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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

#211

Post by kiwijamo »

tyingq wrote: post #58
nicoburns wrote: post #4

> But in many of the verticals in these sectors—such as banking or mobile phone services—no single company dominates the market. I don't think that's true of video-conferencing either. Zoom is probably the most popular (and technically superior), but there is also: Microsoft Teams, Webex, Google Meet, Slack, and many others, including open source options like Jitsi. And they all pretty much do the job.

Microsoft Teams has improved quite a bit since the pandemic started also. They added things that were missing, like a tile view (max 9), raise your hand, and blurred or custom backgrounds. Zoom is still better, but Teams now seems "good enough" to me.

Max 9?! Zoom can do 25 without breaking a sweat.

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

#212

Post by kiwijamo »

k__ wrote: post #10

Is it? I used like 5 different services in the last 7 months and all worked reasonably well.

Zoom vs Hangouts is really like going from VHS to DVD. Hangouts' horribly pixelated video and frequent dropped frames and/or loss of video paints a huge contrast to Zoom's good video quality with very few glitches. Am surprised at people who think the two are comparable.

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

#213

Post by kiwijamo »

beefee wrote: post #48

Zoom's lack of security focus has been a competitive advantage for them. It's clear that many users don't actually care that much about the confidentiality of their video meetings. The low-friction nature of jumping on a Zoom call with a meeting code and PIN dominates security concerns. In fact, this phrase I've heard people use, "jump on a Zoom," indicates that the speaker expects it to be easy and fast to start the…

Zoom seem to have switched in recent times to using a Meeting ID and password. Most meeting links I get now are very long URLs which seem to hash the meeting ID and password. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

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

#214

Post by kiwijamo »

tedd4u wrote: post #193

Meh, my kids just used the Google Meet links the teachers sent out when Zoom was down. Meet is even better - no app needed. Schools already have Google Classroom. With Meet you just click the link and it works.

Is the quality sufficent for classroom teaching? I use both for work as a teacher and I find Zoom much better than Hangouts. Zoom (when it works) is nearly flawless. Hangouts on the other hand has poor video, limited faciliation functions, limited grid/gallery view (and none at all on the iPad which is what my students use), random problems popping up, etc. Zoom is just much better for educaitonal use.

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

#215

Post by kiwijamo »

thekyle wrote: post #28
WilTimSon wrote: post #26

Zoom is only going to stay widely adopted until an easy, viable alternative comes along and gets in the good graces of people in charge. There are some alternatives now, like Facebook's group calls on WhatsApp but that one's fallen out of favour for obvious reasons.

Aren't WhatsApp calls only on the mobile app? I think the desktop only does chats.

This rules WhatsApp out for many professional settings.

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

#217

Post by isatty »

kevincox wrote: post #29
isatty wrote: post #22

It's not. People always find a way to adapt.

It is critical infrastructure if you don't have a backup. I think that it would be easy to have a backup plan to replace Zoom, but this needs to exist.

But there are many alternatives - Facetime, Google Meet, Skype, etc;

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

#218

Post by hatenberg »

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…

Singapore school kids switched effortlessly between google meets and Zoom. Give kids some credit, they are naturally curious and adapt to changes quite effortlessly. Same with masks in school.

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

#219

Post by rorykoehler »

ghaff wrote: post #132
Proziam wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company cares about security, the mindless manager wants to use whatever they like the most.

Or they need to use whatever a partner or customer is using. I don't use Zoom much (and it isn't one of our standard tools). But one organization I have standing meetings with and others I interact with now and then do use Zoom. It's often not about what mindless managers (or engineers) "want" to use.

You can use zoom in the browser. They make it hard to find but it’s possible.

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

#220

Post by ShamelessC »

devmunchies wrote: post #166
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…

> The industrial revolution and all of its consequences may not have been exclusively a disaster for the human race for those unaware, this is based from the first line from Ted Kaczynski's "Unabomber Manifesto" , which starts with "The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race". It's actually an interesting read, that is... as long as you don't feel hostility towards rebeliou…

Oh, wow. Starts off fairly innocent then comes in with this craziness -

"Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)"

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