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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

#201

Post by wrycoder »

m11a wrote: post #151
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.

I am still confused how Zoom ended up being used this much, especially by less technical people. The UI is not intuitive at all, the options are a mess, and the product doesn't even know what audience it's trying to cater for. Every other Zoom call I've been in someone is having a technical error or confusion (even technically-inclined people). That considered, at least in principle, it shouldn't be that hard for a c…

I have 1.5Mbit DL / 0.7 UL DSL and Zoom is essentially useless. Even though I watch YouTube all the time with no problem.

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

#202

Post by tomxor »

sukilot wrote: post #135
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…

Marketing and Timing? Zoom was founded 9 years ago, from a team that built Webex for 13 years prior. They've been making videoconferencing software for 22 years.

Oh webex... I remember that, also something that never worked properly.

Marketing and timing can still have everything to do with their success btw, even if they had a 9 year run up.

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

#203

Post by tomxor »

reaperducer wrote: post #115
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…

this is probably a lesson in how powerful marketing and timing can be No, it's a lesson in how powerful "just working" works.

Except all of my colleagues and I have the opposite experience.

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

#204

Post by freeone3000 »

sukilot wrote: post #134
reaperducer wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the user, it's the software. I'm no Zoom fan, but in the Zoom meeting I had this morning with 38 people my 2015 MacBook Pro's processor peaked at 11%. Zoom knows how to do something better than the other companies. They really need to catch up.

Would you say the same if the user was compiling software or rendering video?if your computer fan is interfering with audio, that's an audio setup problem not a software problem. Wasting CPU/heat is a different problem.

Oh, no! She just doesn't use any software that makes the fan come on. Zoom doesn't, teams doesn't, jitsi somehow does.

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

#205

Post by kiwijamo »

wrycoder wrote: post #201
m11a wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still confused how Zoom ended up being used this much, especially by less technical people. The UI is not intuitive at all, the options are a mess, and the product doesn't even know what audience it's trying to cater for. Every other Zoom call I've been in someone is having a technical error or confusion (even technically-inclined people). That considered, at least in principle, it shouldn't be that hard for a c…

I have 1.5Mbit DL / 0.7 UL DSL and Zoom is essentially useless. Even though I watch YouTube all the time with no problem.

I have a 100/20 connection and Zoom is the only one which manages to stream 25 people in gallery view with very good quality without dropping a frame. It is so good if anyone has glitchy video, everyone knows it's a problem on their end and nothing to do with Zoom. The only other platform I've had extenstive experience with is Google Hangouts which has hugely pixelated video which stutters really badly and/or just gives up streaming video in meetings of <5 people. Any more and it just gets worse to the point video is literally like watching a really badly pixelated stop motion film. I work inside two different organisations--one using Zoom and the other using Hangouts. The Zoom-using organisation has people right throughout singing Zoom's praises. The other org using Google Hangouts complain bitterly about it and wishes they were using Zoom instead. YMMV of course.

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

#206

Post by kiwijamo »

zestyping wrote: post #195
m11a wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still confused how Zoom ended up being used this much, especially by less technical people. The UI is not intuitive at all, the options are a mess, and the product doesn't even know what audience it's trying to cater for. Every other Zoom call I've been in someone is having a technical error or confusion (even technically-inclined people). That considered, at least in principle, it shouldn't be that hard for a c…

The UI is complicated, yes. But the actual video calling is better than I've experienced in any other product. Google Hangouts/Meet invariably slows down my whole machine and causes the laptop fans to spin up. Zoom never does that. And the video streams in Zoom have higher quality to boot.

I think also the UI is complex because of all the different use cases Zoom can be used for. I work for a Deaf school where it is not uncommon for >50% (if not 100%) of participants in a meeting to use sign language. While Zoom is not perfect for this use case (it has many defaults which assume people want audio) it offers many features which makes it easier to manage meetings. The most complex meetings we have are when there is mixed-mode (e.g. some people speaking and some people signing) where we have someone speaking and the video spotlighed onto a interpreter OR video spotlighted on to a person signing but with audio coming from the interpreter voicing for the signing person. This is a specialised use case I accept, but one Zoom handles out of the box really well. As a result the Deaf community have taken on Zoom for pretty much everything--from professional meeting all the way through to using Zoom for home catch ups with friends/family. Hangouts for some reason doesn't really do this very well--and in addition to the poor video quality (making it hard to see people signing) the Deaf community have pretty much sidelined Hangouts and other products.

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

#207

Post by kiwijamo »

MattGaiser wrote: post #76
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.

You are used to a flexible organization. How about one where IT has locked down the computers mindlessly?

This is an excellent point. I am a teacher and my students have school-issued iPads which they are not able to just add their own apps. Even I can't control what apps they have loaded, I have to go through the school's processes to get apps loaded. This rules out switching to a different platform for the day just because e.g. Zoom is not working today.

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

#208

Post by hnick »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #182
maest wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Excel is pretty much critical infrastructure at this point.

I think that's not true until Office365 kicks in. If Microsoft "goes down" today, just gets wiped out by some futures FX swap gone wrong, then all the Hedge funds, the doctors notes, the airplane checklists, they will pootle along fine for years. It's only when a central single point of failure is introduced does critical infrastructure become ticking time bomb. An open source peer to peer zoom would reduce such risk…

I think there are other cases. An auto-update that goes wrong could still cause wide ranging issues for non-365 Excel users.

And if updates are disabled (or MS goes away), we can add yet-to-be-discovered security flaws to the mix.

Neither of these would impact all (or maybe even most) users, but I think it'd impact enough to make a dent. In contrast, Office 365 is probably less susceptible to such flaws, trading them for others.

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

#209

Post by kiwijamo »

sukilot wrote: post #130
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.

Install? It's a website.

Been years since I used it, but it doesn't have video conferencing functions does it? (Honest question).

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

#210

Post by kiwijamo »

TuringNYC wrote: post #57
Geezus_42 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for a company that deals with security, I have definitely run into customers that would think I was crazy if I asked them to use anything other than Zoom or Webex. Some are even limited to webex only.

Really? If you want to one-click-add a Zoom meeting to your Google calendar, Zoom requires read history to your full Google Calendar (including all history!) That seems incredibly intrusive. How do corporations even allow access for this particular features?

This is possibly so Zoom can show other Zoom meetings you have been invited to. This is a useful feature as it means I can directly join a Zoom meeting without having to go through the Calendar.
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