this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
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Mildly Interesting
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Zoom existed since 2013 and was built by an ex.cisco engineer who wanted a better ui for webex but got stonewalled. It just rode the wave of the first apps on iphones.
It exploded during covid because it could scale faster than on-premise and was easier to use with better sound/video quality.
It could have been Skype, but Microsoft ran that into the ground years before.
Right time, right tech, right place. Nothing sinister.
Yeah zoom succeeded in COVID because of its incredibly low bar of entry. You only needed an account as host, anyone could join. Google meet had just removed that feature right before COVID hit (very very smart move Google), and so it became the standard for families and small business. Then since Dave in accounting used Zoom at home he just started using it for work, and it took over.
Very interesting, thanks for the context
Wired did a good writeup in 2020