> You would think so but why have solutions like Mumble[0], which allows for extremely low-latency and high-quality voice calls and has existed at least since the mid 2000s, not become more popular during the pandemic?
Because there is no official Mumble server.
People know how to download an application, click "install", and register an account. But ask them to open a port on their router's firewall/NAT, or set up DNS, and you instantly lose 99.9% of your user base.
It could have been different, but lay people never had the chance to install their own server. They couldn't do it with Dial Up, they didn't have the upload bandwidth with ADSL, they didn't have fixed IP addresses, there's the NAT hurdle, outgoing SMTP is blocked everywhere… that ship has sailed. Even I host my websites on a remote virtual machine I rent.
Because there is no official Mumble server.
People know how to download an application, click "install", and register an account. But ask them to open a port on their router's firewall/NAT, or set up DNS, and you instantly lose 99.9% of your user base.
It could have been different, but lay people never had the chance to install their own server. They couldn't do it with Dial Up, they didn't have the upload bandwidth with ADSL, they didn't have fixed IP addresses, there's the NAT hurdle, outgoing SMTP is blocked everywhere… that ship has sailed. Even I host my websites on a remote virtual machine I rent.