Do you recall the wild ride that Zoom went on a few years back?
It seems like everyone joined the world of video conferencing the moment COVID hit. The reaction would make you think that it was a brand new technology that suddenly emerged.
What actually took place was a technology that was overlooked for basically a decade. Cisco invested a fortune in that medium in the early 2010s. It dumped billions of dollars into the technology believing there were fortunes to be make.
Cisco was correct. Unfortunately for them, their timing was off. They ended up writing down most of what was invested.
Zoom was the beneficiary a decade later. There is, however, more to the story.
$8.5 Billion
There was another player in the early days of video conferencing. It was an application called Skype. Over the years, it enjoyed some modest success.
This was enough to capture the eye of one of tech's largest companies, Microsoft. Ole Softy thought that adding a video conferencing application to its suite was just the move.
To fill this hole, $8.5 billion was shelled out.
Certainly, this make Skype an instant player. By being offered to every Windows user, it suddenly was in a dominant position. We know that Windows still dominates the desktop world. This is where most video conferencing takes place.
So what went wrong?
The Top Dog Gets Eaten
This is the reason for this article. We have a very powerful lesson of how things work out.
The dominant player can always change. With technology, it can happen rather quickly.
When the lockdowns started to occur, why did everyone suddenly rushto Zoom as opposed to simply opening up Skype? After all, we will presume most of those who suddenly were engaging in remote work were doing so on Windows machines.
Yet, in spite of this, the generation is now called Zoomers and not Skypers.
This is the problem with consumers, they act in quirky ways Logic would state that people would simply utilize what was available. Instead, a relatively new player to the arena was able to enter and kick butt.
It is what we all should be aware of. There are few companies in the world with the resources of Microsoft. When it comes to technology, it has a long history. There is little that takes place in the world of tech that this company hasn't at least touched.
The problem is that, for all its might, it rarely dominates. Outside the operating system and the XBox gaming console, Microsoft dropped a lot of balls. It is not the dominant web browser. Nor is it the go to search engine. Email? Nope. In fact, when it comes to the Internet, they fumbled everything.
We can add video conferencing to the list.
But this is a story about much more than Microsoft. It is, rather, about the whims of technology.
Web3
Many look at what we discuss with Web3 and find it impossible. How are we going to unseat the established giants.
Let me ask you a question: before this article, did you consider the video conferencing players and how Microsoft was kicked from the top spot? Did it even pass through your mind as something that got disrupted?
Yet this is exactly what took place.
People have a tendency to believe those on top stay there. There was a time when General Motors sold more cars than any other company. Where are they now? 5th? 6th? They are less than half what a Toyota does.
The difference is that, with technology, things do not take decades to unfold. It can happen in a few years.
Therefore, the next time someone talks about how big and powerful the banks, social media platforms, or governments are, remind yourself of the regular happenings in tech.
Once you are in this market, disruption is rather standard.
Do not believe for a second that the centralized behemoths will be able to withstand a decentralized onslaught. This is something that will grow in power over time.
This is the lesson of Zoom. Sometimes the next big think is lurking around, hidden in plain sight from the masses.