Zoom's 300 million were participants, not users

transcript

Zoom announced 300 million daily users. Except they weren't users. You could count five times in a single day.

December 2019. Zoom's busiest day: about 10 million meeting participants. Then the pandemic. By March, over 200 million. April: 300 million. A thirtyfold jump in about four months.

Zoom's 22 April blog post called them daily users. And people. The Verge noticed an edit. Now: 300 million daily meeting participants. Zoom added a note admitting the error. A genuine oversight, it said.

But why does one word matter? Take one person. One daily user. They join five Zoom meetings that day. A participant is counted once per meeting. So that's five participants.

A daily active user? One person, counted once a day. A participant? Once per meeting. Every meeting. And the twist? Per The Verge, Zoom hadn't published a daily-user number at all.

The growth was still huge. Thirtyfold, in meetings joined. But users, sessions and participants can differ by several times. Capacity follows the one that creates load. So ask what's being counted.

Full breakdown in the lecture.