[ajmurmann]

I always found the audio on phone calls awful. In addition, I cannot see who is on the call, there is no indicator who is speaking, no visual cues who is getting ready to step in. No ability to read the room because you cannot see anyone. It's just awful.

[OkayPhysicist]

Since one of my friend groups now resides primarily online due to general diaspora, I'd say there are adaptions that make VoIP a lot better. Right off the bat, good quality VoIP calls are vastly better than phone calls, because the compression on phones combined with typically rather shitty audio equipment creates an environment where subtle tonal queues are completely absent. Discord's audio is fantastic, but so is Mumble's, a FOSS VoIP solution, so I have no idea how big companies like Microsoft can't figure it out.

Secondly, there's some etiquette rules that people eventually pick up on: Leave pauses in your speech so that people can butt in, shut up if no one's responded verbally to you in while, and understand that there is an appropriate amount of talking over each other that is acceptable.

[voisin]

> Secondly, there's some etiquette rules that people eventually pick up on: Leave pauses in your speech so that people can butt in, shut up if no one's responded verbally to you in while, and understand that there is an appropriate amount of talking over each other that is acceptable.

Many, many people don’t figure these out in real life.

[Banditoz]

> Discord's audio is fantastic, but so is Mumble's, a FOSS VoIP solution, so I have no idea how big companies like Microsoft can't figure it out.

Oh Microsoft figured it out. They just made the quality subtly worse vs Zoom. Jumping from a Zoom meeting to a Teams one, especially with the same people, amplifies this a bit.

[esafak]

They can't even do audio feedback rejection. On Firefox I have to use a headphone.

[Obscurity4340]

I wish people liked me enough for this to be like a regular thing I could just, like, drop in on. I hate how regimented it has to be, gotta fucking book anybody like 5 days in advance. :(

[sellmesoap]

I enjoyed working at a place that used teamspeak as the tool for conference calls, it showed who's talking. Announced joiners etc. Kept me from needing a long distance plan, kept out of the way, was snappy. It reminded me of my early days playing video games with friends, maybe the nostalgia added to the charm, I'd recommend it!

[Obscurity4340]

It really is like missing half the inputs when mirror neurons are not engaged. I mean this in a pop-sci understanding, not sure if its relevant. I do like to watch people's body language, although its the waking equivalent of lucid dreaming in the sense I have to be very deliberate in taking noticeof it to the extent I rely on it more than to tonality and diction.

[jghn]

Yeah, while I don't love videoconferencing I love the shift to it from audio conference calls. I was never able to stay focused without the visual cues and would wind up drifting off pretty quick.