
Ask HN: Will you work remotely via blurred live video? - kentich
Imagine, you are connected with remote teammates via live video that is blurred by default. They can see you but can&#x27;t see what exactly you are doing.<p>It takes one click to unblur. Unblur takes a few (from 3 to 9) seconds, for you to prepare. You get a notification that a colleague is about to unblur you.<p>Video is mutual - your video is seen only by those who have their video turned on.<p>You can overhear conversations and talk to your remote teammates spontaneously: clarify requirements, solve problems, share ideas, etc. on the fly.<p>Would it be comfortable for you to work remotely via such a blurred live video connection?<p>P.S. Specifically, I am talking about a live video connection provided by this software: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;videoworklink.com&#x2F;
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csorrell
I wouldn't, no. if a teammate wanted to do a video chat or quick phone call
with me they can ping me on slack and ask if it's a good time. this sort of
feature adds an unspoken expectation to my home office... that I'm supposed to
be immediately available whenever someone wants to turn on the video feed. I'm
not interested in that.

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DoreenMichele
These types of ideas tend to be based on the assumption that collaboration is
a good thing, people are social and more connectedness is better than less. In
practice, they tend to be used as "Big Brother Is Watching You."

I have first-hand experience with having a corporate job where they installed
screen sharing software and chatted up how great it would be for someone to be
able to see exactly what you meant without having to come to your desk to
answer your questions. I never once saw or heard if it actually being used
that way, but my boss absolutely used it to spy on people and crab at them
about various things, some of which I felt shouldn't have been an issue.

General rule of thumb: If you don't want people to do X, simply don't make it
possible. That's better than making it possible and asking them nicely to
pretty please be decent people and not do assholish stuff, thank you kindly.

AKA "Lead them but into temptation." Humans need zero help finding temptation
and we really aren't half as nice as we like to imagine we are.

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probinso
This wouldn't help. I don't care if you trust me, just make it consistent.
Either let me work independently, or require me to share my screen. I don't
want to be changing my threat-model randomly throughout the day

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ryeguy_24
Doesn't sound like many people like this idea but I'll take the devil's
advocate for fun. Sometimes when I'm coding my side projects, it's nice to
know I am working along side my co-founder (different location) who is in a
similar mindset as me. I feel like it builds a bit of camaraderie. It's the
same way as if you watch a live sporting event with someone else either in
person or knowing they are watching the same game (texting back and forth,
commenting on the game). It's just more exhilarating. I could see this be
interesting to know that someone is there doing there thing but not lose
privacy.

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meiraleal
As a cofounder, yes. As an employee, no. I'm not my boss' comrade, and I'm
sure he doesn't see me this way too. He wants money and code, and I have a
defined límit of how much effort I'll do to give him these.

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dyingkneepad
Absolutely not. This will take away one of the greatest advantages of working
remotely, which is being free from distractions and free from having to worry
about other people looking at you.

If they want to talk to me they can ping me on IRC (yes we don't use the newer
stuff) or schedule a phone meeting. Video calls are only for very specific
reasons.

Is the company in any way owning the server or proxying the video or a man in
the middle in the communication between you and your peer? My company would
absolutely do that, or consider that I can't talk about confidential
information through this channel, rendering it useless. And if they do the
man-in-the-middle approach, then I would be concerned over privacy of having
the monitor me 24h.

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borplk
Helll no. It's childish, intrusive and unprofessional. I would absolutely
insta-resign.

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codingdave
Not a chance. I choose whether and to turn my video, end of story. Most of the
time, I choose to match the team culture, which happens to be video for dev
team calls, no video for just a couple devs chatting or for larger groups. But
people frequently make a different choice... maybe they are eating or don't
feel well, or simply don't want to be on camera that day.

But taking away that choice changes video.... instead of it being a friendly
gesture of openness to the team, it is now a constant threat of interruption.

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neuroticfish
No. No. No. What is the point? Why can't we just video conference when it's
necessary? How is 3 seconds enough time to "prepare" to be revealed? The
advantage of remote work for me is that I'm not being micromanaged or
distracted. FYI if I worked for an employer who introduced this sort of
privacy invasion, I would quit immediately.

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Raed667
I'm guessing this is for teams who have an "open-window" setup.

I don't really think there is a market for this as a standalone service,
however it can be something I'd experiment with if it came as a plugin to
Google Meet (or another service that is used the same)

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kwimykwim
i like this as it provides another state between on and off for video. the
fact that a colleague can un-blur the feed is a little uncomfortable at first
but when you think it through it would be the same if you were in the office
and a colleague approached you at your cubicle/office/desk. the fact that a
notification is sent and the un-blur occurs on a delay i think is a great
feature. i'd definitely give it a try.

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kentich
Hey, feel fee to try it out at
[http://videoworklink.com/](http://videoworklink.com/) :-)

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muzani
No. Why not just turn on the video as needed? If you need verification that
I'm there, just ask a question.

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kentich
It's too slow in comparison with asking questions on the fly. Especially when
you want to ask the whole team or share a quick idea.

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vectorEQ
why would you want such a connection? It seems a useless waste of bandwidth if
you keep it on while blurred? Wouldn't it make more sense to enable video when
needed and leave it disabled when not needed? What exactly would be the
purpose or benefit of this blurred video?

~~~
kentich
Well, you can overhear conversations and talk to your remote teammates
spontaneously: clarify requirements, solve problems, share ideas, etc. on the
fly. There's no need to make a call or wait for an online meeting.

