[rsj_hn]

I've used google hangouts and then Meets at my work and it's fine. It does not require any special training to use, it works as you'd expect, and basically gets out of your way.

I've used Zoom for online classes (as a student) and don't see any difference or advantage between it and Meets. You still click a link and and a window open ups, your camera turns on, there is a chat box, etc.

[bostik]

I use Zoom and Meet daily too. They are both functional on the bare-bones level but fail miserably with anything more complex - such as a 10+ person meeting. Or screen sharing.

Meets craps its UI dimensions when you open chat. Zoom pops the chat window up in the middle of the screen, which is only slightly less bad. Both have problems if you have detachable video camera(s) in addition to laptop's own. And don't get me started on the audio path: even if you do manage to pick the right input and output, there's no guarantee the audio actually gets routed through. Expect to restart the video call software 25% of the time and pray it reconnects the streams all the way through.

Oh, and Zoom's screen sharing experience on multi-monitor OSX setup is unforgivable. When you choose to share a screen, it triggers a sequence where the audience sees your shared view but you do not. The window you chose to share gets hidden locally.

Whoever thought that would be an acceptable user experience needs to have their head examined. Possibly with a trepanner.

[gota]

Zoom allows annotation and drawing on top of a shared screen - actual shared screen, not a separate "whiteboard"

This means I can circle a word or append a box to a diagram on a pdf my colleague is screensharing with me.

I can have non-technical meetings on whatever.

But annotation over shared screens is 100% the feature that keeps me on Zoom for all tech work