I was surprised that even public rooms require a request to join from the lobby page. Though I also know that direct room links do let you in to the channel which is what you'd be passing around to your friends.

And I was also surprised that when someone sends me a join request, it completely blots my screen out with a modal. Seems like this would be very annoying if you were actually running a channel. I think that needs some attention. For example, am I ruining someone's experience by constantly sending them join requests?

Online hangout was always a dream of mine ever since my friends and I used socks to tie the home phone around our heads so we could talk while playing Unreal Tournament online together. Always cool to see people trying to work on this.