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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

I'm scared off by the voice chat part. I'm happy to take part in a short text chat with someone who wants to dive into a topic I'm an expert at and wants some guidance on where to begin or help on a specific sub-topic. Just... no voice chat please.

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Huh this surprises me. For me, text chat is worse than voice in every way.

* Less engaging (eg other person can be browsing HN while we chat with zero risk of me realizing)

* Less expressive communication

* Greater anonymity, and thus more difficulty establishing trust

I guess you’re coming at it from the perspective of an expert and I the person seeking expertise. But the whole value of the platform isn’t in giving away your expertise for free, it’s giving it away in exchange for the expertise of someone who can really help you!

IMO it makes the most sense as a user to optimize for a better expert-seeker experience. The benefit you derive from a super helpful conversation with an expert is likely to far outweigh the slight annoyance of voice chat when you’re the expert.

Well, it sounds like you are no introvert ;-)

No seriously, many people are quite uncomfortable when they have to use their voice for communication with foreigners.

I don't know how Coffee Chat handles the whole 'language' problem (native vs. English), but for most non-native English speakers, having to speak English is a higher barrier than having to write it.

So your points are valid too (and I could add that some people can't type as fast as they want). Therefore it would be a good idea to have 'voice' as the primary means of communication and 'text' as an alternative.

Aside from that, it usually takes less energy to type, and you can do other things while replying (or in the gaps between). Voice is more of a dedicated channel, and it's not necessarily more productive. With text you're given a chance to think about what you're about to send before hitting the submit button. I think there needs to be a balance here. Voice has its benefits, but it's not always the way to go.

These are the reasons for me. I'm fairly charismatic and well spoken. I just don't like it for this kind of thing because it doesn't give me little extra time to formulate the best response I can.

If it takes you 30 minutes to answer, of course I'll do something else. Which is good, because I don't want you to rush the answer and you don't want me to waste 30 minutes while you think of a good answer.

You probably talk a lot, I write a lot. So we are good at different things.

Talking / writing has nothing to do with anonymity, you can talk for two hours and I would still don't know who you are.

That last asterisk is a plus, not a minus, of text chat for many of us.

Technology wise, voice is still (in 2018) an unpredictable mess over the Internet. There are a myriad of call quality issues even when both parties are on a fast connection (measured in tens of Mbps) for several reasons.

I can’t imagine spending several minutes trying to retry and repeat on a call that’s supposed to be no longer than 15 minutes.

Voice and a whiteboard, or text chat, would be better.

There are some people who type with 'chop sticks'. It would be rather frustrating having to wait for the other party to respond in that case.

Yeah, so let the two people having the chat decide if they want to use voice or abandon voice because it’s just wasting time or use text. A whiteboard would also be helpful to have.

Interesting! :)

While not defending the choice of voice for this particular thing, voice over the internet seems 'solved' for general purposes. People use Skype or similar for business all the time, and gamers have been using teamspeak or ventrilo for 'mission critical' things for a decade. Any laptop on a non-terrible internet connection should be a usable endpoint for VOIP comms.

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