I have mixed feelings about the camera. Before the pandemic, I played only OTB, at the Marshall Chess Club in NYC. So, after the Marshall shut down OTB in March 2020, I tried a couple of its on-line replacement tourneys. Unlike this club’s tourneys, they occurred at a set time, for example, one round each Thursday at 7 pm est. and for security reasons, you have to be on Zoom for the entire time.
So I stopped playing in them. First, because I usually play on an IPad, it was a challenge to do Zoom while also doing chess.com. I ultimately used my phone for the Zoom. Second, it was kind of demeaning each time I had to inform the admin I was stepping away to take a leak. (Which happens a lot when a play with a large can of iced tea). Third, the security benefit was illusory. You could have had a chess engine just off camera if you wanted to do so. The best safeguards are: 1) playing with people who you believe won’t cheat, and, 2) knowing that the chess.com security can afterwards analyze for cheating Worse, the entire idea of playing with people who were being treated like cheaters, me being one of those suspected, was just not fun.
They went for the Zoom feature because their tournaments have nominal prize money, which In theory could attract cheaters. But really? If anyone wants to cheat just to win nominal prize money, that’s pretty low.
on the other hand, it’s true that it is more like OTB when you can see your opponent. And it was nice being able to see and speak with other players before and after The OTB games
so, as I said, I have mixed feelings
I just tried new feature 'Classroom' with some students. It works fine & looks great! that we don't need skype/ zoom in particular as we used to, for voice/ video communication.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/chesscom-releases-new-classroom-feature
I hope that soon this embedded webcam and/or Audio feature will become an OPTION too (that can be toggle ON / OFF) while we are playing our current game.
It's good when we play with someone we know - that we can see each other - getting more closer to OTB (over the board) experience.
Thank you for chess.com team!