Few Knew About Zoom A Month Ago, Now It's A Necessity. Here's Why Everyone Is Using It

Today was the first time I had a meeting on Zoom... with almost 300 other people. This is of course how everyone holds meetings these days when there is no knowing how long we all will be working from home.

Zoom went public last year in April. Today it is worth more than all the major airlines combined. That industry is obviously going through one of the worst phases in history.

Zoom 2019 market cap: $18.8B
Airlines 2019 market cap: $78.1B

Zoom current market cap: $44.5B
Airlines current market cap: $27.0B

Note: Airlines includes Delta, United, American and Jet Blue.

¡ª Will Hershey (@maybebullish) March 23, 2020

But why has Zoom suddenly become a necessity in the work-from-home culture?

1. Easy To Operate

Believe it or not, in this tech savvy world there are a lot of us who struggle with simple tasks like downloading apps, installing them and then running them on laptops and PCs.

Most video conferencing applications require us to download software and set it up.

ZDNet

But Zoom is as simple as Facetiming. One just has to click on Zoom link in an invitation and it will launch your meeting. It prompts you to install the app if you don¡¯t already have it. It¡¯s fast and simple, which is great for the least tech savvy of us.

2. Its Accessible On All Devices

Zoom can be used on any device- laptop, Android device, desktop, iPad, iPhone. That means, anyone, anywhere can use it. This is one of the main reasons why Zoom has flourished: Anyone with an internet connection can use it.

3. It's Free

Zoom is free to use. Most videoconferencing services are free to use to join meetings.

Reuters

But on Zoom you can also host meetings for free, which isn¡¯t true for a lot of it's competitors.

4. It's Reliable

Zoom is being used by millions of people across the globe and given the traffic and the surge in usage it has held up really well. There might be a few glitches here and there but considering the sheer bandwidth and data processing that has to happen to make real-time video meetings possible, it's remarkable it hasn¡¯t collapsed yet.

5. It's fun

Zoom is actually fun. If you are not keen on anyone seeing your background in a video or simply are bored of it, there are inbuilt options provided where you can change it to a beach or outer space. Some might think these are unnecessary features but it makes the usual con calls of catch up a little more interesting and fun.

Zoom

In times like these, we all can use a bit of that, can¡¯t we?