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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

How many meetings go on more than an hour?

Does the time limit really save Google much bandwidth/cpu/money?

Is this just to prevent people who use it as a baby monitor? Or perhaps the limit is just to persuade people to start paying for Google Apps for your Worksuite?

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In a company where everyone is working from home Meet is used for much more than meetings - we regularly use it for pair programming which can run all day, and product development workshops which are very hard to fit into a single hour. Way back when I even once used it as the only remote employee in an otherwise co-located office as a telepresence solution, with a constantly open call to the main office so that people didn't forget I existed (protip: don't be the only remote employee in a colocated company).

Even if 99% of meetings are less than an hour, occasionally people will want to do two-hour pair programming sessions, all-day training courses, meetings where people can connect 15 minutes early to check their equipment works, and suchlike.

A lot of people will pay $$$ to avoid needing something different for that 1% of their needs - just like people will choose a 300-mile-range electric car when 99% of their journeys are <100 miles.

> Or perhaps the limit is just to persuade people to start paying for Google Apps for your Worksuite?

I'd say this is the case. Individuals might work around the limit, but companies will be persuaded to pay even if most meetings are under 1h.

I work in a large company and I very rarely see meetings that last less than 1 hour.

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