> The whole point of using a video app is to communicate things you can't communicate as quickly without video.

The 'whole point' of a visual medium is not just to communicate ideas more quickly. Having eyeballs does not merely grant me a speed boost, it allows me to experience things that are simply ineffable otherwise. People didn't Zoom/Facetime their family members during the pandemic just because it was more efficient than texting them.

> And again, this is about messages simply being undeliverable without the native app. If the web app takes an extra 5 seconds to join the meeting

You're misusing the word undeliverable. Undeliverable means 'can not be delivered', not 'delivered 5 seconds later'.

> Zoom has the money, they don't need to cheap out and do the browser app

They're already doing the browser app. I'm saying they should do it well.

> Their docs specify that there are minimum system requirements for doing 50 rather than 25. This is an efficiency problem at the end of the day - the browser app is less efficient and can't handle as much info at a time with the same hardware.

You originally claimed that there was a hard limit to the number of simultaneous video streams that the browser version could handle, and that this was the difference between sending a message and not sending a message, and now you're walking that point back and saying that the browser version can't do it with the same hardware. So you're tacitly admitting that you were originally presenting a false dichotomy.

> being inefficient can cause security problems

There are multiple confirmed security flaws in the desktop Zoom apps (which you claim are more efficient), and your conclusion is "inefficient = insecure"? If anything, the opposite appears to be true according to your own claims.

> I'd actually wager there's a ceiling to how efficient you can make a browser app, and you can make the native app at least as secure as the browser app

Zoom themselves wagered $200,000, and the result was a critical RCE vulnerability in their desktop clients, and nothing in the browser version. But keep postulating with hypotheticals and ignore objective reality.

> if each case loses 5 minutes of time due to using the browser app [...] because efficient communication is a matter of life and death

First of all you've been throwing around this '5 minute' figure throughout this discussion, but there's simply nothing to substantiate it. Your entire argument hinges on this flimsy point derived from anecdotal evidence. I've never spent 5 minutes trying to set up Zoom in the browser. I predicted several days ago that this discussion would degenerate into anecdote trading, and here we are.

Second of all, if I were dealing with a serious court case then one of my primary concerns would be maintaining confidentiality. You completely ignored the entire point of my court example which was to illustrate the fact that security has serious implications, and you can't simply wave them off by saying "I wouldn't transmit personal information via Zoom". You're trying as hard as you can to avoid the most important aspect of using Zoom in court: security. Instead you wrote a thinkpiece about Zoom hypothetically taking 5 minutes to load. Imagine being a witness in a high profile case, on the brink of going into the witness protection program, with your literal life on the line, only to find out that your private information was leaked because someone didn't like the UX of the Zoom web app. And you have the gall to claim that bad UX is a matter of life and death. Are you being serious here?

You yourself said "I wouldn't transmit my bank account number and routing number or similarly sensitive information over Zoom", and yet you want the Zoom desktop app to be used in courts? That makes absolutely zero sense. Do you not believe courts deal with sensitive information?