Why Skype and Zoom Will Never Replace Business Travel
Humans evolved to strike deals over drinks
In 1889, Jules Verne predicted that the “phonotelephote” — essentially a dedicated videoconferencing device that he imagined would become commonplace by the year 2889 (!) — would make business travel obsolete. We didn’t have to wait a thousand years. Videoconferencing became a real technology in 1968 with AT&T’s “Picturephone.” The advent of Skype and other videoconferencing technologies in the mid-2000s brought phonotelephotes into every home that had access to a decent internet connection.
Each new advance in remote teleconferencing capacity is accompanied by renewed predictions of the demise of business travel. Yet the fact is that, at least until the global Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, business travel has done nothing but steadily increase. Given the expense, hassle, and physiological toll of traveling, especially between very different time zones, this is genuinely puzzling. Why fly from New York to Shanghai to meet a potential business partner when you could just call or Zoom?
The puzzle of business travel is fundamentally related to another basic puzzle about humans: why we like to get drunk. Enduring 13 hours in a stuffy, uncomfortable metal tube hurtling through the air is, from an evolutionary perspective, is an odd…
