[romanows]

I really dislike video chat for full-time remote work. Video chat is still too lo-fi to approach the utility of in-person meetings and has the same downsides (grooming, dress, other appearance-based stereotypes). What's wrong with voice?!

[cs02rm0]

What's wrong with voice is that you lose a load of communication nuance. Depending on the tool and how people connect it can be difficult to tell who's even talking.

I work for a company where their policy is that you try for video chat first and degrade to voice then synchronous text then async. It keeps it as close to the feel of being in an office as possible.

I was pretty sceptical at first but the proof for me is when you meet a colleague in real life and don't realise you hadn't actually met them before. That doesn't happen with voice.

10 years on, I'm back in an open plan office at the moment temporarily and finding it painful that you can't just have a one to one chat across the office, that post its suck compared to online tools for certain meetings, that you can't see someone a couple of rows away doesn't want to be disturbed.

And I have to commute for an hour each way for this degraded experience.

[thaumasiotes]

> What's wrong with voice?!

What's wrong with text?

[system2]

Text is one way. You cannot have a fluid conversation via text. Voice and voice+video are faster, plus they carry more information, prevent misunderstandings etc.

[romanows]

Instant messaging is synchronous two-way communication like voice and video. I'm not sure what you mean by "fluid" conversation, though. Voice is good for people who aren't good at typing or expressing themselves via text. However, I don't see what additional conversationally-useful information is conveyed by video of people's faces.

Maybe I just spend too much time listening to the radio and podcasts? Maybe it was growing up in an era where voice phone conversations were more common than texting and facetime?

[nottorp]

More MIS information? Text forces you to think before you type.

Perhaps you don't like having a record? :)

[system2]

Yes, good luck explaining things to people who can't understand basic instructions via text. You might use it for "records" to protect yourself, but getting things done is easier. When I ask someone 'do you understand', in text it might sound very aggressive and sometimes offensive. Via phone or video, it is much more relaxed. If you are concerned about recording, just use screen capture and save it somewhere for a while. Even text cannot be used as a clear evidence, the other person simply says 'I didn't understand that sentence that way'.

[nottorp]

Why are you thinking of liability? I'm thinking of not having to take notes...

[1_player]

Sure, but there's a TON of out-of-band data in voice that cannot be easily replicated in text, that's a fact.

Voice tone, pitch, pauses, irony, sarcasm (both easier to misunderstand in text), etc.

And in person or voice chat have the highest signal-to-noise additional data stream that is body language. "The mouth says yes, but the eyes say no."

[romanows]

I vastly prefer text. Sometimes I need to extract information out of someone who doesn't do a great job of communicating via text and voice helps. Sometimes it's clear that there's a tone-based misunderstanding and that the easiest solution is to switch to voice and make it clear that the tone behind comments isn't sarcastic, dismissive, or whatever.

[vaylian]

Agreed. I do quite a bit of videoconferencing and I find the "need" of other people to see faces weird. Voicechat should do the job as well.

Maybe it's more difficult for people to focus on the conversation if their eyes have nothing to focus on?

[buboard]

Why isnt it normal to replace your face with a cartoon or a photo. If zoom cant do it, you can use a virtual camera program instead. Really, zoom meeting screens look like a grim collection of criminal mugshots. We should be able to do better than simple face video (which also drains the battery)

[clarry]

Focus on writing down meeting notes (or watch another person do it and pay attention in case you have something to add or they got something wrong).