a) Any semi-affordable, braindead easy to use, consumer product or something a person can rig up for good quality family-sitting-on-the-couch video conferencing, with good quality and reliable audio and video?
b) A multi-platform Skype alternative that can call land lines?
This is what Skype should be. Google and Amazon both have popular home consumer devices, I would imagine Microsoft would love to be a big player in that market, and yet their best entry candidate for that (in that they could probably get tons of users early) is Skype, which they seem determined to destroy with absolutely insanely destructive UI changes.
Satya has done an absolutely incredible job at changing so many Microsoft divisions around, yet Skype continues to get worse, it seems absolutely surreal to me.
> Any semi-affordable, braindead easy to use, consumer product or something a person can rig up for good quality family-sitting-on-the-couch video conferencing, with good quality and reliable audio and video?
Screw the semi-affordable part, I would pay several hundreds for that.
Our startup makes hardware that I think almost meets your description. We try to be excellent quality, super-easy setup, and easy to use: https://hardware.daily.co/pluot-tv
But our target market is company conference rooms and home offices, so we might not feel quite "consumer-y" enough for you.
a) Any semi-affordable, braindead easy to use, consumer product or something a person can rig up for good quality family-sitting-on-the-couch video conferencing, with good quality and reliable audio and video?
b) A multi-platform Skype alternative that can call land lines?
This is what Skype should be. Google and Amazon both have popular home consumer devices, I would imagine Microsoft would love to be a big player in that market, and yet their best entry candidate for that (in that they could probably get tons of users early) is Skype, which they seem determined to destroy with absolutely insanely destructive UI changes.
Satya has done an absolutely incredible job at changing so many Microsoft divisions around, yet Skype continues to get worse, it seems absolutely surreal to me.