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Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

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Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#311
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Zoom here to stay or is video conferencing here to stay? Google Meets and MS Teams are pretty good and built into their respective Office suite products.

As a CTO coach I use Meets, Zoom and MS Teams. MS Teams is the worst of the bunch by far, mainly because it's not a video conferencing tool but wants to be everything. So it's hard to just schedule a call with someone in another organisation. Works fine with Zoom and Meets, doesn't work with Teams (also the HTML link in invites does not work in my calendar solution, why not just have a simple text link?) Zoom is the…

I still have issues with zoom and audio cutting when multiple people speak at once. They seem to have gotten better over the last few years, but it still feels very jarring and disrupts the flow of conversation.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you’re talking about. My work has been using Google meets and I would strongly disagree here. Google hangouts has been relatively fast (by Google standards) at adapting to the market needs and improving its features. It also runs in the browser which is a lot nicer than zoom’s dark patterns to install dubious executables or deal with a crappy webrtc interface.

The video quality is terrible. And many of us have symmetric gigabit internet so it's not like it's our connection. Zoom is actually crystal clear in most cases.

I've found it defaults video quality to 480p but you can increase to 720p in settings and it looks much crisper.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low friction web rtc based tools like streamyard and jitsi meet will probably become more popular than “native” apps like zoom and teams which tend to get slower and just generally worse as they are updated especially with large corporates driving the feature bloat.

All of the video conferencing apps have web interfaces. I work with a lot of different companies and end up using whatever conferencing system they use. I refuse to install any of them on my computer.

I'm not sure if they've improved it, but in the past Zoom's web client was missing significant simple features like gallery view that made it basically unusable for social calls.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take HN's hive mind tech bro culture, and apply it to overpriced classes that are basically a youtube video.

Unfortunately there are not good alternatives. I have a fairly nice bike at home and a standing desk that I can fit it under comfortably. I told my partner we don't need a Peloton because I could find spin class videos online. Nope. There really isnt any quality content out there. I guess I could just sign up for the Peloton platform with my own bike but I was surprised there wasnt at least a handful of Youtube video…

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Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#315
post #187
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Zoom here to stay or is video conferencing here to stay? Google Meets and MS Teams are pretty good and built into their respective Office suite products.

> [..] and MS Teams are pretty good [..] I will never work for any company that uses Teams as their internal communication tool again. I'm done talking about "admins who set up groups wrong", or indicators that I'm holding it wrong... I feel very strongly that Teams is a consequence of a company that doesn't care what it inflicts on workers, regardless of price. The way teams shoves itself down my throat (we do not u…

I find that tools are usually something I can use to find and use information or capabilities, or some place information and capabilities can be placed if you don't want anyone to be able to find them.

My brief use of Teams (granted, like 3 years ago) put it firmly in the latter category. God that UI was a mess.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#316
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom is here to stay ≠ Zoom is poised to remain the leader indefinitely. But I don't see why Zoom would lose so much market share or revenue streams as to disappear or become a marginal player. Something extraordinary should happen for it to cease to be here to stay.

Skype used to be the only name in video calling. It wasn't anything extraordinary that made skype lose market share - just a gradual slide into irrelevance as competing products got stronger, and they tried to make a profit when everyone else was giving away the product for free.

One of the reasons we stopped using Skype is how slow it became, specially on non high-end phones. On the other hand WhatsApp was always fast. It seems they never optimized for performance.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#317
A lot of people love their Peloton bikes and the associated service, but all I could think about when Wallstreet was hyping them is how big, really, can the premium exercise market be? And further, the exercise market is a fad market. Nothing sticks around for more than a few years, maybe a decade. Anyone remember CrossFit? P90X? Richard Simons? BowFlex?

Yes, Peloton will be around for awhile, but the growth was never sustainable. I think it is strange anyone thought it would be.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#318
post #309
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the BRIO's predecessor, the 920 (which I think is still sold). For my purposes, it's good enough and is super easy to use. I experimented for a while using my Canon EOS but it's just so much more of a hassle that it really isn't worth it. (In part this is because it's an older model that doesn't have continuous autofocus.)

I have a 920, if I ever take a job where video-on meetings are the norm I expect to upgrade to a BRIO. It seems really nice I just don't have a use for it right now.

We do generally have video-on meetings and I also record videos using it (at least in part). I'd probably buy a BRIO if I didn't have an external webcam but, honestly, I'd probably be overoptimizing given that something like my network is more likely to get in the way.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#319
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the video conferencing apps have web interfaces. I work with a lot of different companies and end up using whatever conferencing system they use. I refuse to install any of them on my computer.

I'm not sure if they've improved it, but in the past Zoom's web client was missing significant simple features like gallery view that made it basically unusable for social calls.

For social calls, I’m usually on my iPad or phone.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#320
post #308
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong comparison. Peloton is manufacturer of fitness gadgets with limited market size. While Amazon is a marketplace gathering fees from sellers with virtually unlimited market size. Everything with hardware is close to death with one leg in the coffin. One mismanagement in supply chain and you are gone. Look at the poor car manufacturers right now. Maybe there is exception - one phone manufacturer that is managing s…

> While Amazon is Not a wrong comparison at all. His point is that Amazon was a place that sold books. They took risks and grew into a marketplace for selling everything. One mismanagement of their AWS development or platformization and things could be very different. Peloton is a manufacturer of fitness gadgets AND a content provider of fitness classes. What they could grow into if they take risks is an open and int…

Starting with books with an intention to go into all e-commerce seems like a good plan to expand into a large domain from a hard problems side, then he could do it again with AWS. By that point size alone was advantage.

Manufacturing a fitness product with streamed classes seemed to be tackling the hardest part of what domain? Sure they could try random things now, but where are they ahead of a media, robotics, car or e-commerce firm? Investors are quoted as thinking he doesn't know what he is doing so probably he shouldn't have built up staff with no new market to enter with an advantage.

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