I don't think it had anything to do with familiarity to be honest - you noted that "Getting on a call was incredibly complicated, getting someone else in a call even more so." I suspect you overstated this point and, anecdotally, my experience was quite different to your own. I met with colleagues ranging from the technically proficient to technically incompetent and never had an issue. I'm not trying to repudiate your own experiences, just that I don't think things were so bad before Zoom that video conferencing was consistently awful

Edit: Hope that didn't sound argumentative - was not my intention