I still recollect switching over to Skype for my in - game comms in the mid-00s . part that was because I was really only play with one or two friends at a time , and because I also used it to call my girlfiend . It helped me move on from MSN courier where I had met said girlfriend , and I commemorate it as a revolutionary experience in call lineament . The mortal on the other destruction just fathom so open in comparability toother VOIP softwareI’d used .
I ’d eventually start using Teamspeak when playing with larger groups , and Discord when that came to prominence in the 2010s . But I still used Skype for personal calls to congenator , and until very latterly it ’s how I shoot the breeze to my healer .
So it ’s a semisweet bit where after 20 eld of on again , off again employment , I ’ve ultimately had my last Skype call . Microsoft is shutting Skype down this week and most of the millions of users that once buy at it have moved on to other platforms .
You can still call Echo at the time of writing, if you want to hear the Skype bloop sounds.Jon Martindale
It ’s time to say goodbye .
Hitting the ground running
Skype began life as a small project for a assemblage of Nordic and Baltic developers , who struck upon the prosperous mind of using peer to peer technology ( like that used in a late undertaking of the developer , Kazaa ) to trim down the costs of spokesperson vociferation . Just over two years on from launching Skype in 2003 , eBay buy the parent society for $ 2.5 billion .
low-cost , and then eventually free interpreter calls were a Apocalypse at the time , making it potential to love exculpated and effective voice communicating when landline and peregrine earpiece were prohibitively expensively ; Especially for those of us who were unseasoned enough not to be make the big bucks we are today .
But while Ebay made a fantastic return on its investment when it sold to Microsoft in 2011 for a staggering $ 8.5 billion , it still had a lot of growing to do before its eventual diminution .
Lately I associate Skype more with random adds to crypto scam groups.Jon Martindale
Grabbing big market share
By the clock time Microsoft work out the balk book for Skype , the VOIP avail had over 600 million file users worldwide , with an estimated 300 million active every month . I can tell you that me , my two brother , both my parent , and a large portion of our extended friends and menage all used it . Skype was bordering on being the the Book we used for VOIP calling , “ Yea I ’ll Skype them later . ”
But this was just the offset of Skype ’s global expansion . With Microsoft now driving its adoption and pushing it on its Xbox and Windows platforms as a Prime Minister communication tool and technology , it inflate to close to 100 million users a month in the mid-2010s , capturing an incredible 40 % of the external call market in 2014 .
Although it started to see increased contender from new , morecloud - based services like Zoom , Google Meet , and Microsoft ’s own Teams , Skype even saw a resurgence during the pandemic . In March 2020 when lockdowns around the world first amount into essence , Skype see a 70 % increment in its bit of day-by-day user over the premature calendar month .
Using Skype now sees it full of not-so-subtle nudges to please please use Microsoft’s other comms app.Jon Martindale
However , as the pandemic rolled on and the VOIP industriousness contracted to its keystones , Skype determine itself progressively shun , and casual user numbers continued to refuse in the years that followed . In 2023 , the daily substance abuser count fell to 36 million , while Microsoft ’s Teams polish off over 300 million active exploiter around the same time frame .
That ultimately prompt Microsoft to announce at the start of 2025 that it would be exclude down Skype forever on May 5 .
Sunsetting an icon
Although it feel like Microsoft developing Teams was thedeath knell of Skype , it ’s possible that this was never the purpose . Even in 2023 , Microsoft added the Bing AI chatbot to Skype . While this might have been a elbow room to bump up user numbers for its new AI ventures , its potential Microsoft still feel Skype could find its niche .
But today , that niche is a part of the large collective of apps and service swallowed by major companies and then put out to pasture . MicrosoftandGoogleboth have their own Wiki Page for it , it ’s that extensive .
Although never inevitable , it ’s easy to read how Skype could struggle to compete in the modern landscape painting of apps and military service . Whatsapp and Telegram make voice and TV calling quick , convenient , and sharpen on your smartphone . Discord is majuscule for large group call , and Zoom , Teams and the like deal the professional landscape painting .
Skype just is n’t that relevant any more . That makes me a bit distressing , because I had many foundational online gaming moments on Skype . I blab out to my then girlfriend , now wife for the first time on it . I television called my now - deceased grandparent over it during the pandemic .
But now it ’s time to say goodbye . possibly I ’ll give Echo one final call for old time ’ sake .
