It's hard to describe how difficult it is to hear someone talking and then a second later hear then in your headphones. It really breaks my concentration. And it's a solvable technology problem - just use the local network for people in the same subnet. But every meeting provider wants _everything_ routed through their servers. There's no escaping they prying eyes.
In google meet you can ask anyone to "join audio" and if they approve, neither you nor them hear each other through the meeting, and you can listen to them talk next to you. But honestly a mildly noise reducing headset is enough.
No, I don't think it was a microphone problem. It was only like 1 in 20 calls. Really rare, and that meant it was always a surprise that made you sound like an idiot. And back then, almost nobody used a headset on personal phones. Cellphones weren't even that common.
