I think you overestimate the reliability of the alternatives.
Zoom focused all their early engineering muscle on reliability. When we build new products, we don't have infinite resources to attack every front simultaneously. We have finite resources to prove a concept, and we incur debt in just about every other dimension.
Now that everyone is using them (precisely because of reliability) the emphasis becomes other things - UX, security, etc.
Tech debt is what the 2nd generation of engineers gets to complain about after the 1st gen made the product succesful at something.
Zoom focused all their early engineering muscle on reliability. When we build new products, we don't have infinite resources to attack every front simultaneously. We have finite resources to prove a concept, and we incur debt in just about every other dimension.
Now that everyone is using them (precisely because of reliability) the emphasis becomes other things - UX, security, etc.
Tech debt is what the 2nd generation of engineers gets to complain about after the 1st gen made the product succesful at something.