and as far as the UI, Zoom is almost a copy of Webex with some minor differences. In Webex I can either send someone the link to my personal room or I can schedule a meeting via Outlook (with a Webex plugin)or the Webex app. With Zoom I can eit…

Small differences are huge though. I gave up on WebEx over two years ago when finding Zoom, so I cant speak to them adding copy-cat features and catching up feature-wise. However, I first switched to zoom from WebEx based on:

1. One click meeting starts w/ a simple URL

2. One click meeting joins w/ a simple URL

3. Standing reservation-less room with a URL to remove the hassle of booked by 15-minute segments that WebEx wanted

As for Lync, not sure where to start. There are times 3 or 4 years ago when you were lucky to be able to log in. Their auth was a mess and if -- God forbid -- you had a legacy Skype or legacy Microsoft account, there were strange auth/password reset loops where accessing your account was virtually impossible. You'll find plenty of discussion online about people who suddenly found themselves shut out of a decade-old Skype account because their Skype email was somehow mal-merged into a Microsoft account. I was similarly trapped in this endless loop of auth issues and gave up entirely on Lync.

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#144

Post by anon3280 »

I laughed out loud while reading this article. The author sees some things so correctly, while completely missing the forest for the trees.

Author: A single California-based company, Zoom, is now the foundation for education access from elementary school up through graduate school.

Me: Hah. The 'foundation' for education for the last 100 years has been the US Government, which exerts so much power over the entire system.

Author: Another challenge is that Zoom is a relatively young company (founded in 2011) that has experienced some security-related growing pains.

Me: The US Gov. has experienced security-related growing pains, but at least Zoom doesn't kill tens of thousands of people around the world every year.

Author: In March 2020, the company was widely criticized for a dubious claim that it supported end-to-end encryption for videoconferences.

Me: At least Zoom doesn't have a track record of spending billions of dollars to subvert encryption technology, wiretap hundreds of millions of people, and then lies about it.

Author: There are plenty of alternatives to Zoom, including Skype, Webex, and GoToMeeting. The challenge of course, is that Zoom has benefited from an enormous network effect.

Me: Oh how I wish there were a less-violent alternative to the US Government. At least Zoom cannot enforce it's monopoly of certain services with violence and billions of dollars of money

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#145

Post by fsflover »

tomxor wrote: post #107

BS, people use what works, it's just video calls. What I find most bizarre is why zoom is on top, this is probably a lesson in how powerful marketing and timing can be for some types of products... But as a counter example: everyone at my company has ended up using google meets, just because through trial and error it fails the least and is the easiest for everyone to get into. The last time I tried zoom for an exter…

> BS, people use what works, it's just video calls.

It's not "just video calls". It's nonfree software belonging to a large for-profit company with huge power of developers over users. It will not end well. It's not the first time it happens. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor...

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#146

Post by fsflover »

impendia wrote: post #71

I don't buy it. The same factors that made Zoom easy to adopt, make it equally easy to switch to something else. And "when Zoom goes down, teachers can’t teach"? Come on. I am a college professor. In my class this fall I met my students on Blackboard on Day 1 and Zoom on Day 2. If one of them goes down for the day, we'll switch to the other.

> The same factors that made Zoom easy to adopt, make it equally easy to switch to something else.

Did you hear about network effect?

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#147

Post by trthomps »

mjevans wrote: post #125
timvdalen wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Google's Duo available for iOS?

It is, and it can work; but it also doesn't typically get the fully blessed experience a first party app does.

Duo integrates into the latest Android like FaceTime integrates into iOS, it would be nice if Apple made FaceTime / iMessage available on Android (lol, never gonna happen) or allowed Duo to integrate into iOS like 3rd party apps can in Android (like WhatsApp video calling does). Probably the biggest feature I miss from Android since moving to iOS.

Apple is probably doing more harm than good at this point for themselves by keeping iMessage/FaceTime so locked down to their hardware since their revenue stream is trending more towards services and less weighted in hardware.

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#148

Post by notahacker »

tingletech wrote: post #119
notahacker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A six year old student also isn't someone who's at risk of losing a business deal because they can't get their IT team to let them install one of the client's suggested alternative webconferencing systems to do the demo at a particular point in time. Of the many potential problems six year olds accessing education primarily through webconferencing may face, I'm not sure inability to choose their own preferred videoco…

I think the discussion is "what happens when zoom goes down?" -- and the college professor said "use blackboard". A first grader with a locked down computer set up for zoom won't be able to install blackboard.

How many kids are missing how many minutes of education from their parents and teachers being unable to find any digital devices with the ability to access webconferencing services other than Zoom?

Periodically losing connectivity is an occupational hazard of doing things with webconferencing made worse if the people at each end aren't particularly computer literate. But I'm not sure Zoom lockin ranks high on the list of threats to kids' education right now.

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#149

Post by trthomps »

anon3280 wrote: post #144

I laughed out loud while reading this article. The author sees some things so correctly, while completely missing the forest for the trees. Author: A single California-based company, Zoom, is now the foundation for education access from elementary school up through graduate school. Me: Hah. The 'foundation' for education for the last 100 years has been the US Government, which exerts so much power over the entire sys…

The US Government is representative of all voting American citizens, you cannot compare it to a private company that is run by people who are not elected.

Re: Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern

#150

Post by tingletech »

notahacker wrote: post #148
tingletech wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the discussion is "what happens when zoom goes down?" -- and the college professor said "use blackboard". A first grader with a locked down computer set up for zoom won't be able to install blackboard.

How many kids are missing how many minutes of education from their parents and teachers being unable to find any digital devices with the ability to access webconferencing services other than Zoom? Periodically losing connectivity is an occupational hazard of doing things with webconferencing made worse if the people at each end aren't particularly computer literate. But I'm not sure Zoom lockin ranks high on the lis…

idk, but isn't that the article was about, zoom going down like it did for lots of schools last week?
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