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.
Let’s discuss this!
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Latest comments (35)
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
Not a fan of Zoom UI, but in some respects it is an amazing, ubiquitous product. However, Google Meets seems to be nailing 💅🏽 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 💯 using browser technologies - nothing else. 👏🏽
There is an episode on Syntax.fm discussing this
The faster that Zoom dies it’s inevitable death, the better, in my opinion. It is a woefully insecure app at it’s 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.
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.
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.
I doubt Zoom is doomed really... Maybe in India, but Zoom has the monopoly on the rest of the world.
Is Zoom doomed or
was doom... Zoom’d?
🧠 ⚡️
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.
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!
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.