google meet usability rant
genuinely what are they doing at google?? i opened meet on a laptop, and there was no option to call someone, only to start a meeting. i looked it up and you have to go specifically to meet dot google dot com slash calling, but i can't find a link that takes you there, so i guess you just type it in to the URL bar manually like it's 1997?
then i call my mum while she's sitting next to me to make sure it works, and her phone doesn't ring. she opens the meet app and then it rings. she answers, it works, but i can't share my screen from my laptop.
turns out, you can't share your screen in a meet call, only in a meet meeting. but when you start a meeting, you have to send the person the link via email or messages or whatever - there isn't a way to click a button and have their phone ring for a meeting. meet meetings are like zoom meetings in that they're not supposed to be a replacement for video calls, but i'm forced to use a meet meeting instead of a meet call because the calls lack this basic feature.
so i start a fucking meeting, copy and paste the link into google messages, which has of course desynced from my phone again, as it does every week. i fix that, match the fucking emojis, send the link, mum opens it, and it finally works.
so now if i want to start a screen sharing session with someone, i have to create a meet meeting, send them the link on an entirely separate messaging platform, and approve them. if i want to call them and then later start screen sharing, we need to hang up the call, and then start an entirely separate meeting session where each member of that call needs to be manually approved.
meanwhile, on discord, i click "call", then "share screen".
after all these product acquisitions, company merges, platform reinventions, confusing renaming, semi-deprecations, actual depredations, and half-baked replacements for half-baked replacements, this is the best google can come up with? the years of experience and experimentation with hangouts and fireside chats and allos and duos and messages and google chats and fucking google docs integrated messaging... they give us this? two point two trillion dollar market cap????
google meet usability rant
@lynnesbian that last paragraph explains the exact technical reasons for the terrible user experience detailed in the prior paragraphs - meet is now fully a frankenstein’s monster product made up of pieces of all the things that came before it, sewn together with no design direction, and it is only unintentionally supported
google meet usability rant
@lynnesbian if you click around the weird buttons in the UI for apps or something you find jamboard, which launches a browser window to whiteboard with people on the meeting (assuming anyone else figures out how to get there), but of course it’s deprecated
they also sold expensive giant stand alone jamboard screens to let folks in a meeting room draw on a touch screen that mirrors to all attendees seamlessly
and all those are now ewaste
re: google meet usability rant
@friskywhiskers honestly at this point we need the UN to run PSAs in every country google sells things to, just to warn everything to never, ever buy first generation google hardware.
don't buy a stadia until they make it to stadia 2 (they didn't), don't buy a jamboard until they make it to jamboard 2 (they didn't), don't buy a google glass until they make it to google glass 2 (they didn't)
re: google meet usability rant
@lynnesbian i just started fucking with the google admin console for my businesses and learned it’s basically an interface made out of holes to drop you into sales contact funnels - google is basically just ibm (or maybe redhat if you feel like redhat is cooler than ibm)
re: google meet usability rant
@lynnesbian sorry for all the replies but google meet trivia is like my second favorite thing next to macos trivia
re: google meet usability rant
@friskywhiskers no apology necessary, i am interested in both of these things