A webcam doesn't need the latest and greatest video hardware. Give it a camera module from a midrange 2017 smartphone and use the latest image processing tricks, and you'll blow almost any webcam on the market today.
Sorry, that's exactly the strategy of these webcam startups, and Apple with the Studio Display, and the results empirically suck. Even if you could get 2017 smartphone quality (which is still apparently an unsolved problem), why should you settle for that in a webcam that doesn't need to fit in your pocket or run on a tiny battery or cost a tiny fraction of the BOM of a much more complex device? We should be doing way better than that. And way better is definitely possible.
I think that understates how bad the current state of webcams really is. Esp. when you move around a lot while talking/there's an unusual light situation. IMHO first these core problems need to be solved (and then of course it'd be great be build upon that)
So far no one has, there must be a reason no one can.
Some devices use it for 4K video and it looks like upscaled 480p. Yet 1080p on Nexus 5X looks very sharp.
It's why DSLR was (is?) a thing - if you ever do research on one, you realize they factor in quantum mechanical effects to make your picture better...(in addition to the 20 or so simultaneous images they take in order to parallel process image).
I haven't kept up as much but - the flat sensor craze was all about how we didn't need DSLR anymore and could just get away with large pixel counts and better processing, and yet the processing still matters...far more than the pixel count. I think that was mainly because 100+ mirror systems are a bit expensive compared to a single flat sensor.
But when you think about them as 100+ parallel processing sensors peforming low-power auto-computation _for-free_, well.
That's another thing entirely.
I do wonder why some DSLRs suck at video - I suspect it has to do with whethey the manufacture cheaped out on the compression circuitry or not - some cameras can/could should shoot HD video, a lot did not, leaving that the pricier models.
Seriously, though, in the context of webcams, the Studio Display is kind of a counterpoint to "just rip a camera module out of a few-year-old smartphone and it'll be terrific". That's pretty much what Apple did here, and it's rather notoriously, ah, not great. (I have one, and I think it's better than some people give it credit for, but I know I'm comparing it to Apple's laptop webcams, which have historically been pretty terrible.)
Meanwhile, sensor and lens from a smartphone camera can fit in a small enough form factor that it makes sense to carry it around alongside your laptop.
It's a growing trend ... if you're a gamer who spent 2000$ on a laptop and also want to do some remote work/interviews you need an external webcam...
I personally use a 'gaming' laptop as the default work computer (it's over 3.7kg w/o the charger which is another 600g)
I gather support / fixes / etc have been rolling out rather slowly, have you tried it in the past few months? Or is it currently that unusable? I certainly wouldn't expect the software to be difficult to build, there are quite a few webcam-emulating projects out there... but then again this is a company's software rather than an interested hobbyist.
I am reminded of the story of two economists walking down the street. One spots a $20 bill on the sidewalk points it out to the other, who says "Don't be ridiculous, if there really were a $20 bill on the ground someone would have picked it up by now."
I suspect a lot of vloggers, or at least wannabe, can and would easily shell out a measly 500$ for a webcam.
I agree, for a lot of people who just want to webcam mom that's going to be overkill, but if you have money, or do it professionally (I don't mean a remote work job) to the point where you are putting on makeup, investing time, often to the tune of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, its a no-brainer.
Most people who dabble in photography and shoot raw will have some idea of this. The (untreated) images that come out of my professional DSLR don't look as pleasant as those that come out of my iPhone. Even if they have 4 times the pixels, and each pixel has much more dynamic range. How the raw sensor input is interpreted, influenced by intent, and then rendered, can be the difference between something you would hang on your wall and something you'd delete.
I have half a dozen macs with cameras, including the 16" notched M1 Mac Pro. None of them produce a great image, but they won't stand out as bad in a video conference. My $1000 camera does stand out because of its poor image processing, especially in low light conditions. It is a bit sharper, but the colors look distinctly off.
Economy of scale and good enough.