I think more of their mistakes are about trying to lock people into their exclusive ecosystem. MS, Google, FB all focus on making people sign into their service to make money off of them. They refuse to interoperate and are very slow to try any features that don’t hold the promise of profits.

Zoom on the other hand has no ecosystem to lure you into. Their video chat IS the product so they invest effort into features that have made it 1) operate reliably and 2) unique. They just use their freemium model to sell you their pro versions if you have that need. They integrate into other companies’ services and provide open settings that others companies have always locked away behind exclusivity and/or paid access. Zoom has for years allowed kinds of meetings that most other companies have never wanted to deliver.

It’s only after SO many years because Zoom is now popular that the others are falling over themselves to shamelessly copy Zoom — and not just the cute features like virtual backgrounds. They’re even trying to copy the ease of use features for more open meetings that have been the subject of so many attack articles in the media and banning Zoom use in government/corporations.

Meanwhile, throughout this freaking out about security, these big companies will continue to invade your privacy to sell your activity (you are the product) to their advertisers and partners.

Faced with all this, spokespeople of Zoom have actually been responsive to the situation and even expressed something akin to the shame that these other companies really should be feeling at their treatment of Zoom, if only those people in charge actually had the capacity to feel.

I just Zoom can hold on to their popularity through this idiocy and hypocrisy. They succeeded where others failed by being proficient but who can withstand so much animosity from competitors, reporters, and the alt-right?