3mo ago

On May 5, Microsoft’s Skype will shut down for good

Understandable choice, given that Skype is pretty much redundant with Teams. Back in 2004-2005 Skype was really hyped because of free voice calls through the Internet, but few days later several other messaging apps incorporated that feature; Skype's thunder was stolen. Also its inconsistent branding was a problem: there was Skype for Business that later became Lync, ultimately becoming Teams. Skype kind of became forgotten and obsolete.

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3mo ago

May 5, Microsoft's Skype will shut down for good

arstechnica.com /gadgets/2025/02/on-may-5-microsofts-skype-will-shut-down-for-good/

27 comments

Skype is dead. Introducing: CoPilot Calls
Seriously though, Skype is a good example of how MS butchers products. I mean, I never loved Skype but it worked and was the defacto video calling platform of the masses. If they had their shit together, even a little bit, then Zoom would never have taken the market. I don't really like zoom either, but its better than Skype.
- You joke but their idea is to migrate all the remaining skype users to Microsoft Teams (consumer edition, incompatible and not interoperable with Teams business edition, they have the exact same icon but with the colors reversed)
  It's the same stuff, but worse™️
- CoPilot Calls
  Will there be an AI retelling what I said to others on the fly in a TikTok TTS voice?
- It's why we always need competition in all areas, when you are the market leader, you stagnate. Once something better comes around, it's already too late.

Ah, the Google approach.
- It was successfull for a while up to 10 years or so ago, when it was the main free option for video calling. But nowadays there are plenty of alternatives, pretty much all of which do a better job than Skype ever did.
  Skype has now been pretty much obsolete for years so I don't think it's too bad that it's ending.
  The Google approach would have been to already have killed it in 2004 before it ever even had a chance to be successful.
  
  MS would have had no chance to kill it before buying it. Now, if Meta could just start killing products, the world would be a better place.

It's the other way around. Lync, formerly Office Communicator, became Skype for Business which became Teams, not to be confused with Teams, a distinct, non-interoperable product made by the same company. Skype for Business probably took some code from Skype but I'd bet it was mostly about branding and it never had that much in common with the real Skype.
Microsoft killed Skype in 2017 and replaced it with a different thing also called Skype.

hardly surprising. we talk about enshittification today but Skype was one of the most egregious offenders before the term was even coined, in late-stage Skype (circa 2016-2017) i couldn't even run the fucking thing without lag because of in-line ads. the user experience was frankly awful, and once you've used something like Discord or Zoom there's just never any reason to go back.

Excellent stewardship, Microsoft.
/s

The last time I used skype, it was to monitor my 3d print because I needed to finish a project and my last attempt went all spaghetti.
So as I was at work I'd log into my computer from my phone, call myself with skype, and check to make sure everything was still okay.
Then I discovered octoprint.

I only used Skype for one thing: cheap calls from Canada to international landlines with no time limit and without having to pay a monthly subscription. Can anyone recommend a good alternative? A lot of the options out there look a bit scammy.
- https://jitsi.org/
- I tend to use Signal for international calls.
  
  I don't think you can call landlines from it though.

I didn't even know it was still around. I stopped using it when microsoft bought it.

Can skype credit be used in teams?

Looking back over my long and occasionally successful life, I must admit that I do have a few regrets here and there. One is that for a couple of years, I was a Skype user. Oh well, at least I stayed away from Teams.