Zoom has suffered several well-known security issues, ranging from leaving a persistent server on your computer that turned out to be remotely exploitable, to weak encryption and authentication. You might call their security situation a weakness. I argue it highlights one of their strengths.

If Google (Meet, Hangouts), Microsoft (Teams, Skype), Cisco (Jabber), or many other big players had serious security issues in their chat software they'd suffer significant reputational harm to their broader business. Zoom isn't constrained by that and has been free to aggressively trade off security for usability (if the uninstaller doesn't, reinstalling it is really easy!) or development of other features.

I personally hate this. I'm sad that I'm forced into using questionable software just because that's what everyone has settled on. But many people's revealed preferences are that real security and privacy gets little consideration. I have to admit that Zoom - as an amoral business - adopted an effective strategy.

Where do they go from here?