Om Malik asks in a recent podcast episode with Ben Thompson:

Why did we stop being optimistic? It’s not about money, it’s not about being rich or successful, it’s just a whole series of people, and I know a lot of them worked on this video Internet technology to get to a place where we have FaceTime. It’s a thirty-year journey. I was there for the earliest experiment with Jeff Pulver, I was there for Skype and look where we are today. Now, I’ve seen people walk on the street just doing video calls on either WhatsApp or on FaceTime or Google Video or whatever.

Loved the entire interview. A feel good about tech, that’s increasingly a rarity.