At This Point, Zoom Could Use Another Pandemic

For a while, Zoom was the most important company in America. Three years ago, the pandemic had forced offices to come up with extended remote-working arrangements, and Zoom became the indispensable videoconferencing platform of choice for millions of stuck-at-home Americans. This humble enterprise app was suddenly there for everything: work, school, social gatherings, activism, dating, telehealth, government hearings, funerals, sex parties, and pretty much anything else that made up life when everyone was locked indoors. Already a profitable company by the end of 2019, Zoom became a stock trader's dream after it landed on the NASDAQ in early 2020, growing its customer base by 470 percent, quadrupling its revenue (without paying any income tax, according to one report), and expanding its workforce throughout the year. Since then, as vaccination and reduced transmission allowed American enterprise to adjust back to normalish routines, Zoom has struggled to maintain its pandemic-era success.