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Loom has become a popular tool for sharing quick video messages at work – it promises to replace long emails and reduce meetings with a friendly, face-to-face touch. In theory, it sounds great: record your screen and webcam, then send a link instead of scheduling yet another Zoom call. Many teams adopted Loom (especially during the remote-work boom) hoping for more engaging internal communication. Yet despite the hype, a lot of employees aren’t loving it. In fact, common complaints have emerged: people feel uncomfortable showing their face on camera, colleagues often don’t watch the videos, and overall adoption rates remain low in certain company cultures. If you’ve experienced this “Loom fatigue,” you’re not alone.
Common Issues Teams Face with Loom Video Messaging
Every new tool has a learning curve, and Loom is no exception. As teams integrated Loom into daily communication, several pain points began to surface. Below are some of the most common issues people report when using Loom for internal updates and messages:
1. Camera Shyness and “On-Camera” Anxiety
One of the first hurdles to appear was employee discomfort with being on video. Not everyone is a natural vlogger or presenter, especially not for everyday work comms. Being on camera can make people self-conscious about their appearance, environment, or just the act of being recorded. This “camera shyness” can lead to anxiety and multiple retakes, or even cause some teammates to avoid recording videos altogether. As one frustrated user put it, “I stopped doing these Looms… I’m not comfortable with a group of strangers staring at my performance and being recorded to potentially be archived”. That kind of stress defeats the purpose of a quick update – it’s supposed to be casual, but it feels like a performance when you know you’re on camera.
Importantly, Loom’s own team has acknowledged this issue. In an interview, Loom’s CEO noted that in the long run they plan to make it easier for “even the most camera-shy users to make a video,” even hinting at future features like avatars that speak in your voice (so “you don’t have to show your face on camera”). In other words, Loom recognizes not everyone is 100% comfortable being on video and is exploring ways around it. The need for such workarounds speaks volumes: for many people, turning on the webcam can be a barrier. Team members may delay or avoid sending a Loom because they’re not camera-ready or just feel awkward talking to a lens. In a company culture where employees are more introverted or concerned about privacy, a video-first tool can inadvertently silence voices that would speak up via other channels.
2. Lack of Engagement: Are Colleagues Even Watching?
Another major complaint is the lack of engagement with async videos. You might pour effort into a detailed 5-minute Loom update, only to find that half your team hasn’t actually watched it fully (or at all). This one-way communication problem is common – without the live interaction of a meeting, a video message can easily turn into something people “mark as read” but never truly absorb.
In fact, studies and anecdotes show that many employees don’t watch these videos to completion. Workplace culture consultant Gustavo Razzetti noted that even a well-crafted video often “misses the mark” because “some team members will watch just part of it. Others won’t open it at all, and many will only skim through, missing crucial details.” This highlights a reality of async video: it’s very easy for busy coworkers to skip, scrub, or ignore a Loom message, especially if it’s longer than a couple of minutes or if they’re juggling other tasks. Unlike a written email (which people can quickly scan for key points), a video demands the viewer’s full attention for the entire duration – and not everyone will give it.
The result? Lower adoption and effectiveness. If people perceive that Loom videos are often TL;DW (too long; didn’t watch), they’ll be less inclined to create such videos themselves. It becomes a vicious cycle: a few people send videos, others don’t engage with them, so usage drops off. The promise of “video to boost engagement” turns into a reality where videos feel like shouting into the void. As Razzetti warns, treating an async video like a one-way announcement (record, send, and move on) is “missing the point” – without genuine two-way interaction or feedback loops, it’s hard to keep anyone interested.
Some companies discovered this the hard way. For example, Tango (an operations documentation company) mentioned that while they “love Loom,” it’s easy to overuse it in the wrong contexts. They found that long video explainers often fail because people don’t like long videos – especially for learning something new. Viewers want to quickly find the info they need, but a Loom forces them to sit through minutes of content or awkwardly scrub around. Tango’s team observed that this can lead to lower engagement, with employees tuning out information they can’t easily skim or apply immediately. In knowledge bases, they even cautioned against filling pages with Loom videos, since it makes content harder to search and update over time. These examples show that if videos become too long, too frequent, or poorly targeted, employees will disengage – negating the benefits Loom is supposed to bring.
3. Low Adoption Rates and Cultural Mismatch
Given the points above, it’s no surprise that Loom’s adoption within some teams has been underwhelming. If a tool creates friction – whether due to personal discomfort or unclear ROI – people simply won’t use it. We’ve heard of teams where a few early adopters championed Loom, but the majority of colleagues stuck to old habits (text messages, emails, or live calls). The result is a patchy adoption where Loom isn’t the “standard” but just an occasional novelty.
Why might a video-first tool not fit every team’s culture? One reason is generational or role-based preferences. It’s often said that younger employees raised on YouTube and TikTok are more willing to communicate via video, whereas others are more reserved. But in practice it’s not strictly age – it’s culture and personality. Some company cultures are writing-first, valuing thoughtful written documentation and quick text chats. In a team of veteran engineers or accountants, for example, pushing video updates might feel as odd as asking them to start a vlog – it’s just not how they share information. These teams might see Loom videos as inefficient (since written specs and docs are their bread and butter) or even gimmicky.
Another factor is trust and transparency. In some environments, if information isn’t easily referenceable (as text is), people might distrust it or ignore it. A video buried in a chat isn’t as searchable as a written memo. Team members could worry they’ll miss details or be left out if they don’t watch in time. This can clash with cultures that value open, documented knowledge. As one async communication guide put it, “Writing is far easier to consume, update and interact with, so make that your first go-to” in most cases. A team that lives by that mantra will use Loom sparingly, if at all.
Finally, personality and inclusion play a role. In a collaborative culture, you want tools that let everyone contribute comfortably. If even a few teammates are camera-shy or non-native speakers who feel self-conscious on video, a Loom-first approach can exclude their voices. Not everyone is a charismatic presenter or “good in front of a live audience,” as Loom’s founders themselves noted. Those people might prefer to write a detailed update or speak in an audio call rather than record their face. Forcing video as the default can unintentionally favor the few who are very comfortable on camera, which isn’t exactly inclusive. Until everyone is “110% comfortable” being on video (to quote Loom’s CEO), a video-centric culture will have holdouts.
In summary, Loom and similar tools can be fantastic for certain teams and use cases – but they’re not a universal solution. Video-first communication simply doesn’t mesh with every team’s norms. If your internal adoption of Loom is low, it could be due to any of these reasons: personal discomfort, lack of viewer engagement, poor fit with how your team likes to communicate, or practical issues like bandwidth and searchability. The good news? Asynchronous communication itself is still extremely useful – we might just need to tweak the format. Enter audio-only messaging as an alternative.
The Case for Audio-Only Asynchronous Communication
If the idea of ditching video sounds like a relief, you’re not alone. An emerging trend in remote work is to go audio-first for async updates – basically, voice messages instead of video recordings. This approach tries to capture the benefits of Loom (no scheduling needed, richer tone than text) while removing some of the pain points (camera anxiety, time-consuming video watching). Let’s break down the key benefits of audio-only communication and why it might be a better fit for your team:
Increased Psychological Comfort: Speaking into a microphone is a lot less intimidating than speaking on camera. Without a lens pointed at you, there’s no pressure to look a certain way or worry about your background. This can lower the mental barriers and encourage more people to contribute. As remote meeting research has shown, turning off the camera can relieve stress – it “reduces the cognitive load associated with being on camera,” easing exhaustion and self-consciousness. In an audio message, you’re free from the “Am I presentable?” anxiety. Teammates who are camera-shy or working from a noisy/distracting environment can still comfortably share their thoughts via voice. The result: more voices heard, and a more inclusive async conversation.
Faster Turnaround, Less Friction: Recording a voice memo is usually quicker and simpler than recording a video. Think about it – no need to find a perfect backdrop or lighting, no temptation to re-record because you didn’t smile, no editing of awkward pauses on screen. You just hit record and talk. This often leads to faster creation of messages and a more casual, conversational tone. It’s also faster for colleagues to consume the message. With audio, listeners can multitask; they might listen while commuting or doing routine work, something that’s hard to do with a video that requires your eyes. One team leader described the “magic moment” of switching from text to voice notes: instead of scheduling a meeting for every little thing, “we can send a quick voice message” and get the point across. The turnaround for responses improves when people can simply “just Yac it” (as one voice-messaging app user said) rather than typing a long email or coordinating schedules. In essence, audio async tools bring back the spontaneity of hallway chats – without derailing anyone’s day or requiring a time slot.
Lower Cognitive Load for Senders and Receivers: Video messages can be surprisingly draining. For the sender, talking on video engages a lot of mental threads – you’re thinking about your words and how you look and the fact that it’s being recorded. For the receiver, watching a video demands full focus on the screen and often feels like being talked at without interaction. Audio-only tends to lighten this load. You as the sender can focus purely on what you’re saying, not how you appear. Meanwhile, listeners don’t have to stare at a screen; they can replay parts or speed up playback, and they won’t suffer “Zoom fatigue” from yet another talking head on their monitor. In fact, turning off visual stimuli can improve how well people absorb the spoken content – some find they concentrate better on words when they’re not simultaneously watching someone’s face or slides. Research on virtual meetings suggests that when cameras are off, people often feel less exhausted and can engage more effectively. With audio messages, your team might find it easier to focus on the substance of updates rather than the form.
Preserves the Human Touch (Without Video): One reason people try Loom in the first place is to convey tone and emotion that get lost in text. The good news is voice alone can convey most of that – you might not see the person’s face, but you hear their intonation, laughter, urgency, etc. In fact, voice messages often strike a nice balance between efficiency and personal touch. They carry more nuance than an email, yet are less intimidating than a live call. As one industry article noted, voice messages “combine the personal touch and nuance of voice communication with the convenience of asynchronous communication”. Tone of voice can make a message clearer and more empathetic than a written note, helping prevent miscommunications. So you don’t really lose as much “richness” as you might think by dropping the video. If anything, audio-only might encourage people to be more expressive verbally since that’s the sole medium – and it spares everyone the awkwardness of forced on-camera body language.
Skimmable and Referenceable (with the right tools): A common worry is that audio, like video, is linear – you have to listen through to get the info. However, many audio messaging tools now offer transcriptions or at least let you scrub easily. This means an audio note can be made nearly as skimmable as text. For example, the audio-first tool Yac automatically transcribes all messages, so teammates can read or search the content in a fraction of the time if they don’t want to listen to the whole thing. This addresses one of the biggest engagement issues of video: the inability to quickly find what you need. If someone sends a 5-minute voice update, you can skim the transcript or even play it at 2× speed to grab the key points – much faster than watching a 5-minute video at normal speed. Some platforms also allow setting chapter markers or skipping 10 seconds back/forward in audio. Overall, audio can be more flexible for the listener. And because audio files are smaller and easier to store than video, it’s often trivial to keep an archive of voice notes for future reference (or even automatically save text transcripts in a knowledge base).
Reduced File Size and Tech Hassles: This is more of a technical perk, but worth noting – audio recordings are lightweight compared to video files. They upload and play easily even on a slow internet connection or a mobile device. If your team includes folks with limited bandwidth or who are often on the move, audio messages are more accessible. No one enjoys buffering or seeing “upload failed” on a Loom because the video was large. Audio tends to sidestep those issues, making async comms more reliable.
In short, audio-only async communication checks a lot of boxes: It’s comfortable and low-pressure, quick to produce and consume, cognitively easier, and still maintains a human connection through tone of voice. It’s not that audio messages are a magic solution to all comms problems – you still need to use them thoughtfully – but they address many of the specific complaints people have about Loom/video. For teams struggling with video fatigue, going audio-first can be a game changer.
So, how can you try this out in practice? Fortunately, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel; there are several tools designed for sending voice messages asynchronously. Let’s look at a few audio-only alternatives to Loom that you can experiment with.
Audio-Only Alternatives to Loom (Voice Message Tools)
If you’re ready to give audio messaging a shot, here are some tools and services (both free and paid) that make it easy to send voice notes as part of your workflow. Each of these lets you record a voice message and share it via a link, email, or integration with your team’s chat – without requiring the recipient to join a live call.
Yac – async voice messaging for teams: Yac is an audio-first communication platform built specifically for remote teams. Think of it as “Loom without the camera” – it allows you to record and send voice notes (or even screen shares with narration) to your colleagues, who can listen and reply on their own time. Yac emphasizes quick, back-and-forth collaboration without meetings: “No more wasteful back to back meetings, just Yac voice or context-rich screenshares on your own time and reclaim your day,” as one product description puts it. Key features include automatic transcription of voice messages (so you can read or search through conversations), playback speed controls, and integrations with tools like Slack. In practice, using Yac feels like leaving a voicemail for your team, but with a slick interface: you hit a button to record, and the audio is sent as a snippet that others can play in the app or via a shared link. Teams at companies like Drift and HubSpot have used it to reduce meeting overload by handling daily stand-ups or quick Q&As through voice notes. Pricing: Yac offers a free plan for individuals or very small teams (unlimited voice messages, with some limits on message history). For full team functionality – unlimited history, transcription search, and Slack integration – their paid plan is around $3–5 per user/month, which is relatively affordable. If your team is serious about async audio, Yac is a top choice due to its focus on workplace features.
Vocaroo – dead-simple voice recorder (free): Vocaroo is a no-frills online voice recording service that’s been around for years. It’s often described as “the quickest way to share voice messages over the interwebs.” The beauty of Vocaroo is its simplicity: go to the website (vocaroo.com), click the record button, speak your piece, then stop. You can listen back and if you’re satisfied, just hit save to get a unique URL for your recording. No account or software is required – it’s all in the browser, and you can record as many times as needed until you’re happy. Vocaroo imposes no strict time limit on recordings (practically, you could record for hours, though it’s best to keep it reasonable). Once you have the link to your voice message, you can paste it in an email, a Slack chat, or wherever you communicate. The recipient clicks the link and can play the audio in their browser instantly. You can also download the audio file if needed. Many teachers, podcasters, and remote teams have used Vocaroo for quick voice feedback or instructions because it’s so effortless. The downside is that it’s extremely basic – no fancy features like transcripts or integration – and the recordings are hosted on Vocaroo’s site (so they’re public to anyone with the link, albeit not listed publicly). Generally, links remain accessible for a few months at least, but Vocaroo doesn’t guarantee permanent storage. Pricing: Completely free. Vocaroo survives on donations and its very minimal infrastructure. If you just need to fire off the occasional voice memo via email and don’t want anyone to sign up for anything, Vocaroo is perfect.
SpeakPipe – voice messages via link or email: SpeakPipe is a versatile tool that originally gained popularity among podcasters and bloggers for collecting listener voice messages. However, it also works great for internal communication if you want an easy way to send or receive voice notes through a link. With SpeakPipe you have a couple of options:
- You can use their free online voice recorder (available on their site) to record up to 5 minutes of audio and get a URL to share. It works similarly to Vocaroo: record in-browser, then save and share the link. No login required for this basic recorder, and it’s convenient for one-off messages.
- For more ongoing use, you can create a SpeakPipe account and set up a personal voice mailbox page (e.g. speakpipe.com/YourName or YourTeam). People visiting that page can leave you a voice message up to a certain length. All received messages go into your SpeakPipe inbox, and you get an email notification with a link to each message. This could be useful if you want team members or even customers to be able to send you voice feedback easily, without installing anything.
- Another neat feature: from your SpeakPipe dashboard, you can create a voice message and send it directly to someone’s email. SpeakPipe will handle hosting the audio and can email the recipient a link to listen. This is a built-in way to send a voice email without attachments.
SpeakPipe focuses on ease of use: senders don’t need an account to leave a message for you, and it works on mobile browsers too. Pricing: SpeakPipe has a free plan with some limitations (shorter message length, limited total storage). As of now, the free tier allows about 90 seconds per message with a cap on how many minutes of audio you can store in your inbox. Paid plans start around $8–$12/month for more generous limits (e.g. 5-minute messages, 100+ minutes storage, multiple inboxes, etc.). If you’re just testing the waters, you might use the free recorder for ad-hoc messages. For heavier use – say, a manager regularly sends out voice memos to the team – a premium plan ensures none of the messages get cut off due to time limits.
Honorable Mentions: There are other ways to leverage audio for async work as well. If your team uses Slack, you’re in luck – Slack now has a built-in feature called clips that lets you record audio or video messages up to 5 minutes long directly in a channel or DM. Colleagues can play the clip right in Slack and even see an auto-generated transcript. This can be a frictionless option since it requires no new app (though it’s only available on paid Slack plans). Another option some distributed teams use is Voxer or WhatsApp voice notes – essentially push-to-talk apps – but those tend to be more useful for mobile and are less integrated with email/workflow. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with simply using the voice memo app on your phone or computer, saving an MP3, and emailing it – but dedicated tools like the above make the process much smoother by hosting and linking the audio for you.
Conclusion: Finding What Fits Your Team
Internal communication isn’t one-size-fits-all. While Loom and async video messaging have opened up new possibilities, it’s clear that video-first tools don’t work for every scenario or every team culture. Many employees feel camera anxiety or find video messages cumbersome – leading to low engagement with the content and low adoption of the tool. For these teams, forcing more video is not the answer; listening to the complaints is. If “Loom fatigue” has set in at your organization, consider that it might be time to turn the camera off – literally – and explore audio-only communication.
Async audio messaging offers a compelling middle ground. By removing the visual element, we preserve the convenience and richness of voice while eliminating a lot of the stress and friction. People can speak more freely without worrying about being on screen, and listeners can absorb the information on their own schedule with less effort. It’s a throwback to the simplicity of a phone call or voicemail, but modernized for async, remote workflows.
The tools to try it are readily available: you can start as simply as recording a Vocaroo link and emailing it, or roll out a solution like Yac for your whole team to use. Begin with small steps – maybe an audio-only daily stand-up, or sending the next project update as a voice memo instead of a video. See how your team responds. You might find that more people chime in (because hey, recording 30 seconds of audio is easy) and that updates get listened to more promptly (because it’s less of a production to listen while taking a walk, for instance). Over time, you can develop guidelines for when to use text, audio, or video in your internal comms. The goal isn’t to banish video entirely – it has its place for demos, personal greetings, or high-stakes messages – but to give your team options that suit their comfort level and the message at hand.
Ultimately, effective communication is about making sure messages are sent and received. If showing your face on every update is causing messages not to be sent or watched, then a change is in order. Audio-only async communication could be the change that gets your team talking (and listening) again. So go ahead – give it a try, and you just might hear the difference!