As per a reply to another child comment.

> My point was that Zoom fits some use cases better, and that seems to be the case more often than not for users with less technical ability than the HN userbase.

Some of our users may be, in the kindest possible way, completely batshit insane with their life falling apart when they first turn up to our meetings.

Meeting hosts [0] can explain Zoom to them in three/four steps and look after them from there with in meeting controls. With Jitsi, they've got to keep asking them to stop unmuting themself because they keep pressing buttons... Which means they have to stop the meeting for 5 minutes, again and again and again.

EDIT for further information / clarity:

Zoom also enables users to chat without any additional steps [1]. With Jitsi you have to create a name to even see the chat. So new users may connect, not hear anything [2] and then just leave and not come back. Zoom, they can see the message we send them and then we can guide them from there.

Then there's the fact that meeting hosts cannot screen share from smartphone with Jitsi -- 90% of our users/hosts are smartphone only [3]. This would require them buying a laptop. Many hosts cannot do this / adds to technical effort.

Then there's the fact that we'd have to type in the name of the Jitsi meeting EXACTLY whenever we want to start the meeting. Hosts would have to get the name of the meeting ID exactly correct every week. To make meeting IDs secure, that'd mean they have to type a complex character sequence out perfectly every day. (Yes they can copypasta, but some aren't even that technically adept).

Then of course there's always the chance someone else uses that meeting ID at the same time by accident! There's no method I saw where you can reserve a Jitsi meeting ID only for our use [4]. Oh, and while I'm here, what about the fact that you cannot schedule a jitsi meeting ID ahead of time? So there's no scheduling a call / meeting available.

I might as well talk about security too -- anyone in a Jitsi meeting can start a live recording [5]. And any participant can just remove and change the meeting password at any time. And no waiting rooms. And once a user is removed, they can just join again -- repeat Zoombombings, woo!

And then this doesn't even begin to cover the fact that hosts need to go through all the steps to set up a meeting [6] every time they start a meeting. Zoom handles all that with the default settings I enable for them as admin.

Some of this can be covered by custom Jitsi server installs. But that introduces way more technical effort on my side and doesn't cover dial in phone options (at least in a simple and forward maintainable way).

I'd rather pay Zoom £20 a month.

====

Addendum: I just tried setting up a password for a meeting and then inviting myself. The password wasn't required to join... Pretty poor!

[0]: not me, I'm admin

[1]: e.g. in the case of buggy audio

[2]: maybe they didn't accept the permissions properly

[3]: tested on latest android app

[4]: I could be wrong, but this is a simple option for Zoom

[5]: An absolute no-no for us.

[6]: set up the password, mute participants to start with, chat with host only (not an option on jitsi), amongst others