
Zoom is now critical infrastructure – that’s a concern - ohjeez
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2020/08/27/zoom-is-now-critical-infrastructure-thats-a-concern/
======
impendia
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.

~~~
scottlamb
> 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 from home while the kids are in class. There
are many low-income and/or ESL families. Even the teachers aren't tech
experts.

In my son's kindergarten class, everyone got school-supplied Chromebooks. They
all have Google accounts for Google Classroom. That probably means they could
switch to Google Hangouts Meet, but it wouldn't be smooth. They'd at least
miss a day, and subsequent days would be rocky. The teacher has invested a lot
of effort just in teaching the kids how to mute and unmute themselves without
waiting for their grown-up to help, and they'd have to go through that again
with a different UI.

~~~
forgotmysn
the kids in elementary schools were born into the digital age. they're digital
natives from the get, and are probably more comfortable using digital tools
than we are

~~~
EvilPaticus
That seems pretty short-sighted. Sure my 1st grader knows his way around an
iPad enough to play games and watch Netflix, that doesn't mean he's going to
understand installing new software or what it means when Zoom isn't working
and they have to switch to Hangouts. Yeah, he'll come ask me and I'll figure
it out quickly, but I've interacted with enough other parents to know that
being able to do so isn't commonplace. Heck even the teachers get confused
just setting that stuff up.

~~~
gridlockd
They'll figure it out. People always complain about having to learn something
new, but they _will learn_ if they have to.

------
nicoburns
> 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.

~~~
quietbritishjim
And unlike many other services, the network effect is quite low because I can
easily install multiple video conferencing software or even run some in the
browser. If someone organising a meeting asks to use something unusual, I'm
normally not that bothered.

~~~
citizenkeen
My wife sees doctors at four different clinics. Each has chosen a different
remote meeting solution. It's non-negotiable - to see your doctor remotely,
you need to use their software. And that's just in one field.

I'm not concerned about Zoom monopoly at all.

~~~
AdamJacobMuller
With COVID my grandfather has been doing telepresence visits with his doctors,
for COVID among other reasons.

Mostly they were using a 3rd party solution like webx/zoom/etc but one doctor
(automated in an online form) noticed his number was tied to iMessage and
offered to just FaceTime him at his appointment time. Super easy for him (at
94) to self-manage vs any other solution where we (my mother or myself) need
to be around to set things up for him.

Not sure how they are doing this exactly, if this is something Apple
specifically enabled for healthcare or whatever, but its a fantastic
experience.

Whatever solution they were using did have an "no I have an android and a 'use
my computer' option" not sure what path they led down.

~~~
Robotbeat
It’s a shame there isn’t seamless ability to Facetime with Android users like
there is to make a voice call or text with them. We (read: tech community
and/or society) should fix this. It’d be in society’s interest if a video call
between android and Apple was as easy as a voice call is. (and I do think
Facetime between Apple users is this easy... I sometimes use Facetime purely
because my WiFi is a little better than my cell signal).

~~~
timvdalen
Isn't Google's Duo available for iOS?

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

~~~
trthomps
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.

~~~
Thlom
I'm not sure if Apple ever explained why they didn't open up FaceTime? I seem
to remember that when they presented it they said it would become an open
standard?

~~~
toast0
There have been persistent rumors of an issue with patents.

------
boogies
The fact that people are being evicted after not using Zoom
[https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/spring/trial-by-
proprietar...](https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/spring/trial-by-proprietary-
software) 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/](https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/),
but proprietary software can cause serious problems for members of the human
race and they should have a right to choose not to “use” it. Doesn’t the US
Constitution support the Amish’s right to abstain from the power grid, etc.?

The Federal Source Code Policy should revert from requiring 20% of software
written with forcibly extracted public money to be free to 100% as it was when
open for public comment.

Any software that the public is forced to use, fund, or through network
effects promote, the public should be able to audit and control. Windows is
explicitly banned from the ISS. The lowly common people down here deserve a
fraction of that privilege.

~~~
devmunchies
> 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 rebelious literature: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/national/longterm/unab...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm)

~~~
ShamelessC
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.)"

~~~
krapp
That pathological contempt for "the left" is how you know you're dealing with
a work of true intellectual gravity.

~~~
devmunchies
There's lots of geniuses who are a little crazy or unhinged. e.g. bobby
fischer

~~~
pvg
He was a raging anti-semite, holocaust denier, etc.

~~~
devmunchies
again, "geniuses who are a little crazy or unhinged".

~~~
pvg
Bigotry is just bigotry not a quirky trait of genius, as much as a one-time
chess champion is a 'genius'.

------
howmayiannoyyou
State Courts are too reliant on Zoom and using its breakout rooms for very
sensitive communications. This IS infrastructure and should be very
concerning. Its an area DHS needs to take a close look at.

~~~
bluedino
We interface with courts every day, they pretty much forgot about our direct
connections using Polycom VC and went straight to Zoom

------
tomxor
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 external meeting and it was a nightmare, it
felt like I had to jump through 10 hoops just to get into the frickin meeting,
and even then 4/5 people couldn't get it to pick up their microphone through
the browser API.

~~~
fsflover
> 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...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-
even-more-important.html)

~~~
barbs
I think what he meant was that most users of zoom just see it as reasonably
easy way to get into a video call with multiple people that just works (for
the most part).

If jitsi scaled just as well as zoom and used the same amount of client-side
resources, nearly everyone would use that instead. There's nothing to install
so people would barely even know hey were using a platform

------
renewiltord
A bit tired of the "critical infrastructure" argument. People are very quick
to put all sorts of things into the category. He mentions network effects as
the only real moat in the article.

If Zoom fails at being a product, people will move away.

~~~
boogies
> If Zoom fails at being a product, people will move away.

Literally. As in being evicted from their home:
[https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/spring/trial-by-
proprietar...](https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2020/spring/trial-by-proprietary-
software)

~~~
renewiltord
Honestly, this one is so strange to me. UK government services somehow
generally tend to be total rubbish but one of them is actually top-tier:
gov.uk

They have accessibility and access and all these baked into the design AFAIK.
I don't understand why American govs have such a hard time on this. Some are
larger than the UK and have problems!

~~~
Kalium
The UK is a deeply centralized place. There are only a few layers of devolved
government, that you may or may not be subject to. There is an ability to set
and enforce standards centrally.

The US is not. A federalized system means that various components work mostly
separately from one another. A county court has sharply limited resources, and
no ability to ask the federal government to send it a cadre of web developers.
The state it's in may not provide a ton of resources for such things at the
county level either.

The actual question here that may wind up a big deal is if a Zoom hearing is
the equivalent of a physical one. If it is, failing to show up means
forfeiting the right to be heard. Whether it's Jitsi instead might not be a
substantive difference.

------
pc86
> _When Zoom goes down...business meetings, conferences, and webinars grind to
> a halt._

I mean that's a bit of stretch. I work for a company that uses primarily Cisco
Jabber (absolutely god awful, atrocious piece of software), but we also
interact with folks using Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack, Skype, join.me, etc.
There are no shortage of video conferencing platforms.

------
ryeguy_24
Zoom was not critical infrastructure 5 months ago. I think we’d adapt if
needed.

------
dougmwne
Is this a submarine written by Microsoft PR? Seems very likely it could be.
Seems to boil down to: "Little upstart company can't be trusted with important
business, better buy from an established player."

~~~
brawnelamia
My company prohibited and even _remote-force uninstalled_ zoom and mandated
Skype or MS Teams right after the last rash of bad zoom PR.

I feel pretty certain there was coordination from our Microsoft account
manager and Microsoft's PR team on this front.

The funny part is that Skype is famous for zero days while zoom is famous for
people running pseudo public non-password protected conference calls that got
invaded by teenagers.

~~~
boogies
The less funny part is that to the HN users who together made
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23555226](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23555226)
my current most upvoted comment on HN, Zoom is known for “a history of
shadiness (MacOS hidden server to prevent uninstallation), outright lies
(E2EE), and attacking the pillars of democracy (censoring Chinese Americans
discussing Tienanmen Square).”

Not that MS isn’t shady, dishonest, or even a deep state tool of oppression
(in light of the Snowden leaks, and at least in some people’s view Github’s
ICE contract).

------
tomasreimers
I think Zoom has become critical infrastructure, but not from a technological
perspective. As @nicoburns points out in another comment, there are many
companies that can do the job (MSFT, Google, Cisco, etc. have perfectly
comparable alternatives here), and if you're willing to look outside of the
biggest companies explicitly targeting business meetings, you have other
companies with working technical infrastructure targeted at a different market
(i.e. FB, Appl) and a batch-ful of YC startups trying to provide the same
functionality to the same market.

What I think the article is pointing out is that when Zoom goes down, schools
can't teach. And that's true. I think this is indicative of a usability /
coordination / culture problem of missing fallbacks. For example, when Zoom
goes down a teacher (at least to my knowledge) can't/won't quickly email out a
"Hey class, Zoom is down so here is the Google meet link for today".

However, this is true of many technologies (if gmail is down I'm not getting
email, if slack is down I'm not reading messages, and if Github is down I'm
not pushing code). I think the larger problem is HOW MANY institutions it's a
critical point of failure for. If Zoom goes down, our courts largely pause,
our education largely pauses, our economy largely pauses, etc. The same is not
true of Github or Gmail. In this regard it's closer to a powergrid failure.

This should go away as verticalized solutions and fallbacks appear (leading to
broader diversity, where not all courts use the same platform), but I think
the key things to think about until then are:

1\. Is there anything Zoom could do to create stronger network effects
([https://ayushsood.com/zooms-missing-platform/](https://ayushsood.com/zooms-
missing-platform/)) preventing new entrants from entering the market? 2\. If
they did those things, how could we respond to ensure Zoom's incumbent
position didn't allow them to prevent new entrants? An old-internet answer
would be to centralize the key nodes, effectively utilitize them, and then
allow anyone to make a platform that connects to them (i.e. AT&T doesn't own
telephony, DNS' don't own the internet, Gmail doesn't own email).

I'm not sure how likely this is given (1) we're moving towards centralization
generally (2) the importance of performance in video streaming. Any
abstraction creates overhead, and that might be a critical failure to open
standards in the video streaming space.

------
k__
Is it?

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

~~~
randomdata
I use like five different services _every day_ that work about as well as each
other. I do happen to think Zoom does the best job out of the set, but it is
only a marginal lead. It would be nothing to use something else.

------
esaym
Not sure why there isn't more open source alternatives in this realm. Since I
only run Linux, I was amazed the first time I used Zoom that it had an actual
working linux client. I've always had hopes that webrtc would take over.
There's been demo's of video conferencing done over webrtc 5+ years ago and I
always hoped it would get more traction. The best I've found lately is
"Unamed"[0] but it is the product of one author.

[0]:
[https://www.irif.fr/~jch/software/chat/](https://www.irif.fr/~jch/software/chat/)

~~~
gpvos
Jitsi is pretty well-known and you can run a server yourself; are there any
problems with it?

~~~
esaym
Never heard of it, but I will try it :)

------
beefee
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 call.

Hopefully it's still possible to develop something that's both secure and
convenient. But I fear there's no economic incentive to do it.

~~~
kiwijamo
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.

------
s09dfhks
There are other options though. Things lit jitsi are growing in popularity.
Its frustrating that a few "big companies" decided to use these tools so the
rest of the world followed suit without doing their own research

------
brobdingnagians
Like backing up data, having a contingency plan is important. Even if you like
zoom because of certain features, having a backup service you can use in case
of emergency is important. If everyone knows beforehand "which link to try if
zoom is down today", then it is merely an inconvenience instead of an
emergency.

~~~
aassddffasdf
Umm Slack can be used to coordinate a hop to another channel.

~~~
brobdingnagians
Yep, that's what I do, and work is easy to coordinate, but some other social
events or organizations with inexperienced non-tech people don't have slack
and don't think to check their email. It is easier for them to have a pre-
specified backup option.

------
quanticle
As others have pointed out, it's laughable to consider Zoom to be critical
infrastructure when so many alternatives exist.

Moreover, I find it somewhat strange that he's referring to Zoom as "critical
infrastructure" instead of the major cloud providers like AWS or Azure. If
Zoom goes down, it's an inconvenience to many. If AWS or Azure goes down, many
business just stop functioning. Heck, many government departments might stop
functioning, given how government infrastructure has been moving to "the
cloud".

------
crazygringo
> _But in many of the verticals in these sectors—such as banking or mobile
> phone services—no single company dominates the market._

Gmail dominates e-mail in a similar matter.

And remember just a year ago barely anyone had even heard of Zoom -- there's
still Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Skype...

This piece feels like it's trying to stir up worry over nothing. Yes, critical
business software tends to have outages once or twice a year. But no, Zoom
doesn't appear to be any obviously better or worse than the competition.

------
FpUser
I work from home for the last 20 years. My clients and my
workforce/subcontractors are all over the world. I had to use Zoom only with
one particular client as of their insistence. Other then that I do just fine
with the Skype. Not sure what is so "critical" about Zoom in particular.

------
throwawaysea
I feel like Zoom is the least concern. It is relatively replaceable, unlike
providers with significant network effects - payment processors (Visa,
Mastercard, Paypal, Stripe), social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit), ad
networks (Google, Apple, Facebook) or dominant share (Google search).

------
WilTimSon
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.

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

~~~
kiwijamo
This rules WhatsApp out for many professional settings.

------
peterwwillis
Most of the internet that everyone in the world uses is constructed and
maintained by companies that you don't give a single cent to, and who don't
owe you anything if it goes down. This applies to a lot (maybe most?) things
in the world. Say freight (trucks, trains, ships, etc) stops moving, for
example. Within a month or two all the grocery stores would be empty. We'd
have Mad Max-style convoys of cars driving around trying to find food and raid
stores. It wasn't but a hundred or so years ago that most people survived on
local food suppliers, and today almost none of our food is local.

------
asdff
When we have trouble connecting with zoom, we just go back to the old school
conference call which is pretty smooth. It turns out, you really don't need to
see closeups of peoples neck hair to have a functional remote meeting. There
are also a dozen other similar popular video chat services that can be step up
just as easily as zoom. Zoom isn't a utility, it's just one of the many
redundant ways out there that you can use to communicate with people.

------
aussieguy1234
Zoom is fine, but like everything it will go down now and then. In that case
there are alternatives. If it goes down, why not do just that one meeting in
Google Meet?

------
dariusj18
Would it be crazy to suggest that the postal service be reabsorbed back into
the government and also given the role of managing all government
communication channels?

------
Fr8TRN
The pandemic has increased the load of data collection especially of students
in classrooms. Four years ago we were appalled that china was putting cameras
in classrooms. Now we are putitng cameras on every individual child with audio
and absolutely no regulation or organizaiton structure.

The pandemic has significantly increased an already high level of data
collection. Does anyone think government should have a role in regulation?

------
rogerdickey
More like "Live video capability on the internet is now critical
infrastructure" but even then, phones probably cover 90%+ of use cases

------
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_

~~~
trthomps
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.

~~~
anon3280
I agree.

The US Government is pretty impervious to change. For example, people still
get arrested for smoking weed. Most o America supports decriminalizing weed.

Why is it still illegal? Shouldn't the government enact policies that most of
America agrees with?

I mean... don't most of us agree that if a private company were doing any of
this stuff, they would lose all their customers ASAP:

\- [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/judge-child-
porn...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/judge-child-porn-
evidence-obtained-via-fbis-tor-hack-must-be-suppressed/)

\-
[https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/5jt6k0/where_the...](https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/5jt6k0/where_the_fuck_are_all_of_these_tax_dollars_going/)

\- [https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/sterling-
correct...](https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/sterling-correctional-
facility-guards-gassed-room-full-of-muslims-beat-1-in-retaliation-lawsuit)

\- [https://www.aufamily.com/forums/topic/156988-obama-nsa-
discl...](https://www.aufamily.com/forums/topic/156988-obama-nsa-disclosed-
years-of-illegal-searches-on-americans/)

\- [https://reason.com/2017/04/25/a-man-died-in-jail-after-
getti...](https://reason.com/2017/04/25/a-man-died-in-jail-after-getting-no-
wate/)

\- [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/what-
happe...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/what-happens-to-
people-who-cant-prove-who-they-
are/2017/06/14/fc0aaca2-4215-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html?utm_term=.8e653e7c2e39)

I believe the burden of proof is on someone who thinks the US Government is a
good representative of it's people.

~~~
trthomps
I was very careful to word my previous comment to say the US Government
represents the voting population. In 2016 there were only 157M registered
voters, and only 138M voted in the presidential election that year. The
population of the US was 321M in 2016 making the US Government represent
approximately 43% of the overall population at best, most elections have a far
lower turnout.

I didn't say the system was fair, but it's still not a fair to compare a
private company to how a government is supposed to function. Governments
enforce laws and provide public services. You want things to change? vote for
it.

------
paulpauper
Video over IP has existed forever. Zoom is just one of many companies and
services that do it.

------
swiley
The navy did a decent job with sqlight and TOR. I’d love to see a video chat
app from them.

~~~
dctoedt
> _The navy did a decent job with sqlight and TOR._

Tell us more?

------
kodablah
Where I see effort needing to be spent is an easily setup/usable/configurable
video-conferencing package of sorts. A good product would have two things: 1)
easy to setup and scale video conferencing out of the box (like literally
point at an aws account or k8s cluster and hit "go"), and 2) sdks for
manipulating server-side rooms and client-side room/video appearance (but
still the default rooms and default grids are in the box).

These two things as a common toolkit would accelerate offerings that could
decentralize the marketplace. I've seen jitsi offerings (scalable setup isn't
as straightforward last I checked which admittedly was a long time ago),
twilio (still someone else's servers), etc. I'm sure these toolkits are being
worked on (heck I'm working on one), it just takes a bit of time for the
players to catch up in a market that exploded overnight.

------
tedd4u
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.

~~~
kiwijamo
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.

------
pmlnr
Whoever wrote this didn't live through the rise and demise of Skype.

------
chenzhekl
But we still have choices: Microsoft Teams, Rocket.Chat, Google Meet, etc. As
long as it's not the only viable option, I don't think there's a need to
worry.

------
koiz
Nahhhh its just an app nothing to worry about /s

Blows my mind how quickly people accepted the product into their
organizations. Zoom Phone... no thank you.

------
holografix
Humm critical infrastructure? No alternatives? Has this guy heard of google
hangouts, Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Slack...

------
toastal
Has the acquisition of Keybase done anything for Zoom yet? What was the
purpose--to get engineers that knew about security?

------
gregkerzhner
We use Google hangouts at work and it.... works just fine. What is the big
deal about Zoom?

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sigstoat
has anyone built something on top of twilio's video offering?

it looks relatively straightforward, and seems to me like most tech companies
(and some university IT departments) could pretty easily build internal
conferencing stuff on top of it if they cared to.

~~~
leesalminen
I deployed one of their demo repos [0] and had some medium usage of it in
production. It didn’t get a lot of use (most use Zoom) and almost always had <
5 participants. It worked well enough. The cost seemed affordable too, though
I never looked too closely. It didn’t make a dent on our overall Twilio bill.

[0] - [https://github.com/twilio/twilio-video-app-
react](https://github.com/twilio/twilio-video-app-react)

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KoftaBob
Really playing fast and loose with the term "critical infrastructure" for
clicks.

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SubiculumCode
Frankly Zoom (i.e. video conferenceing) has been essentially pointless for K-6
education.

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xoxoy
next time someone talks about the first mover advantage point to Zoom

its quite funny if you think about it

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b34r
There are a ton of video clients available, it’s not that special. It’s just
popular.

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look_lookatme
This and email should have been what USPS was building over the last 20 years.

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baby
It’s not critical infrastructure: people can easily move to google meet.

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winrid
Not really. If it goes down I can use Hangouts or Slack, for starters.

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beders
Anyone remember FUD? This is a FUD-piece á la MSFT-style.

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xwdv
Honestly what's the worst that could happen?

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

~~~
kevincox
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.

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

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jeffrallen
One word: Jitsi.

