Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This feels like bit of a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden shift towards remote only work. This isn't a super new thing, though. There have been a number of companies in the past 5-10 years that offered similar functionality without the hook of having a separate device (Sqwiggle, pukkateam, sneek, etc).
This is one of the best points made. I felt the same way in HN being far too harsh. Seeing other apps along the same connectedness theme gives a good perspective. I had only tried Pragli and it is underwhelming. Too much cpu usage even after they removed snapshots of you. The Spotify integration is te one nice feature none of the others have. Thanks for the names of apps. Going to try the latter two.
By "knee-jerk" I didn't mean new, but meant that it lacked depth. Hopefully my elaboration clarified that I think the company is on the right track, just that they need to go a bit further and extend beyond what traditional video conferencing already (kind of) offers.
They're doing that, and they're a startup -- so I know they're starting lean and that they'll learn, change and add bells and whistles as time goes. This is the right way to do things :).