And then Apple comes along and introduces a security feature to Safari that requires a confirmation click when any link in a web browser attempts to open an external app. Zoom, which likes to pass around web links as a way of driving users into conference calls, didn’t look at this security measure as something to help keep their customers secure—it viewed it as an addition of friction by the platform owner.

Zoom saved you a click—by giving you a security hole

Jason Snell is able to very articulately sum up the events and motivation behind Zoom creating a locally running server, and believing that it was ok to do in the first place.