I only joined Zed, the company, a week ago, so take this with a grain of salt, but:
I've never really used real-time sharing (tried VS Code's Live mode and other apps) for longer than just 1-2 attempts, but at Zed things are different somehow. Everybody is constantly available in a channel and people just hop in or out. In the last 7 days I spent 3-5hrs every day pairing with others, using Zed's live mode. No video, only audio and sharing code in Zed (no video was weird at first, but now I think I'm starting to get used to it?)
IMHO it's a combination of culture and technology, but when the mix of that is right it really feels game-changing.
I think what’s nice is that it’s frictionless. If I can just click a button to see someone’s editor, then there’s no dance with sharing screen, I can open files I need to see, etc.
With standard sharing you always end up trying to direct people to do things instead of just showing them.
That may depend on what you're trying to do. If you are figuring out something tricky, then lots of quiet head down time is what you need. Every interruption hurts when you are concentrating.
However, a lot of the time is just figuring out how to glue together multiple systems. Being able to pull in various people to interface little bits is priceless. There is no flow here, only collaboration.
I've never really used real-time sharing (tried VS Code's Live mode and other apps) for longer than just 1-2 attempts, but at Zed things are different somehow. Everybody is constantly available in a channel and people just hop in or out. In the last 7 days I spent 3-5hrs every day pairing with others, using Zed's live mode. No video, only audio and sharing code in Zed (no video was weird at first, but now I think I'm starting to get used to it?)
IMHO it's a combination of culture and technology, but when the mix of that is right it really feels game-changing.