Ever since the pandemic hit us, Zoom has been the go-to meetings app for many of us.
But yesterday, JioMeet was launched as an alternative for Zoom in India, and it instantly started trending because its UI is exactly the same as that of Zoom. Honestly, this was the first reaction for many of us.
Followed by this:
"Let the drama begin!"
But on a serious note, this was quite a weird move by Reliance Jio, and I'm still trying to understand what their angle is. Some people think they did it for the sake of providing an easy transition for many Indians, especially those who might not be very tech-literate. But I can't help but think there's more to the story.
I admit many people are happy to have an Indian app for video-conferencing, especially amidst the huge #MadeInIndia campaign being pushed by the government of India. Plus there have been so many privacy and security concerns around Zoom lately. So yeah, this might be a net positive. Many other countries are also trying to switch to indigenous solutions, I hear.
Zoom currently has an insane valuation, but do you think this might be the beginning of the end for Zoom? I'm curious to know what you guys might think.
Letβs discuss this!
Or you can respond on Twitter!
Top comments (35)
Happy 4th of July first of all π The celebration is supposed to be in the US, but the fireworks are taking place in India apparently. ππ€£
Such a hot topic right now, this whole Zoom/JioMeet debacle. Tbh I was among the first few to jump on the hype train and post a spicy meme yesterday.
But after seeing some of the responses and talking to a few of my friends, I guess we can cut them a little slack. I'm still kinda mad they copied the whole UI. That said, I really wanna see where they take this. 1 million+ downloads already. I even downloaded and tried the app for myself last night. Let's see where this goes.
What if they did this intentionally for marketing ?
That is totally possible. I wouldn't put it beyond them to do something like that. XD
Will be interesting to see how Zoom takes this. What if they sue Jio? After all, this does look intentional.
If they do that they will get international traction and may be users too. π
I like to think that tossing British governors out brings our nations closer together.
Cloned !
Exactly..
git cloneIs Zoom open source though?
No. Zoom is not open source. Jitsi meet is open source and perhaps the best in the field of open source
?
I have been using Jitsi Meet and I find it to be very good. It is open source. There are other video conferencing programmes that are open source but Jitsi appears to be the best. If you have less than 50 participants then it is better than even Zoom.
I was very happy with Jitsi until it suddenly started to mute incoming members of the conversation and then there was no way to unmute the three of us at the same time (I and my friend were on the conversation first, then came the third person).
It happened with a few calls, and with a heavy heart, we switched to Google Meet. :( I have no idea what happened and why, didn't find any info.
I'm still using Jitsi for one-on-one conversations, though and I love it.
I have been doing Jitsi meeting since this pandemic but this issue never arose. It is for the organiser as well as the participant both to unmute otherwise it they will not be unmuted. There may be some other technical issue. There is also Jitsi premium that gives you technical help for a price.
Like any other open source programme it is also good to pose problem in the community and normally you get a solution. I did not know how to schedule a meeting on Jitsi. I posed the problem and they provided with answer.
Once people start using some platform and it's pretty hard to migrate people to another platform even if the new platform is better like WhatsApp and Telegram. Telegram clearly have better and more features but my friends are not on it, they are comfortable sticking to WhatsApp because they know everyone will be there. Let's see if Jio can do this and make people switch
I completely agree with you there on the Telegram vs WhatsApp thing. Telegram has so many features I love, and I'm possibly the biggest Telegram evangelist I know, but even then, my friends are skeptical of switching over. And it's not even just about the interface. Network effects always play a huge role in social apps like these. If none of their other friends are on Telegram, they have no reason to be on Telegram either. It's a hard transition.
Jio might just be able to pull it off, however. At least for non-professional users.
I'd be interested in whether JioMeet would replicate and excel in the accessibility features such as, Closed Captioning, Automatic Transcripts, Keyboard Accessibility & Screen Reader support. At Zoom, accessibility is treated as a core value and would have been built into the development lifecycle and measured with each department. That stuff is not easy to copy.
The faster that Zoom dies itβs inevitable death, the better, in my opinion. It is a woefully insecure app at itβs core, which has brought it the sort of bad press it should be getting for other more nefarious reasons (such as the fact that it is constantly sending data back to the Chinese government). The fact that people in positions where the information being shared on the platform, or things that are being discussed contain sensitive information are still using Zoom at this point, is ridiculous to me.
In tech field, the first one is the leader. He leads the way, so is true with Zoom. It has become popular. This will change only if Jio meet comes up an innovation that is new and different.
Nokia led the mobile industry but lost to smartphones. Yahoo search led the way, till Google came up with better search engine. Unless this happens or education institutions in india change over to Jio meet, it will be difficult.
Reliance has good chance to change India if it can tap education institutions.
Well, whatever they did. We're all talking about it. Aren't we?
They can always roll out another update and make things different and better (probably). But Zoom is giant as well. We gotta let stuff unfold a bit more.
I do appreciate their efforts. But at the same time, I feel like they've underplayed a little. It's only because I know what Jio is capable of. Revolution. They have made really good apps before.
After all he is the richest man in India.
If enough momentum builds away from Zoom, they're definitely in trouble, but I don't this will affect them much... yet. If it takes off in India, that's a different story... something to watch!
Security is the biggest concern for India if India is the creation of the platform which secure us digitally, then why not copy the things. I personally think the real agenda behind Reliance on making similar UI is provoking Chinese digitalization and tell them we are your boss :D and we know our Indian people batter than you.
Atleast zoom is backed by privacy laws in the US. India has no active data protection laws. If you're talking about security it makes sense to use open source alternative like jitsi. Besides jiomeet sends data like analytics to countries like US. Tell me how is it more secure to use jiomeet? The company that got invested heavily by Facebook!
Nothing to argue with you. You have your points. I have mine. in last I want safe India, secure India, made in India.
Everybody wants the same. It starts with a strong data protection laws. Until then all these make no sense.
Yes! Right
But but changing the UI a bit would've been the easiest thing to do π
Exactly. @utkarsh why not we help them. π€
Well considering the amount of hate indian developers are getting from their own home for anything they innovate. I think it's safe to say that if JIOMeet is used in local classroom and the urban places that is victory enough for me. I don't want indians to recommend each other zoom or any fancy foreign stuff just because it has english name and saying it loud makes one cool. I think what i meant in short is - if jiomeet meets the needs of local, good enough for us.
Not a fan of Zoom UI, but in some respects it is an amazing, ubiquitous product. However, Google Meets seems to be nailing π π½ some of the right shortcomings. As a JS dev, this is an awesome side project, ZipCall from Ian Ramsey - a college student looking for an internship, BTW. It's π― using browser technologies - nothing else. ππ½
There is an episode on Syntax.fm discussing this
Funny to see that they copied the UI, because... come on, the UI is the least interesting part of Zoom. Their real assets are:
I wonder if JioMeet can copy these things.
Is Zoom doomed or
was doom... Zoomβd?
π§ β‘οΈ
I doubt Zoom is doomed really... Maybe in India, but Zoom has the monopoly on the rest of the world.