The Lack of PC-based Video-Telephony: How I Lost a Technology Bet

Unlike my perfect record of winning bets against optimists (Table 1), I lost this one because I was the optimist. Now, clearly the bet was based on “wishful thinking” that video ubiquity could and perhaps should occur, not analysis. CUseeMe was a product in use for college students to keep in touch. Camera support in NetMeeting, PowerPoint, and NetShow would surely stimulate ubiquity within five years. Pornographic sites demonstrated that people liked video contact. $20 camera assemblies were being incorporated into cameras and portables. Intel had introduced cards and cameras for video conferencing that would stimulate the market. I was caught up in the enthusiasm of the .com build-up, with startups introducing video-mail that might “kick start” the bandwagon. All these things happened, In 2002, a large number of camera products can be easily connected to three-five year old PCs. Still, the ubiquity has not happened.
It was also a defiant bet against naysayers – “videophones were tried between NY and Pittsburgh and demonstrated at the 1964 World’s Fair, but no one wanted them ”, or AT&T introduced $1200 videophones aka “the Grandma phone” and they aren’t selling.