Obituary: Skype (2003 - 2025)
On the 28th of February 2025, Microsoft announced they’ll be pulling the plug on Skype in May. It feels like the end of an era; like some revered yet senile member of the video call family just died. As Skype is still very much with us (although barely), this obituary may seem facetiously premature. But then again, Microsoft Teams is already conducting funeral arrangements. When the now-comatose video chatting platform has its life support turned off, it’ll be a rather official and unceremonious affair. Death’s equivalent of a courthouse wedding. But let’s not think about that…
I’m sure many of you can remember Skype’s heyday, long before Zoom and Teams briefly monopolised socialising during the COVID-19 pandemic. We all drank copiously from its flask. Free and seamless video calls with people all over the world made it so ubiquitous that “to Skype” became a verb unto itself. The Skype ringtone can be considered a part of the standard repertoire of culturally important sounds; basically, if it’s been mixed into a sick beat, it counts.
During a period when SIM minutes and long-distant payment plans dictated who and where you could get in touch with, Skype bypassed all of that with a democratised platform of communication. Same as WhatsApp back in its halcyon days.
Corporate and casual – what are now two completely different market niches in this sphere – were both served by Skype. Coworker meetings, yapping on a group call with friends while playing some game, or sexy Skyping, this platform serviced all. Before Discord, Teams, Zoom, and FaceTime carved up the video call market like a choice turkey.
I can pretend to know whether the company became better or worse once Microsoft acquired it in 2011 for $8.5 billion. Apart from some aesthetic surgery that integrated Skype’s design and interface with Windows, I barely noticed a difference in the quality of its service. Those more educated than me on the matter will have to step in the ring.
In a previous life (2001), Skype was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing platform called Kazaa. This was the age of Napster and Limewire, a heady era of digital infancy when online file-sharing was so in. The internet had grown corpulent by gorging on a multimedia banquet. Low-quality music rips, blurry videos, pixelated images, formatless text, and a tsunami of X-rated pornographic content flooded the web. On a P2P network, everyone is connected to each other without the need for a central server holding all the files. With the explosive movement of files this facilitates, the network is made faster and more stable the more people are connected to it. More files become available to transfer at a faster rate. Kind of like a hive mind.
Built by some Estonian programmers, Kazaa was bought by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis who by 2003 had developed it into the most downloaded piece of software for its time. After selling the company, they started Skype. The new software’s skeleton was the same P2P network, albeit one that ran on the sharing of voice transmission rather than files. Essentially, more people connected to Skype ensured a stronger and more stable connection. This explains why people out in the middle of nowhere could now also use Skype, bolstered by the people around them who were also using it. When a peak of 300 million users was hit in 2016, Skype was basically synonymous with video chatting. As social media giants began incorporating video calls on platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Instagram, more Skype users jumped ship to cooler and glossier alternatives. As of 2023, Skype’s user base trundles along at a measly 36 million. Microsoft is staying tight-lipped about Skype’s current figures, peddling Team’s user numbers instead. Must be terminal.
Once Teams matured into one of two thoroughly unappetising means of communication during lockdown, Skype was suddenly superfluous to Microsoft. Hence why it’s being consumed by Teams. But then again, Microsoft originally purchased Skype to replace MSN Messenger (anyone remember MSN?). Even when cannibalised by their successors, certain software, applications, or platforms live on through what replaces them. Just look at the familial resemblance between TikTok and its progenitor, Vine.
As all things do, however, Skype has run its course. It can be thanked for pioneering a means of communication we easily take for granted today. Skype ran, so Teams and Zoom can fly; whether they can sustain flight is yet to be determined… So, after 21 years of companionship, we sing thee goodnight.
