Well, it also took a long time before it became a technology that actually worked. Working in telco, I remember seeing video call demonstrations as early as the 1990s, and it was also touted as a killer feature for 3G. But in the end it was Skype that made it mainstream starting ~2010, and to massive telco displeasure it did so by going "over the top" and using any old Internet connection instead of the pay-per-minute premium rate video call the telcos would dearly have loved to force you in to. In not a few countries like the UAE, OTT video calls like Skype were in fact banned at their behest -- and it appears the ban was only (partly) lifted this very year thanks to COVID!
One of the things I find interesting is that somewhat organic/bottoms-up solutions have generally won out in collaboration. Video sort of just naturally grew out of IP-based telephony. (ADDED: And, as you say, video with a big premium attached--much less special conference rooms etc.--was a real niche. But video that was just a part of cheaper IP-based telephony really took off.) Collaborative doc editing sort of naturally grew out of the migration of office suites to SaaS. Chat has been around forever but assumed a more important role.
None of this looks like a grand unified collaborative toolset like a lot of people were thinking in terms of through the 2000s.
I know some folks don't like to remember this or were too young, but your point is a good reminder that "regulation" comes with downsides like this. E.g. monopolies and incumbents like telecom will sometimes beg to be "regulated", and use to keep out competition and to avoid having to change/innovate.
I'd take a guess that most regulations are helpful - everything occasionally has downsides, especially if you game the system.
For example: You probably don't test a new can of paint for lead - thanks to regulation.
I don't know the standards now, but telcos used to have consumer positive regulations as well. Like having to offer citizens of some states payment plans so they can afford their phone or regulated to apply payment certain ways to help avoid total phone disconnection (landlines here). Fines if phones weren't answered in good time.
Some states had weak regulation about updating rural and poor areas as they do the profitable ones: Some countries still make sure this is done in a timely manner.
There were working prototypes of video phones in the 1930's, and the first videoconferencing service started in 1970. [0] Your perspective is colored by the fact that "video calls" now take place in front of a computer, I think.
Simple sells. Could have taken another century if group video calls hadn't recently been made simple.
What's simpler: group video call or group audio bridge?
The UX for most audio bridges:
1. difficult to setup account, dial-in #s, etc. in the first place (for the organizer of the call)
2. participants need to type in a long PIN
3. participants don't always know who is on the bridge, who isn't and who is but unknowingly muted.
It helped of course that people had non business reasons to have Zooms, Facetimes, Hangouts etc. prior to the pandemic (whereas most people didn't have non-business audio conferencing accounts).
And timing is always important - near ubiquitous broadband and personal compute being prerequisites for the mass video conferencing boom.
Video calling is still pretty bad compared to the reliability of phone calls. I wish there was some paid video call service that offered phone call like reliability over any kind of network.
There was definitely a free video call with the grandkids sort of thing going on. But I'm not sure how common it was in general. I certainly never did personal video calls.
It was coming in anyway in business. We'd been steadily ramping up our video calls for a few years prior to the pandemic. Now it's pretty much universal even if not everyone keeps their camera on depending on the circumstances.
This is not the point of the article. Being a complete substitute is the point. Have a look at travel expenses: No need to meet in person anymore. Almost. ;)
Paywall, unfortunately. I would still basically never do video calls outside of work if not for the pandemic. It's not the I didn't realize it was a solution, it's that I did not have the problem it solves.
”Why a global pandemic transformed videocalling from a technology most people didn’t like to the technology everybody had to have”