[mike_kamau]

Why are people replacing their backgrounds?

I thought the whole point of having a video call is to see who you are talking to, and their environment to further enhance the effectiveness of the conversation.

If you are in your kitchen, or under a tree, I definitely would like to see that because that environment will have an effect on how we communicate.

[gerbler]

Sometimes people may not be comfortable sharing their backgrounds, and may not have convenient alternatives. For example, if you have a bed in the background it can be awkward and you might want to blur that out.

[adwww]

I don't bother, but then I live in my own home and my background is an empty study.

I have coworkers who are in house shares with 5 other adults all trying to work from home around tiny desks. Background blur for them is a nice way to hide some of the chaos of their living arrangements.

[spurgu]

If the apartment is a mess in general. Table full of empty cans of beer. A dildo on a chair. Your wife randomly walking by in her underwear (not sure whether this would be unblurred?).

In the above scenarios, if I'm not certain there aren't going to be ackward things in behind me, I'd want to blur or set a custom background. Back against a wall also works which is what a lot of people seem to be doing.

[0xffff2]

Why not just turn off your camera? The blurring tech doesn't seem nearly reliable enough for me to trust it if my "office" was that much of a catastrophe.

[Spooks]

I think because seeing someone's face is more important than seeing their background

[spurgu]

Yeah this should be obvious. I think video calls are a waste of time the majority of the time but one legitimate use case is where there's an issue which doesn't seem to be easily resolved using written media. In this case it's useful to have a video call where you can gauge someone's reaction to specific things you say. That way you might be able to get to the gist of where the miscommunication is happening. A dildo in the background doesn't add to this (although a bunch of empty vodka bottles might gives some clues), while seeing a person's reactions to statements/questions might.