27 ms·

Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

433 points by gorbachev 8y ago

titanix2 8y ago
In a sense it's amazing how such a good product turned to such a mess. It really took a lot of work and engineering to destroy a software to this point.
ajross 8y ago
Skype would have been destroyed at this point by Google and Apple and Facebook. Platform integration always wins over early movers once the giants catch up technologically. The real story is that MS wildly overpaid for a brand that they couldn't leverage and that they didn't need to target the corporate market where "Skype" (which isn't actually Skype, just rebranded MS code!) is doing well.
- stephenhuey 8y ago
  Doing well in the sense that it's currently being deployed, but not doing well as in performing well, so any startups who want to tackle enterprise chat integrated with AD/Outlook have a low bar to overcome at this point.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I am confused why anyone would think Skype for Business is doing well. It's terrible software and Microsoft's already basically said they're going to fold it's capabilities into Teams and kill Skype for Business outright.
- yiyus 8y ago
  At least in Europe, Skype is actually being replaced by WhatsApp, so I do not think platform integration is the main issue.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    Not only WhatsApp, but mainly WhatsApp. Telegram has a small, devout userbase and the gaming community has largely migrated to Discord.
mnkypete 8y ago
Um.. I'm not sure the article author is familiar with the fact that "Skype for business" (the "complex" one) is actually home grown and was just rebranded from Lync. This is not at all the same as the consumer Skype, which actually tries to be a weird mixup between Snapchat and whatnot at the moment (failing utterly of course). Skype for Business (+ PSTN calling) is actually pretty great on Office 365 tbh...
- nkoren 8y ago
  Unless you're not using Windows, in which case it functionally doesn't exist. Seriously. I have never successfully connected a single call with it. (Understood that the same criticism can be levelled at Facetime etc -- which I also don't use.)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - toyg 8y ago
    > I have never successfully connected a single call with it. I have (on mac), but then I have been treated to terrible call quality and an incredibly poor UI (half the time we need remote control, there is no option for it, for some reason).
  - djsumdog 8y ago
    I use Linux as my native OS at my current shop and thought "Well they use Skype for Business and there's a new Skype for Linux client" .. but nope. Just as stated in this thread, it's a totally different protocol that's part of their Lync product. I ended up getting a license for Sky, a 3rd party commercial Skype for Business client for Linux. It's pretty decent for what it is, but I could have just installed a Windows VM, used VNC, shared the VNC session and gotten the same thing.
    - sloxy 8y ago
      > but I could have just installed a Windows VM, used VNC, shared the VNC session and gotten the same thing I'm pretty sure there would be a noticeable(couple of seconds) lag between both incoming & outgoing audio to the VM making smooth flowing conversation near to impossible.
Jun8 8y ago
"Since acquiring Skype from private equity investors, Microsoft has refocused the online calling service on the corporate market, a change that has made Skype less intuitive and harder to use ..." This is absolutely not the bulk of the problem: simply put, the call quality is horrendous and dropping calls in the middle of the meeting is quite common. Modus operandi in most Skype conference calls in our company is to spend the first 4-5 minutes in handshaking ("can you hear me") and troubleshooting problems.
- cm2187 8y ago
  Agree. It reminds me of Microsoft's defense of Windows 8, "people are just struggling to adjust to something that's new". Whereas internally they were aware that their UX sucked, the OEM all told them the UX sucked, and they fired the head of the Windows division.
  - nikanj 8y ago
    Firing the head of the Windows division came late in the game. From what I’ve heard, critizing the UX was a great way to ruin your annual performance reviews (and get fired).
    - cm2187 8y ago
      It's going to be hard to find the exact episode but I remember an episode of dotnetrocks where Carl & Richard (who are reasonably close to Microsoft and aren't really anti-msft) mentioned that when Sinofsky walked up the stage to announced Windows 8 he had already been told he would be asked to go.
  - slededit 8y ago
    I was there at the time (on an app team) The people behind the new UI really thought it was right and everyone else just hadn't got it yet.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  > Modus operandi in most Skype conference calls in our company is to spend the first 4-5 minutes in handshaking ("can you hear me") and troubleshooting problems. But of course doing this in no way guarantees lack of problems later. Almost every time I use Skype at some point in the middle of the call one caller is suddenly unable to hear the other.
Havoc 8y ago
Every time their mobile updates I think "Well it can't get any worse"...and then the boys at MS prove me wrong.
zenbob 8y ago
Am I the only one who thought pre-Microsoft skype was a poorly-functioning product?
- musage 8y ago
  Being more specific might help.
- newsbinator 8y ago
  Pre-Microsoft Skype suffered from connection issues, poor call quality, and dropped contact lists. Post-Microsoft Skype suffers from connection issues, poor call quality, dropped contact lists, impossible to find options, and a user interface designed to be Snapchat. Calling my mom's phone, which is at the top of my address book, takes like 6 touches, and that's because I do it often enough that muscle memory overrides UI confusion.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Skype was always a little bit iffy on message delivery when it was peer to peer.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  It was poorly-functioning, but all the alternatives were far worse. Just the fact that Skype would always connect despite double-NAT and broken UDP and god knows what seemed magic at the time. Now Skype has gotten even worse (their "Snapchat" UI is completely unusable), and the alternatives have gotten better.
- cpncrunch 8y ago
  Yes, it was horribly buggy, the Android app in particular. It would only occasionally notify you of new messages. In the last year or two I've found it to be much more reliable, and the reviews seem to concur. Average rating of 3.8 in 2012: http://web.archive.org/web/20120422145525/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raider&hl=en http://web.archive.org/web/20120422145525/https://play.googl... Average rating of 4.1 today: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raider&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raid... There are lots of anecdotal reports in these threads and in the article, but the objective evidence seems to show that people like it better today than they did in 2012.
Vagantem 8y ago
Is this not Microsoft business model? Purchasing a service, pump it for money and run it to the ground? See MSN, Hotmail, Skype, Minecraft - and LinkedIn is next (who truly think LinkedIn is better after MS got involved?). Perhaps Xbox is their only success.
tristor 8y ago
The problem with Skype is the software is terrible. Connection issues, even strange things like working audio and video but only some attendees being able to see screen sharing. Somehow it still has devotees even though far superior products like Zoom, Slack, and even Hangouts exist.
- taurath 8y ago
  It doesn’t. Microsoft just will never admit that it’s bad
z3t4 8y ago
Conference call used to be a lucrative business, then Skype came and killed revenues with their free offerings. So what do you do ?
binarymax 8y ago
"Microsoft Corp. says the criticism is overblown and reflects, in part, people's grumpiness with software updates." Denial is the first stage of acceptance. Not sure how long the full cycle takes for a company as large as Microsoft, but Skype is dead.
- StreamBright 8y ago
  I think it would take an hour to create a list of broken features with Skype. Denying wont help MS, alternatives will show up and people and business will move over. They could avoid this just by listening to the users, but instead they bullshit about it "criticism is overblown". Well done.
- kankroc 8y ago
  Anecdotal, but I'm definitely not in the "grumpiness" phase, it got so bad that my gf and I simply switched over to discord for everything after a very solid +5 years using Skype for pretty much everything.
- razakel 8y ago
  >"Microsoft Corp. says the criticism is overblown and reflects, in part, people's grumpiness with software updates." Maybe because your approach to software updates is as intrusive and user-unfriendly as possible? I have to switch my PC off at the mains to stop it from waking up at 3am, rebooting and losing everything I have open, installing updates and then not going back into hibernation.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I'm always always on the bleeding edge of software, and I'm still using Skype 7.59…
harel 8y ago
What I find most interesting about Skype is that it rose from the ashes of Kazaa, and as far as I can remember was originally using a similar/same backend and peer to peer protocols to facilitate the calls. When MS got I think they removed the peer-to-peer elements (which made skype great) and made it a centralised service. At least that is my recollection of events.
- toyg 8y ago
  The move to "supernodes" happened barely a month after the acquisition was finalized, iirc. I remember thinking it was a bit too quick to have been instigated by MS alone. The chief architect later declared that they started working on the move more than a year before the acquisition was done, mostly for scalability issues. But it's true that, before the acquisition, Skype had been resisting requests for wiretapping capabilities from the US government for at least three years. It is not unreasonable to think that this move was factored in the acquisition (a conversation like "the US government will remain on your tail forever -- just sell to us and switch on those supernodes, and the problems go away: we take the reputational hit (and reputational credit with USGov) and you get f-u money" would not be out of the realms of possibilities). After the acquisition, for sure, Skype has been completely owned by NSA and friends - this was confirmed in the Snowden docs.
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  Yep, it used kazaa "supernodes" as servers for call setup and finding other nodes. Read an article about this a long time ago where someone reverse engineered it. There was also a lot of details about how Skype contained a shitload of anti reverse engineering techniques.
  - Kliment 8y ago
    The source for that is "silver needle in the skype", http://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.handout.pdf http://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.handout.pdf
hitekker 8y ago
For business, just use Zoom. A few months ago I fired it up after years of neglect and— wow— the client connected to the meeting no update required. Now that’s software built for the future.
- dctoedt 8y ago
  I use Zoom frequently to provide people with a dial-in number for conference calls; video conferencing; and quick screen sharing. It's great, and inexpensive to boot.
- StreamBright 8y ago
  Same, I actually moved companies to used Zoom just by showing them how easy it is to do everything with it. The mobile clients are prime example of great mobile software. I can do confcalls for hours while my batter does not drain. I need to charge my phone after 1 hour of Skype call.
- fphhotchips 8y ago
  Great. Pity about the laggy screen-share, poor call quality and bad video, but at least we didn't have to do a 30s update to use it. Sorry, but as someone who does a fair bit of screen share work, I dread receiving Zoom invites.
deleted 8y ago
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mikelward 8y ago
I bought an Xbox One with Kinect just to use Skype with my family. The good quality camera and mic, and the ability to have everyone gather around on the sofa and see each other on the TV made it seem worth it. After the "upgrade" to the unified Windows app a few months back, we've given up and are now using Hangouts on our phones. That's how bad it is. Counterintuitive design, hard to use with media remote, unreliable call establishment. Such a waste. I guess it's my own fault tho, because the only reason I bought the Xbox One was to replace the Logitech TV Cam HD that Skype also broke post-Microsoft acquisition.
- mistermann 8y ago
  Does anyone know of: a) Any semi-affordable, braindead easy to use, consumer product or something a person can rig up for good quality family-sitting-on-the-couch video conferencing, with good quality and reliable audio and video? b) A multi-platform Skype alternative that can call land lines? This is what Skype should be. Google and Amazon both have popular home consumer devices, I would imagine Microsoft would love to be a big player in that market, and yet their best entry candidate for that (in that they could probably get tons of users early) is Skype, which they seem determined to destroy with absolutely insanely destructive UI changes. Satya has done an absolutely incredible job at changing so many Microsoft divisions around, yet Skype continues to get worse, it seems absolutely surreal to me.
  - chx 8y ago
    > Any semi-affordable, braindead easy to use, consumer product or something a person can rig up for good quality family-sitting-on-the-couch video conferencing, with good quality and reliable audio and video? Screw the semi-affordable part, I would pay several hundreds for that.
    - kwindla 8y ago
      Our startup makes hardware that I think almost meets your description. We try to be excellent quality, super-easy setup, and easy to use: https://hardware.daily.co/pluot-tv https://hardware.daily.co/pluot-tv But our target market is company conference rooms and home offices, so we might not feel quite "consumer-y" enough for you.
patrickg_zill 8y ago
My view in the past was, that MSFT was essentially paid by the NSA to buy Skype and then remove the ability to make secure calls with it, by sending all the media (audio/video) through centralized servers that could easily tap the calls. Am I incorrect in that? Previously, Skype was peer-to-peer after the call was setup, with Skype servers only helping in setting up the call (essentially updating the registry of "who was where" in real-time). EDIT to add: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions... https://lists.randombit.net/pipermail/cryptography/2013-May/004224.html https://lists.randombit.net/pipermail/cryptography/2013-May/... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... (summary of certain Snowden docs) (just a few links among many available)
- crb002 8y ago
  Does someone have a good writeup of this? Engineering wise they could still do peer to peer, but also send lower sampled audio to a central server via UDP, code it into text, then send it to the other client and brand it as an accessibility feature. Fast connection with NSA logs :)
  - Sephr 8y ago
    A good talk on this subject is NSA Operation Orchestra: Annual Status Report[1]. 1. https://youtu.be/fwcl17Q0bpk https://youtu.be/fwcl17Q0bpk
- yodon 8y ago
  It’s hard to remember back to those days but there was a huge legal/congressional pushback against p2p technology driven by the big media companies who saw p2p as the core enabler of file sharing. One side effect was the legal risks of providing p2p services were looking way heavier than traditional client service services. Skype was also heavily used in those days by people who wanted “anonymity” not from the government but from other users on the web. The old p2p architecture allowed users to discover each other’s IP addresses and either attack or discover identities of the other person on the call. I won’t for a moment pretend to say I think Microsoft has made good decisions around Skype (the UI is an unmitigated disaster that somehow still manages to get worse with each new release), but I do believe there were a ton of reasons back in the era of their switch from p2p to client server architectures that did make it the legitimately correct engineering decision in that moment. That’s nowhere near as fun an answer as the NSA conspiracy theories, but engineering decisions don’t have to be fun.
boksiora 8y ago
new Skype is awful, but you can still use the old interface from this page https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/ https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/ - choose "Get Classic Skype" hope they continue to support the old interface
- mikelward 8y ago
  Not for Xbox One, unfortunately. :(
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  I'm only offered "classic Skype for Win10 mobile" (not my definition of classic!), or regular Skype for iPhone or Android.
bonestamp2 8y ago
The current version of skype is rife with usability problems, they dropped a lot of key things since the last major version... - The mute/unmute button hides itself, even when your mouse pointer is ready and waiting right over top of it (to click when it's your turn to speak) - To add more kick to the nuts, they also apparently removed the mute/unmute shortcut key - Screen shares dim when your mouse is over them - If you're watching a screen share, you can't reply to someone else without hiding the screen share - System music is no longer paused when a call comes in... not a big deal, but it was nice before when it would pause your music - Favorites no longer exist and pinned sorting sucks now, it was better when these two lists were separate - You can't change the width of the contact list, now it's always too small or too large depending on the window size All of these things were fine in the last major version.
- deleted 8y ago
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- m_mueller 8y ago
  But think of all the cool things they're doing with this additional space! Like showing blue default profile pictures scaled up to half your screen so you can't see the document you actually want to edit together...
ivraatiems 8y ago
Consumer Skype isn't just awful for calling, it's also awful as even a basic chat client now. Recent mobile updates have made it much, much harder to use and began prioritizing a SnapChat-style "stories" feature that nobody asked for or wanted, because there's already an app for that called SnapChat. I switched from Skype to Discord, as did pretty much everyone I know. It has all the same features Skype used to have - good-quality audio and video chat, friends lists, private messaging - with the added benefit of no ads and a server system for congregating with large groups. It also has more and better third-party integrations, and good feature parity between apps/web client/desktop client. I'm sure at some point Discord will get bought out, and then slowly ruined, as Skype was, but at that point I suppose we'll all just jump ship again to whatever the next thing is. I haven't used business Skype, but have never heard a word of praise for it.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  I've seen a lot of bizarre app pivots in my day, but the VoIP-to-Snapchat clone pivot is by far the strangest. There is no planet on which it makes sense. We also switched to Discord, which is kind of crazy if you think of it. An app for gamers working better for work than a Microsoft VoIP app.
  - deleted 8y ago
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- trophycase 8y ago
  Yeah the mobile client was the final nail in the coffin that made me switch to Discord. I would constantly be refreshing conversations and messages wouldn't show up.
- detritus 8y ago
  I recently moved onto Discord from Skype to keep in contact with a couple of people I work with. It's ok, but has some really irritating quirks, from updating too frequently, with a fiddly-to-hide loading screen that likes to sit on top of all my other windows, to locking out the scrollbar on my browser intermittently (!) to the most egregious of all (for me): not allowing me to copy and paste text from Adobe Illustrator as, I guess, it doesn't know how to trim all the formatting and just give me the raw text. Given this last point is much of what I use IM for (confirming copy with partners, etc), it's highly infuriating. I think I'm going to be looking for another IM app again soon... .
victor106 8y ago
I tried using Skype recently and the UX is horrendous. I mean just to make a call is so hard. The product has zero focus. If you want to learn what NOT to do look at Skype
ebbv 8y ago
Skype is dying because the client has been bloated and slow for ages along with poor call quality and reliability. Those two things together made it far less appealing than the many alternatives.
kome 8y ago
The article is about "Skype for Business". But let's talk about the Skype for consumers. They transformed a nice software in one of the most clunky and unusable and frustrating experiences ever. The UI is just that broken. The thing is that try to follow all the last shitty trends of development and webdesign, and the results are absolutely horrible. The new Skype "electron"-like interface for MacOS is the worst UI I saw in a long time... No thinking behind it, just trends without actually understanding them for real. The designers clearly never used Skype one day in their life. They made it impossible to use. I am urging anyone that wants to talk to me to use Telegram those days.
- Kliment 8y ago
  This is a good time to mention ghetto-skype [1] which makes it semi-usable again. https://github.com/stanfieldr/ghetto-skype https://github.com/stanfieldr/ghetto-skype
- ksherlock 8y ago
  I deleted it and reverted to an older pre-electron version. The one-page HTML user interface is painful to use. I just want to make cheap phone calls, not join a social network. Socialism sucks.
  - kome 8y ago
    Socialism?!?
- exitcode00 8y ago
  The thing is, they threw out the whole qt app and rewrote it inside the miserably slow javascript toy. Windows 10 might ad well just be an ie12 tab at this point...
StreamBright 8y ago
I really wish MS was better with UI/UX and understood humans. Skpye and Skype for business are both disasters to use. I avoid them at all cost. Not sure why can't they just copy Zoom for example which is an absolute bliss to use, low energy usage on mobile, intuitive easy to use UI and also has the right features. I know it does not have the same chat capabilities as Skype but I don't miss that too much in an enterprise environment.
- ConceptJunkie 8y ago
  > I really wish MS was better with UI/UX and understood humans. The thing is, I always felt they were great at UI up until about the late 90s. Then things started going downhill. Now the inmates run the asylum and Microsoft's UI/UX is as random and punitive as anything else.
Aardwolf 8y ago
I don't think this has anything to do with "Skype for business"? At least from my perception what happened was that a program+app that once simply just allowed two persons to talk or videochat between phones and/or PCs, became more bloated, buggier and more demanding, forcing people to look for a simpler better working alternative. This alternative seems currently whatsapp. Til that one becomes too bloated and buggy I guess. Then there'll be a next one.
sgt101 8y ago
The problem is that there's no money in it. People won't pay for voice chat, it's an add on service for TV.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  That doesn't really explain the timeline of crippling and disabling it. Surely is cheaper to reskin and fix bugs than it is to, seemingly, recreate the whole thing every year.
  - sgt101 8y ago
    I think that there's an existence tax for any software; if you don't spend a certain amount it just stops working. On top of that Skype is out in the wider world and so faces maintenance costs that a lot of enterprise software doesn't; ux updates, OS updates, security, interfaces to network kit and so on. If you have a nice pipe of revenue then this is all affordable and extra money can be sunk into making it good... but I suspect that Skype just doesn't have the revenue stream required to support that.
yodon 8y ago
I’m pretty sure you have to fail a test to get into the Skype UI design team
seanalltogether 8y ago
Does anyone have a recommendation for taking USA calls in another country other than through skype? I currently have google voice forward to a skype number that i lease from them. I use google voice for texting friends back home, and skype to make the calls. If I could take skype out of this equation or move texting and calls to just one platform that would be great.
- supertrope 8y ago
  Take calls directly from GV with Hangsouts dialer app on your smartphone. Or port the number to Twilio, callwithus.com, CallCentric, flowroute.com, VoIP.ms and use a SIP soft phone or physical IP phone or ATA. Bets solution for you depends on what physical device you want to use and ease of SMS integration
Yhippa 8y ago
New Skype is bad and the product owners should feel bad.
codedokode 8y ago
Several years ago MS released a new, "RT" version of app for Windows. One of the differences is that it doesn't even have an option to disable updates. So if Microsoft decides to add more ads or integrate more Facebook pages or make the app even less usable, you cannot opt out of that. By the way, I hate updates. Today I updated Sublime Text and the background of code changed from light grey to white, making it harder to read. And they removed all bright themes (including Dawn), leaving only dark ones with poor contrast.
- T-N-T 8y ago
  > One of the differences is that it doesn't even have an option to disable updates Even if you could disable updates it doesn't matter because Skype is a centralized client-server architecture under Microsoft and I've personally witnessed friends who wondered why they couldn't use skype anymore on their computer because they had an old version installed of the desktop client and it couldn't connect to the servers anymore. Past a certain amount of time, Microsoft invalidates old versions and render them unable to connect. Whether it's by changing the protocol or just banning their ability to pair, I don't know, it's an implementation detail, the intent remains the same : update, update, update. From that point of view of how it works in the real world, the RT version is an improvement over the desktop client because it's able to always remain updated without having to ask for user consent. There are too many users who don't say yes to updates and then ask why the software is broken and won't work later and I bet it has been a pain for people who work in the support side of Skype. The average user does not understand why the software stops working.
ijafri 8y ago
It was a consumer product until Mircosoft acquired it, now it's neither.
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hedora 8y ago
I switched to signal for calls to android users and facetime for everything else a long time ago. Long term, I’m rooting for signal, but their video chat stuff for iOS is a hot mess (low speakerphone volume, front facing camera only). In the short term, I’m considering buying an iPad for my parents, specifically for facetime. Both are preferable to skype by a large margin. Every time I opened it for the last year or so before I gave up, it went through “this device is authenticated, but probably stolen” login hoops. This was before they overhauled the app, and saw the big nosedive in ratings. I’m definitely not going back to that platform. Maybe I’ll add the signal foundation to my list of charities his year.
bambax 8y ago
> “It was the biggest asset in the space at the time with the most recognized brand,” says Lori Wright (...) Focusing on corporations was a reasonable strategy... The value of the Skype brand was with the consumer market! Microsoft doesn't need a new strong brand (other than its own) to go after corporations...??!?
zerostar07 8y ago
I believe you can download the older version "skype classic" from somewhere. It keeps nagging me twice to update , but no i won't do that again.
- swtx 8y ago
  The "classic" version is available here: https://go.skype.com/classic.skype https://go.skype.com/classic.skype
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Great to see that that's still around. I had to go dig up a copy from Time Machine when they "updated" to Electron.
BuckRogers 8y ago
I was recently looking for a PC-to-PC only text chat program to use between my computer and my wife's. We text using iMessage otherwise. Part of the requirement was to be able to see when the other person was online/away. The latest Skype is terrible, along with basically every other Windows10 chat program available today. I can't tell if companies are trying to hide when their contacts are online/offline in order to encourage constant engagement with the app or if it's just a broken design. I just needed a simple program that just worked, like AIM & MSN were. We ended up settling on an old standby, Trillian. It's one of the few that works as I'd expect one to. I don't use it on my phone but it syncs a lot better between devices too.
- dragandj 8y ago
  You might find Telegram incredibly useful for what you describe.
  - BuckRogers 8y ago
    I tried that one, from the Microsoft Store and it didn't show when people were on or offline in my tests. I liked the idea behind it though, end to end encryption like iMessage. I don't know if these modern messaging apps are using the same framework or what, but Skype/Telegram and whatever else I tried seem almost identical. I took away the idea that they were trying to encourage usage and engagement by not letting you know when someone had shut off their machine or not. Like a push to always be connected, install the mobile app and then not worry about ever being away.. that concept doesn't work for me because my phone has nothing but SMS/iMessage and calls enabled. I am trying out two more options though, since I'm always looking for better privacy/encryption. Retroshare & qTox are two that I'm currently testing. I'm not entirely happy with Trillian's encryption (nonexistent).
dandare 8y ago
> But Microsoft has paid a price for prioritizing corporations over consumers. > Skype has tried to be all things to all people Statements like these only obfuscate the real problem, that is, Microsoft simply doesn't give a flying fuck about usability and user experience. In their eyes, ease of use is not a product feature that you can charge someone for.
dgudkov 8y ago
The old Skype was perfectly usable. The new Skype sucks. But if not Skype then what? Needed: - VoIP for groups - Built-in screen sharing - Chat/messenger - One-click voice calls without the need to switch off camera every time (looking at you Hangouts Meet) - The ability to call or conference in a phone number. - Built-in file transfer - Free :)
- palisade 8y ago
  Discord Edit: The only thing it doesn't do in your list is call a phone number at the moment. Though, I heard about a bot that can make calls for you not sure if it works.
wittekm 8y ago
Skype for Android is unbelievably bad. I uninstalled it after the following: - a spam bot texts me asking to connect - which, whatever. - my locked phone wakes up from sleep and /launches into Skype/ to show me this exciting information - it literally could be solved by a notification - it is not configurable in settings I can understand the "bypass lock screen" behavior for an incoming phone call, but this is such an unbelievably bad interaction even for contacts you do know, nevermind contacts you don't. Skype engineers - and I know you're reading this - show this to your PMs.
- VladimirGolovin 8y ago
  Earlier today, I wanted to call a friend via Skype (on Android), but I couldn't -- tapping the call icon did nothing. At all. I tried several times, even restarted the app, but it still didn't work.
- oblio 8y ago
  The real way they should benchmark their app is do similar actions on 2 identical phones in Skype and Whatsapp. Skype is slow opening up and sluggish afterwards. It gets stuck sometimes... Whatsapp is fast and flawless, in comparison.
uhhhhhhh 8y ago
100% yes. I used to use skype with all my family. the MS bought it and quality noticeably dropped after redirecting all calls through their servers instead of p2p. we moved to other services and except for my cousin no one uses it anymore in our family. Move it back to p2p, improve call quality, and I'll recommend it again.
_rpd 8y ago
I just use Google Hangout. Microsoft Skype has become bloated adware.
- newsat13 8y ago
  Sorry to break it to you, but Hangouts is dead.
  - tshibley 8y ago
    This hasn't been my experience at all. I've been interviewing for internships back in the US while studying abroad this winter/spring, and basically everything has been done over hangouts (since I don't have international calling).
j45 8y ago
I'm not sure if Skype was beloved. It was in many ways the first to do what it did at scale, during it's Peer 2 Peer days, was more usable than any version of skype today.
textmode 8y ago
Original HN title: How Microsoft destroyed the Skype brand
api 8y ago
There's some kind of law in operation that states that all chat and telephony apps must evolve toward increased suckitude. I've lost count of how many good chat/voice/video apps started decent but then over time accumulated bloat, experienced degraded service (often due to bloat or a shift away from p2p), and got encrusted with gimmicks and marketing junk to the point that they became unusable. I suspect it's because simple chat, voice, and video is a relatively bounded and commodity feature set. Everything must justify its existence, so there's always a drive to add more features and bloat to attempt to differentiate. Over time that swamps the original design. This is a problem for all software but it seems particularly bad in the chat/telephony domain. I also think the move away from p2p driven by lightweight mobile devices (and I suspect also by governments) degrades service. Non-p2p links are by definition higher latency and lower bandwidth as they're passing through additional indirect relay devices.
- makecheck 8y ago
  It’s the same curse that other utility apps suffer, if they aren’t open source: there isn’t anything attractive about maintaining them. Smart engineers that built the thing move on to better projects eventually. The only “new” things left involve revamped UIs and misguided monetization strategies.
jgaa 8y ago
Why is everybody hating skype? It's great! - It's almost as fast as SMTP for messages (pulling every 30 minutes or so). - If someone calls you, it never rings on the device you're currently using, allowing you play with that other device you had totally forgotten about. - It does it's best to distract you from what you want to do (communicate), by teasing you with social features you hate. - It's user interface is awesome. Trivial things becomes real challenges - like finding the button for screen-sharing. (I have spent weeks trying to figure out how to upload a profile picture - and I go to sleep every evening knowing how delightful I will feel when I finally find that easter egg! Seriously - Skype was great. But unfortunately, everything Microsoft touches turns into dirt. That's just how it is.
- Sephr 8y ago
  It used to be end to end encrypted secure p2p video/audio/text chat. That was removed, so there is every reason to hate it. Skype used to actually be secure.
- imron 8y ago
  > Trivial things becomes real challenges - like finding the button for screen-sharing Tell me about it! The dialpad button is now hidden 2 levels deep in the interface. 2 levels! My primary use for Skype was making calls to landlines from my computer and when they redid the interface I spent about 5-10 minutes searching for the dialpad (it used to be a top level icon). It still takes me some mental effort every time I load skype to find it because it's behind non-obvious icons.
- gear54rus 8y ago
  This is a problem for people who trust MS updates. I use old (7.41) Skype on Windows 7, old (7.46) Skype on Android. - It doesn't pull every 30 minutes, that's just wrong. - It rings on all devices for me - No teasing with social BS - Button for screen sharing is one right-click away like it always was. Take back your freedom from BS updates and you will be alright.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    Also, Skype 7 at least still lets you export its damn history.
jdlyga 8y ago
I would much rather trust Google Hangouts for meetings than Skype.
andreygrehov 8y ago
What are some good Skype alternatives?
- papul1993 8y ago
  Hangouts is a decent alternative.
- Retroity 8y ago
  Discord is pretty alright. It has most of the features that I want (Video calling, search, server administration, etc) and the "gaming" features are pretty easy to ignore.
11thEarlOfMar 8y ago
Example: Used to be that if I needed to find something in a chat from days or months ago, I typed Ctrl-F and entered the search term and then navigate among the hits. It was instantaneous and I used it all the time. Then everything changed. Ctrl-F did nothing. I couldn't find a search box. I googled how to search and wound up downloading a 3rd-party app (?). Later, I discovered that I had to go to a different place in the app and then select where I wanted to search (users, chat sessions, the Web, ...). Bloaty, ignorant,... pissed off!
makecheck 8y ago
Not only did they impressively annihilate the client and ruin the server protocol, they managed to invent new ways to fail. For instance (probably caused by protocol changes) my parents’ television has a Skype app that doesn’t work anymore. And the TV helpfully displays an error message every single time the TV turns on, that can’t be fixed (we checked) because the built-in app is just broken now.
brudgers 8y ago
The article mostly focuses on business users. It cites a single consumer use case and in it person switched their mother from Skype to Facetime. To me, that seems like the most likely explanation of Skype's position in the consumer market: there are competing alternatives that didn't exist ten years ago when Skype was a private company. My suspicion is that Microsoft purchased Skype in 2011 as a response to Apple's introduction of Facetime in 2010 (at least in part). Skype allows Microsoft to be in the consumer space and across platforms. It's worth noting that at the time of Microsoft's Skype acquisition, it was not yet apparent that Apple would never make good on its statements suggesting Facetime would be an open protocol. Because the issues are structural, it's hard to see an obvious case where "Skype would have been better if not for Microsoft." Particularly since it was owned by private equity when Microsoft bought it.
Bhilai 8y ago
Saw someone post this on twitter: Escape room idea: You are in a conference room with - a projector - a speakerphone - guest wifi - camera - A surface laptop with slide deck - and a Skype meeting … You can leave when everyone can see the slide deck and hear the presenter.
red_admiral 8y ago
The first time Skype really annoyed me was when it decided that all video must be in 16:9 format, with no opt-out, resulting in the picture basically being cropped at the top and bottom in my case. The second time was when it auto-updated to the "modern" version which removes the list of all your contacts, showing which ones are online. For the time being, go.skype.com/classic.skype lets you get the "proper" version back. For 1-on-1 online video chats when skype is playing up I can also recommend appear.in, you don't even need to download anything, but it doesn't have a full contacts feature either. There was a time when everyone in the publishing industry used PageMaker, until they suddenly switched to Adobe (if Joel is to be believed). I wouldn't mind if the same happened to skype, but I don't know what the alternative is yet.
- bonestamp2 8y ago
  > which removes the list of all your contacts Ya, they fucked this up. Favorites are no longer supported but you can "pin" your "favorite" people so they go to the top, unless you have an unread message from a non-pin then that goes above your pins. But after you read your unread message from your non-pin then that thread is moved below your pins, so... good luck finding that again after you've had a few of those threads! It was far better the way it was before when the favorites and other were separate.
MR4D 8y ago
When RIOT gets to a more usable state (see the other post recently on the remaining issues), Skype is going to die.
EugeneOZ 8y ago
Blaming users is a most favorite excuse of stupid developers.
xstartup 8y ago
This is very true. Skype had huge exploits and some blackhat folks went to Skype support and told them that the victim's account is treating them and Skype banned victims can't without any investigation. Skype also banned victim who was infected with a malware where malware would just post links to other people to remove them randomly from groups. Skype just bans you for no reason. I've lost one of my most valuable business accounts to scammers who used malware attack to destroy my account.
goofballlogic 8y ago
There's still an opportunity for Microsoft to fix this. They definitely have major problems with basic functional requirements at the moment (like reliably displaying messages that another person has sent to you in chat), but there's not really another offering out there with the brand associations that the Skype name comes with. All they need to do to bring people back is simplify and focus on robustness of the key functions. However, I'm not sure there's much of a business model they could exploit in this way. Using Skype is free. I've used in for about 10 years and in that time I've maybe spent £40 on paid calling. That's not enough to sustain a high quality offering. It only works if consumer market is the entire focus, leveraging the strategies that the like of Facebook employ. For these reasons, although it wouldn't be hard to fix, I reckon it won't happen. But who knows, Microsoft have done some things in the open source arena over the last five years. Maybe one day they'll run a product like Skype simply for the satisfaction of owning the world's best online calling service (and the money would surely follow).
- makecheck 8y ago
  They can’t repair an app that people just delete and refuse to download “updates” for (as I did after about the 4th downgrade-billed-as-update graced my phone).
pmontra 8y ago
Skype for business is not Skype, it's Lync with a new name https://products.office.com/en/skype-for-business/online-meetings https://products.office.com/en/skype-for-business/online-mee... That said, the true Skype is not as good as it used to be. I kept using version 4.3 on Linux until the servers stopped working with it. The reason is that the new UI is horribly biased towards video calls, which I don't do often and surely not with friends. For them there is WhatsApp since it became available and every single person I know uses it. Problems with the Skype UI, in case somebody from Microsoft reads these comments. This is version 8.20 Linux, which is a huge improvement over the previous main version (screen sharing works). The use case is talking or chatting with customers, small or medium companies (in the European way so small on the American scale). None of them had Skype for business, many use Slack. 1. When I start a voice call the chat is not opened by default. It should. 2. When I open it, it's a narrow column. The rest of screen is totally wasted. Maybe it's hoping that I start a video call, which I won't because I started a voice one. The chat should fill the screen, Slack like. The is no way to resize the chat, or they made it very difficult to find it. 3. There is a lot of white space around text, which I understand typographically but it doesn't allow me to see much back in the history unless I start scrolling, which I didn't have to. There should be an option for a compact mode. I've been tempted to open the Electron container (a zip), change the CSS, rezip and check if it works. 4. Messages used to have a visible timestamp. They don't have one anymore unless one clicks on them. This makes harder to find when somebody wrote something. As a consolation, Hangout is possibly worse. The only advantage is that one can share a link to a group chat. Skype can't. The result is that one customer of mine always used Hangout. Another one switched to Hangout for the group chats and we used TeamViewer when screensharing didn't work in Skype for Linux. I'm the only person in the team to use Linux (the others are on Macs) but everybody switched. That for whom thinks that supporting Linux is not important.
avodonosov 8y ago
Skype is ok, skype for business is difficult
ComputerGuru 8y ago
Skype hasn’t ever (with people I know) been “beloved,” merely tolerated as the only option back when it really was, well, the only option. Today, Skype’s voice quality is as bad as it was 15 years ago but even the cheapest alternatives from 3rd party cross-platform vendors easily put it to shame (such as voip.ms) and free offerings from the big names (Google’s Voice, WhatsApp audio, Apple’s FaceTime Audio, etc) also do the same if you’re willing to deal with network lock-in or privacy issues. Skype video chat is basically unusable: the latency multiplier is horrendous and the video quality is at best subpar and extremelyhorriblt noisy. The client itself is a mess. Ugly, bloated, difficult to navigate, constantly changing, buggy, and more. It’s been that way since the redesign years before MS bought them out (Skype “Classic” was the last “OK” release on that end). What’s to love, exactly?
nikolay 8y ago
Many people replaced Skype with Viber as there's no spam. I have a very old Skype account with a vanity username, which results in tens of Russians adding me and wasting a few minutes a day blocking and reporting them for spam. Also, when abroad, Viber's audio codecs seem to use less bandwidth and provide better audio quality. I actually like the new Skype very much, but the spam issue needs to be solved! There are many fake accounts, no way to merge different Microsoft IDs, etc. I have to agree that Microsoft by not having its full attention on Skype ruined a huge potential! It allowed many messengers to bloom when it was basically a monopoly. Honestly, there's very little that needs to be done to make Skype better and I'm not sure why Microsoft cares less about it!
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > Many people replaced Skype with Viber as there's no spam Except from Viber themselves, that is.
  - nikolay 8y ago
    I agree! They obviously don't want to learn from the mistakes of others!
rozhok 8y ago
1 GiB to store nice animated emojis from movies — check 1 GiB RAM usage when actively chatting — check poor voice quality — check constant, annoying and completely useless redesigns — check "rate the call" after the each call — check well...I only use it because I have clients and people who sit only in Skype.
blklivesmatter 8y ago
Microsofts ui is so low quality oh godness.. what stone age they live ? Rip skype
SN76477 8y ago
I use skype every day for calls with my team. The problem to me is that it has become bloated. Banner ads, search functions, emos, bots, ratings... ugh just give me simple clean messaging with calling
- mattbeckman 8y ago
  It's the first app in a very long time that I downgraded to a previous version. Previous version is available from their download page.
camdenreslink 8y ago
I had a lot of issues a few years ago when Lync became Skype, just rebranded. I haven't had as many issues lately.
komali2 8y ago
I bet one hundred dollars that if I tried to login to my old Skype account right now, it would take an hour to figure out how the fuck to reset my password, because"Microsoft account" bullshit. I bet it would take me three hours to make a new account, for the same reason. Try making an account for Microsoft's iot cloud thing. Good luck. Edit: https://youtu.be/lfby-SOWWqQ https://youtu.be/lfby-SOWWqQ So, holy shit, somehow it auto populated maybe using Google smart Lock, and logged me straight in... To an account I don't remember ever creating. No contacts or anything so it's not my old legacy account. Lemme see about logging in on my old one Edit2: guess it's time for me to eat my own words. I definitely remember this being an absolute nightmare. Turns out the hardest part was accessing my decade and a half old Yahoo account https://youtu.be/QVLz08OiMGk https://youtu.be/QVLz08OiMGk all my old contacts are lost though :( bye bye old WoW guildmates I do maintain that the iot site is garbage and I still can't log in or create an account on it.
- imnotadoctor999 8y ago
  I thought I was the only one suffering with this!
  - artmageddon 8y ago
    Same here! I even saved my password in KeePass only to find I still can't login!
- hinkley 8y ago
  When I started reading this I assumed when you said old account that you were after your contacts, not some vanity url. From that standpoint you didn’t really get what you were after, despite the process not being as painful as you anticipated. So maybe you didn’t make your point, but you made a point.
- supernovae 8y ago
  The microsoft account page has greatly improved over the years... if its been that long since you skyped your guild mates what would that have anything to do with anything?
- 8y ago
celim307 8y ago
I mean, I feel like Microsoft cares more about having an inhouse messaging system to use internally rather than pay slack. Same reason amazon uses chime and makes no effort to market it outside Amazon
spsrich 8y ago
The Skype UWP app is horribly buggy. My wife is forced to use Skype for Business, I swear the first 20 minutes of each call is people getting kicked off, people who can't be heard, etc.
brynjolf 8y ago
Me and my mom have used Skype for ages. The history is a big feature of that. With the new Skype I can't search that history, only newer stuff. Also she is permanently offline to me, she can't get notifications since there seems to be a mismatch between versions. Also if I use new client and search it shows me matches that don't matter at all, due to removing the search per conversation and turning it into a horribly messy universal search. I hate the new interface because it is worse, not because it is new. It is pleasant to look at, atrocious to use.
RandyRanderson 8y ago
For those of us that can recall, skype wasn't that great even before the ebay purchase. It seems like no one (incl google hangouts, msft, etc) has been able to solve the online conf call problem. Maybe it's not solvable? And no, other solutions are terrible too (join.me, ringcentral, etc). I don't think i've ever been on a Internet-supported conf call where there hasn't been at least one major issue. My cynical mind tells me the telcos have some custom software/hardware that detects conf call traffic and starts dropping packets but maybe that's just negative thinking[0]... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling
- drblast 8y ago
  The most stable video conference software I've used was Microsoft NetMeeting circa 2001. It was simple and it just worked, and on very slow networks too. I don't know what happened since that that's the high water mark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_NetMeeting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_NetMeeting
sunstone 8y ago
Skype was bought during the era of Ballmer and it was quite predictably going to deteriorate. Almost immediately Microsoft re-architected skype from being peer-to-peer to a central server backend. The primary purpose for doing this seemed pretty clearly to make eavesdropping easier. Some suspected at the time that Microsoft was acting as a proxy for the US government in taking over Skype because otherwise the business justification looked pretty shaky given the purchase price and the relative ease of creating a competing technology. Given all of that people abandoned the system in droves.
- gesman 8y ago
  ^^^ This.
jacksmith21006 8y ago
Now use Duo. Have kids now spread around and video conference them in at our Sunday dinner and Duo has very good video quality and way better audio quality versus anything else have tried.
LoSboccacc 8y ago
Wait. Skipe was necessary for a while as the only workable free solution and established a good marked hold lasting till now, but I don’t remember a single day when it was beloved. It always was a compromise between free and not terribly broken.
skate22 8y ago
I use skype pretty regularly outside of work. Its pretty convienient, especially if i need to share a screen quick. I never really have connection issues related to skype. Most people have it, and its simple
ryanmarsh 8y ago
Sounds like a business opportunity.
gnicholas 8y ago
I've received invites to Skype for Business meetings from folks at HP and MS. It never works. I literally cannot join without creating a Microsoft for Business account (which isn't clearly free — perhaps someone here can enlighten me?). I've tried with the Mac application and with the browser plugin (which it seems never to detect). Finally gave up and did voice calls instead.
coffeemug 8y ago
I always thought Skype kinda sucked. I used it due to lack of alternatives, but always begrudgingly. The UI was confusing, it crashed frequently, it was hard to find people, there was the awkward paid internet->telco layer. WhatsApp is such a dramatically better product in exactly the same way Skype never was. The UI is straightforward, it never crashes, finding people is a breeze, and I can call, chat, and share rich media so seamlessly I basically forget I'm doing it. The world has moved on. Skype was a good product for its time, but I'm not sorry to see it go.
bwb 8y ago
The UI/UX is so bad it makes me cry. It is unusable, I have so many contacts on there and use it when I travel but it rarely even boots up without a system crash...
ggg9990 8y ago
Such incompetence. I’d prefer to use Skype so I can use my Xbox Kinect and the big TV for video chat... but I can’t make my parents figure it out. So FaceTime it is.
mikekij 8y ago
I haven't been able to log into Skype since Microsoft bought it and associated user accounts with their live.com service. I can't find any account credentials, can't get a username reset / password reset, and can't create a new account, because it says my email address is already in use. It's infuriating.
z3t4 8y ago
Personally I only use Skype for video calls, and sometimes for land-line calls, and it works great. I use the web client. It feels weird to read all the comments here. I think the problem is that most people use Skype as an IRC / Instant messenger / MS-messenger replacement, but MS didn't recognize that and screwed up that part of the app.
golemiprague 8y ago
I was mainly happy with skype, needed the combination of video, chat and screen share and skype was doing it well. The problem started when I try to share screen between business skype and regular skype, it is not working and I can't seem to find any solution for it. I don't understand why a paying business customer can't share with regular user but regular free users can share, it doesn't make sense. Looking now for alternatives with those 3 features, video, chat and screen share, any recommendations? I tried discord but it killed my computer when trying to share a screen.
BadassFractal 8y ago
What exactly is beloved about Skype? It's been superseded in almost every possible way by most video conferencing and messenging competitors out there. It's felt like it's been on life support for the past half a decade.
imartin2k 8y ago
Every time I launch Skype, I recieve messages from some 2-3 contacts linking to malware (always different people). This has been going on for a very long time and shows to me the demise of this once beloved tool. It’s basically unusable. The only reason why I keep it is because of SkypeIn & SkypeOut (calling phones and having a German phone number connected to my account).
trisimix 8y ago
Skype died before the acquisition for me personally. Platform just wasnt closed enough to pull the types of things they were pulling. Nobody wants to pay per call for voip, or subscription model for a service that hasnt demonstrated any improvement.
paul7986 8y ago
Skype is flat out a bad user experience so much so it’s downright hostile to its once rabid user base. I used it daily from 2004 to about 2016 when I lost my password. Trying to reset it somehow got me into a loop where the only way I could was to enter my credit card. Umm nope and see Skype. I now use Facebook messenger for the same VOIP calls I was making thru Skype. I guess Microsoft is going to jack the crap out of LinkedIn next as they are making lots of money but in the long run their focus on $$$ vs. UX is going to bite them in the ass.
bit_4l 8y ago
Remember the good old days when we started the conversation with "Can you hear me?"
keithnz 8y ago
The thing I hate is that once they got skype they killed windows messenger, which I thought worked really well. Then they nerfed skype itself. Now I just don't use skype at all. However our PABX does go through skype services to make calls, but you don't use the skype client for that. The need to call landline / mobile numbers seems gone because 1. its a lot cheaper / flat fee on many telcos 2. who uses landlines? ( 800 / call center numbers perhaps ) 3. mobiles can run voip apps
romanovcode 8y ago
Since MS bought Skype it is gone to shit. What is even worse is that even with the "Windows Integrated Skype" which suppose to work seamlessly I get notifications about messages days later. This is just pathetic.
sidcool 8y ago
Microsoft acquired Skype for $8+ billion. That figure always sounded too high. And it's not reaping the benefits they would have liked. But I guess MS just has too much money to care.

433 points by gorbachev 8y ago

In a sense it's amazing how such a good product turned to such a mess. It really took a lot of work and engineering to destroy a software to this point.

ajross 8y ago

Skype would have been destroyed at this point by Google and Apple and Facebook. Platform integration always wins over early movers once the giants catch up technologically. The real story is that MS wildly overpaid for a brand that they couldn't leverage and that they didn't need to target the corporate market where "Skype" (which isn't actually Skype, just rebranded MS code!) is doing well.

stephenhuey 8y ago
Doing well in the sense that it's currently being deployed, but not doing well as in performing well, so any startups who want to tackle enterprise chat integrated with AD/Outlook have a low bar to overcome at this point.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
I am confused why anyone would think Skype for Business is doing well. It's terrible software and Microsoft's already basically said they're going to fold it's capabilities into Teams and kill Skype for Business outright.
yiyus 8y ago
At least in Europe, Skype is actually being replaced by WhatsApp, so I do not think platform integration is the main issue.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Not only WhatsApp, but mainly WhatsApp. Telegram has a small, devout userbase and the gaming community has largely migrated to Discord.

mnkypete 8y ago

Um.. I'm not sure the article author is familiar with the fact that "Skype for business" (the "complex" one) is actually home grown and was just rebranded from Lync. This is not at all the same as the consumer Skype, which actually tries to be a weird mixup between Snapchat and whatnot at the moment (failing utterly of course). Skype for Business (+ PSTN calling) is actually pretty great on Office 365 tbh...

nkoren 8y ago
Unless you're not using Windows, in which case it functionally doesn't exist. Seriously. I have never successfully connected a single call with it. (Understood that the same criticism can be levelled at Facetime etc -- which I also don't use.)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- toyg 8y ago
  > I have never successfully connected a single call with it. I have (on mac), but then I have been treated to terrible call quality and an incredibly poor UI (half the time we need remote control, there is no option for it, for some reason).
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I use Linux as my native OS at my current shop and thought "Well they use Skype for Business and there's a new Skype for Linux client" .. but nope. Just as stated in this thread, it's a totally different protocol that's part of their Lync product. I ended up getting a license for Sky, a 3rd party commercial Skype for Business client for Linux. It's pretty decent for what it is, but I could have just installed a Windows VM, used VNC, shared the VNC session and gotten the same thing.
  - sloxy 8y ago
    > but I could have just installed a Windows VM, used VNC, shared the VNC session and gotten the same thing I'm pretty sure there would be a noticeable(couple of seconds) lag between both incoming & outgoing audio to the VM making smooth flowing conversation near to impossible.

Jun8 8y ago

"Since acquiring Skype from private equity investors, Microsoft has refocused the online calling service on the corporate market, a change that has made Skype less intuitive and harder to use ..." This is absolutely not the bulk of the problem: simply put, the call quality is horrendous and dropping calls in the middle of the meeting is quite common. Modus operandi in most Skype conference calls in our company is to spend the first 4-5 minutes in handshaking ("can you hear me") and troubleshooting problems.

cm2187 8y ago
Agree. It reminds me of Microsoft's defense of Windows 8, "people are just struggling to adjust to something that's new". Whereas internally they were aware that their UX sucked, the OEM all told them the UX sucked, and they fired the head of the Windows division.
- nikanj 8y ago
  Firing the head of the Windows division came late in the game. From what I’ve heard, critizing the UX was a great way to ruin your annual performance reviews (and get fired).
  - cm2187 8y ago
    It's going to be hard to find the exact episode but I remember an episode of dotnetrocks where Carl & Richard (who are reasonably close to Microsoft and aren't really anti-msft) mentioned that when Sinofsky walked up the stage to announced Windows 8 he had already been told he would be asked to go.
- slededit 8y ago
  I was there at the time (on an app team) The people behind the new UI really thought it was right and everyone else just hadn't got it yet.
_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
> Modus operandi in most Skype conference calls in our company is to spend the first 4-5 minutes in handshaking ("can you hear me") and troubleshooting problems. But of course doing this in no way guarantees lack of problems later. Almost every time I use Skype at some point in the middle of the call one caller is suddenly unable to hear the other.

Havoc 8y ago

Every time their mobile updates I think "Well it can't get any worse"...and then the boys at MS prove me wrong.

zenbob 8y ago

Am I the only one who thought pre-Microsoft skype was a poorly-functioning product?

musage 8y ago
Being more specific might help.
newsbinator 8y ago
Pre-Microsoft Skype suffered from connection issues, poor call quality, and dropped contact lists. Post-Microsoft Skype suffers from connection issues, poor call quality, dropped contact lists, impossible to find options, and a user interface designed to be Snapchat. Calling my mom's phone, which is at the top of my address book, takes like 6 touches, and that's because I do it often enough that muscle memory overrides UI confusion.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Skype was always a little bit iffy on message delivery when it was peer to peer.
kalleboo 8y ago
It was poorly-functioning, but all the alternatives were far worse. Just the fact that Skype would always connect despite double-NAT and broken UDP and god knows what seemed magic at the time. Now Skype has gotten even worse (their "Snapchat" UI is completely unusable), and the alternatives have gotten better.
cpncrunch 8y ago
Yes, it was horribly buggy, the Android app in particular. It would only occasionally notify you of new messages. In the last year or two I've found it to be much more reliable, and the reviews seem to concur. Average rating of 3.8 in 2012: http://web.archive.org/web/20120422145525/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raider&hl=en http://web.archive.org/web/20120422145525/https://play.googl... Average rating of 4.1 today: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raider&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raid... There are lots of anecdotal reports in these threads and in the article, but the objective evidence seems to show that people like it better today than they did in 2012.

Vagantem 8y ago

Is this not Microsoft business model? Purchasing a service, pump it for money and run it to the ground? See MSN, Hotmail, Skype, Minecraft - and LinkedIn is next (who truly think LinkedIn is better after MS got involved?). Perhaps Xbox is their only success.

tristor 8y ago

The problem with Skype is the software is terrible. Connection issues, even strange things like working audio and video but only some attendees being able to see screen sharing. Somehow it still has devotees even though far superior products like Zoom, Slack, and even Hangouts exist.

taurath 8y ago
It doesn’t. Microsoft just will never admit that it’s bad

z3t4 8y ago

Conference call used to be a lucrative business, then Skype came and killed revenues with their free offerings. So what do you do ?

binarymax 8y ago

"Microsoft Corp. says the criticism is overblown and reflects, in part, people's grumpiness with software updates." Denial is the first stage of acceptance. Not sure how long the full cycle takes for a company as large as Microsoft, but Skype is dead.

StreamBright 8y ago
I think it would take an hour to create a list of broken features with Skype. Denying wont help MS, alternatives will show up and people and business will move over. They could avoid this just by listening to the users, but instead they bullshit about it "criticism is overblown". Well done.
kankroc 8y ago
Anecdotal, but I'm definitely not in the "grumpiness" phase, it got so bad that my gf and I simply switched over to discord for everything after a very solid +5 years using Skype for pretty much everything.
razakel 8y ago
>"Microsoft Corp. says the criticism is overblown and reflects, in part, people's grumpiness with software updates." Maybe because your approach to software updates is as intrusive and user-unfriendly as possible? I have to switch my PC off at the mains to stop it from waking up at 3am, rebooting and losing everything I have open, installing updates and then not going back into hibernation.
saagarjha 8y ago
I'm always always on the bleeding edge of software, and I'm still using Skype 7.59…

harel 8y ago

What I find most interesting about Skype is that it rose from the ashes of Kazaa, and as far as I can remember was originally using a similar/same backend and peer to peer protocols to facilitate the calls. When MS got I think they removed the peer-to-peer elements (which made skype great) and made it a centralised service. At least that is my recollection of events.

toyg 8y ago
The move to "supernodes" happened barely a month after the acquisition was finalized, iirc. I remember thinking it was a bit too quick to have been instigated by MS alone. The chief architect later declared that they started working on the move more than a year before the acquisition was done, mostly for scalability issues. But it's true that, before the acquisition, Skype had been resisting requests for wiretapping capabilities from the US government for at least three years. It is not unreasonable to think that this move was factored in the acquisition (a conversation like "the US government will remain on your tail forever -- just sell to us and switch on those supernodes, and the problems go away: we take the reputational hit (and reputational credit with USGov) and you get f-u money" would not be out of the realms of possibilities). After the acquisition, for sure, Skype has been completely owned by NSA and friends - this was confirmed in the Snowden docs.
iforgotpassword 8y ago
Yep, it used kazaa "supernodes" as servers for call setup and finding other nodes. Read an article about this a long time ago where someone reverse engineered it. There was also a lot of details about how Skype contained a shitload of anti reverse engineering techniques.
- Kliment 8y ago
  The source for that is "silver needle in the skype", http://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.handout.pdf http://www.secdev.org/conf/skype_BHEU06.handout.pdf

hitekker 8y ago

For business, just use Zoom. A few months ago I fired it up after years of neglect and— wow— the client connected to the meeting no update required. Now that’s software built for the future.

dctoedt 8y ago
I use Zoom frequently to provide people with a dial-in number for conference calls; video conferencing; and quick screen sharing. It's great, and inexpensive to boot.
StreamBright 8y ago
Same, I actually moved companies to used Zoom just by showing them how easy it is to do everything with it. The mobile clients are prime example of great mobile software. I can do confcalls for hours while my batter does not drain. I need to charge my phone after 1 hour of Skype call.
fphhotchips 8y ago
Great. Pity about the laggy screen-share, poor call quality and bad video, but at least we didn't have to do a 30s update to use it. Sorry, but as someone who does a fair bit of screen share work, I dread receiving Zoom invites.

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mikelward 8y ago

I bought an Xbox One with Kinect just to use Skype with my family. The good quality camera and mic, and the ability to have everyone gather around on the sofa and see each other on the TV made it seem worth it. After the "upgrade" to the unified Windows app a few months back, we've given up and are now using Hangouts on our phones. That's how bad it is. Counterintuitive design, hard to use with media remote, unreliable call establishment. Such a waste. I guess it's my own fault tho, because the only reason I bought the Xbox One was to replace the Logitech TV Cam HD that Skype also broke post-Microsoft acquisition.

mistermann 8y ago
Does anyone know of: a) Any semi-affordable, braindead easy to use, consumer product or something a person can rig up for good quality family-sitting-on-the-couch video conferencing, with good quality and reliable audio and video? b) A multi-platform Skype alternative that can call land lines? This is what Skype should be. Google and Amazon both have popular home consumer devices, I would imagine Microsoft would love to be a big player in that market, and yet their best entry candidate for that (in that they could probably get tons of users early) is Skype, which they seem determined to destroy with absolutely insanely destructive UI changes. Satya has done an absolutely incredible job at changing so many Microsoft divisions around, yet Skype continues to get worse, it seems absolutely surreal to me.
- chx 8y ago
  > Any semi-affordable, braindead easy to use, consumer product or something a person can rig up for good quality family-sitting-on-the-couch video conferencing, with good quality and reliable audio and video? Screw the semi-affordable part, I would pay several hundreds for that.
  - kwindla 8y ago
    Our startup makes hardware that I think almost meets your description. We try to be excellent quality, super-easy setup, and easy to use: https://hardware.daily.co/pluot-tv https://hardware.daily.co/pluot-tv But our target market is company conference rooms and home offices, so we might not feel quite "consumer-y" enough for you.

patrickg_zill 8y ago

My view in the past was, that MSFT was essentially paid by the NSA to buy Skype and then remove the ability to make secure calls with it, by sending all the media (audio/video) through centralized servers that could easily tap the calls. Am I incorrect in that? Previously, Skype was peer-to-peer after the call was setup, with Skype servers only helping in setting up the call (essentially updating the registry of "who was where" in real-time). EDIT to add: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions... https://lists.randombit.net/pipermail/cryptography/2013-May/004224.html https://lists.randombit.net/pipermail/cryptography/2013-May/... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... (summary of certain Snowden docs) (just a few links among many available)

crb002 8y ago
Does someone have a good writeup of this? Engineering wise they could still do peer to peer, but also send lower sampled audio to a central server via UDP, code it into text, then send it to the other client and brand it as an accessibility feature. Fast connection with NSA logs :)
- Sephr 8y ago
  A good talk on this subject is NSA Operation Orchestra: Annual Status Report[1]. 1. https://youtu.be/fwcl17Q0bpk https://youtu.be/fwcl17Q0bpk
yodon 8y ago
It’s hard to remember back to those days but there was a huge legal/congressional pushback against p2p technology driven by the big media companies who saw p2p as the core enabler of file sharing. One side effect was the legal risks of providing p2p services were looking way heavier than traditional client service services. Skype was also heavily used in those days by people who wanted “anonymity” not from the government but from other users on the web. The old p2p architecture allowed users to discover each other’s IP addresses and either attack or discover identities of the other person on the call. I won’t for a moment pretend to say I think Microsoft has made good decisions around Skype (the UI is an unmitigated disaster that somehow still manages to get worse with each new release), but I do believe there were a ton of reasons back in the era of their switch from p2p to client server architectures that did make it the legitimately correct engineering decision in that moment. That’s nowhere near as fun an answer as the NSA conspiracy theories, but engineering decisions don’t have to be fun.

boksiora 8y ago

new Skype is awful, but you can still use the old interface from this page https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/ https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/ - choose "Get Classic Skype" hope they continue to support the old interface

mikelward 8y ago
Not for Xbox One, unfortunately. :(
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
I'm only offered "classic Skype for Win10 mobile" (not my definition of classic!), or regular Skype for iPhone or Android.

bonestamp2 8y ago

The current version of skype is rife with usability problems, they dropped a lot of key things since the last major version... - The mute/unmute button hides itself, even when your mouse pointer is ready and waiting right over top of it (to click when it's your turn to speak) - To add more kick to the nuts, they also apparently removed the mute/unmute shortcut key - Screen shares dim when your mouse is over them - If you're watching a screen share, you can't reply to someone else without hiding the screen share - System music is no longer paused when a call comes in... not a big deal, but it was nice before when it would pause your music - Favorites no longer exist and pinned sorting sucks now, it was better when these two lists were separate - You can't change the width of the contact list, now it's always too small or too large depending on the window size All of these things were fine in the last major version.

deleted 8y ago
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m_mueller 8y ago
But think of all the cool things they're doing with this additional space! Like showing blue default profile pictures scaled up to half your screen so you can't see the document you actually want to edit together...

ivraatiems 8y ago

Consumer Skype isn't just awful for calling, it's also awful as even a basic chat client now. Recent mobile updates have made it much, much harder to use and began prioritizing a SnapChat-style "stories" feature that nobody asked for or wanted, because there's already an app for that called SnapChat. I switched from Skype to Discord, as did pretty much everyone I know. It has all the same features Skype used to have - good-quality audio and video chat, friends lists, private messaging - with the added benefit of no ads and a server system for congregating with large groups. It also has more and better third-party integrations, and good feature parity between apps/web client/desktop client. I'm sure at some point Discord will get bought out, and then slowly ruined, as Skype was, but at that point I suppose we'll all just jump ship again to whatever the next thing is. I haven't used business Skype, but have never heard a word of praise for it.

kalleboo 8y ago
I've seen a lot of bizarre app pivots in my day, but the VoIP-to-Snapchat clone pivot is by far the strangest. There is no planet on which it makes sense. We also switched to Discord, which is kind of crazy if you think of it. An app for gamers working better for work than a Microsoft VoIP app.
- deleted 8y ago
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trophycase 8y ago
Yeah the mobile client was the final nail in the coffin that made me switch to Discord. I would constantly be refreshing conversations and messages wouldn't show up.
detritus 8y ago
I recently moved onto Discord from Skype to keep in contact with a couple of people I work with. It's ok, but has some really irritating quirks, from updating too frequently, with a fiddly-to-hide loading screen that likes to sit on top of all my other windows, to locking out the scrollbar on my browser intermittently (!) to the most egregious of all (for me): not allowing me to copy and paste text from Adobe Illustrator as, I guess, it doesn't know how to trim all the formatting and just give me the raw text. Given this last point is much of what I use IM for (confirming copy with partners, etc), it's highly infuriating. I think I'm going to be looking for another IM app again soon... .

victor106 8y ago

I tried using Skype recently and the UX is horrendous. I mean just to make a call is so hard. The product has zero focus. If you want to learn what NOT to do look at Skype

ebbv 8y ago

Skype is dying because the client has been bloated and slow for ages along with poor call quality and reliability. Those two things together made it far less appealing than the many alternatives.

kome 8y ago

The article is about "Skype for Business". But let's talk about the Skype for consumers. They transformed a nice software in one of the most clunky and unusable and frustrating experiences ever. The UI is just that broken. The thing is that try to follow all the last shitty trends of development and webdesign, and the results are absolutely horrible. The new Skype "electron"-like interface for MacOS is the worst UI I saw in a long time... No thinking behind it, just trends without actually understanding them for real. The designers clearly never used Skype one day in their life. They made it impossible to use. I am urging anyone that wants to talk to me to use Telegram those days.

Kliment 8y ago
This is a good time to mention ghetto-skype [1] which makes it semi-usable again. https://github.com/stanfieldr/ghetto-skype https://github.com/stanfieldr/ghetto-skype
ksherlock 8y ago
I deleted it and reverted to an older pre-electron version. The one-page HTML user interface is painful to use. I just want to make cheap phone calls, not join a social network. Socialism sucks.
- kome 8y ago
  Socialism?!?
exitcode00 8y ago
The thing is, they threw out the whole qt app and rewrote it inside the miserably slow javascript toy. Windows 10 might ad well just be an ie12 tab at this point...

StreamBright 8y ago

I really wish MS was better with UI/UX and understood humans. Skpye and Skype for business are both disasters to use. I avoid them at all cost. Not sure why can't they just copy Zoom for example which is an absolute bliss to use, low energy usage on mobile, intuitive easy to use UI and also has the right features. I know it does not have the same chat capabilities as Skype but I don't miss that too much in an enterprise environment.

ConceptJunkie 8y ago
> I really wish MS was better with UI/UX and understood humans. The thing is, I always felt they were great at UI up until about the late 90s. Then things started going downhill. Now the inmates run the asylum and Microsoft's UI/UX is as random and punitive as anything else.

Aardwolf 8y ago

I don't think this has anything to do with "Skype for business"? At least from my perception what happened was that a program+app that once simply just allowed two persons to talk or videochat between phones and/or PCs, became more bloated, buggier and more demanding, forcing people to look for a simpler better working alternative. This alternative seems currently whatsapp. Til that one becomes too bloated and buggy I guess. Then there'll be a next one.

sgt101 8y ago

The problem is that there's no money in it. People won't pay for voice chat, it's an add on service for TV.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
That doesn't really explain the timeline of crippling and disabling it. Surely is cheaper to reskin and fix bugs than it is to, seemingly, recreate the whole thing every year.
- sgt101 8y ago
  I think that there's an existence tax for any software; if you don't spend a certain amount it just stops working. On top of that Skype is out in the wider world and so faces maintenance costs that a lot of enterprise software doesn't; ux updates, OS updates, security, interfaces to network kit and so on. If you have a nice pipe of revenue then this is all affordable and extra money can be sunk into making it good... but I suspect that Skype just doesn't have the revenue stream required to support that.

yodon 8y ago

I’m pretty sure you have to fail a test to get into the Skype UI design team

seanalltogether 8y ago

Does anyone have a recommendation for taking USA calls in another country other than through skype? I currently have google voice forward to a skype number that i lease from them. I use google voice for texting friends back home, and skype to make the calls. If I could take skype out of this equation or move texting and calls to just one platform that would be great.

supertrope 8y ago
Take calls directly from GV with Hangsouts dialer app on your smartphone. Or port the number to Twilio, callwithus.com, CallCentric, flowroute.com, VoIP.ms and use a SIP soft phone or physical IP phone or ATA. Bets solution for you depends on what physical device you want to use and ease of SMS integration

Yhippa 8y ago

New Skype is bad and the product owners should feel bad.

codedokode 8y ago

Several years ago MS released a new, "RT" version of app for Windows. One of the differences is that it doesn't even have an option to disable updates. So if Microsoft decides to add more ads or integrate more Facebook pages or make the app even less usable, you cannot opt out of that. By the way, I hate updates. Today I updated Sublime Text and the background of code changed from light grey to white, making it harder to read. And they removed all bright themes (including Dawn), leaving only dark ones with poor contrast.

T-N-T 8y ago
> One of the differences is that it doesn't even have an option to disable updates Even if you could disable updates it doesn't matter because Skype is a centralized client-server architecture under Microsoft and I've personally witnessed friends who wondered why they couldn't use skype anymore on their computer because they had an old version installed of the desktop client and it couldn't connect to the servers anymore. Past a certain amount of time, Microsoft invalidates old versions and render them unable to connect. Whether it's by changing the protocol or just banning their ability to pair, I don't know, it's an implementation detail, the intent remains the same : update, update, update. From that point of view of how it works in the real world, the RT version is an improvement over the desktop client because it's able to always remain updated without having to ask for user consent. There are too many users who don't say yes to updates and then ask why the software is broken and won't work later and I bet it has been a pain for people who work in the support side of Skype. The average user does not understand why the software stops working.

ijafri 8y ago

It was a consumer product until Mircosoft acquired it, now it's neither.

deleted 8y ago

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hedora 8y ago

I switched to signal for calls to android users and facetime for everything else a long time ago. Long term, I’m rooting for signal, but their video chat stuff for iOS is a hot mess (low speakerphone volume, front facing camera only). In the short term, I’m considering buying an iPad for my parents, specifically for facetime. Both are preferable to skype by a large margin. Every time I opened it for the last year or so before I gave up, it went through “this device is authenticated, but probably stolen” login hoops. This was before they overhauled the app, and saw the big nosedive in ratings. I’m definitely not going back to that platform. Maybe I’ll add the signal foundation to my list of charities his year.

bambax 8y ago

> “It was the biggest asset in the space at the time with the most recognized brand,” says Lori Wright (...) Focusing on corporations was a reasonable strategy... The value of the Skype brand was with the consumer market! Microsoft doesn't need a new strong brand (other than its own) to go after corporations...??!?

zerostar07 8y ago

I believe you can download the older version "skype classic" from somewhere. It keeps nagging me twice to update , but no i won't do that again.

swtx 8y ago
The "classic" version is available here: https://go.skype.com/classic.skype https://go.skype.com/classic.skype
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Great to see that that's still around. I had to go dig up a copy from Time Machine when they "updated" to Electron.

BuckRogers 8y ago

I was recently looking for a PC-to-PC only text chat program to use between my computer and my wife's. We text using iMessage otherwise. Part of the requirement was to be able to see when the other person was online/away. The latest Skype is terrible, along with basically every other Windows10 chat program available today. I can't tell if companies are trying to hide when their contacts are online/offline in order to encourage constant engagement with the app or if it's just a broken design. I just needed a simple program that just worked, like AIM & MSN were. We ended up settling on an old standby, Trillian. It's one of the few that works as I'd expect one to. I don't use it on my phone but it syncs a lot better between devices too.

dragandj 8y ago
You might find Telegram incredibly useful for what you describe.
- BuckRogers 8y ago
  I tried that one, from the Microsoft Store and it didn't show when people were on or offline in my tests. I liked the idea behind it though, end to end encryption like iMessage. I don't know if these modern messaging apps are using the same framework or what, but Skype/Telegram and whatever else I tried seem almost identical. I took away the idea that they were trying to encourage usage and engagement by not letting you know when someone had shut off their machine or not. Like a push to always be connected, install the mobile app and then not worry about ever being away.. that concept doesn't work for me because my phone has nothing but SMS/iMessage and calls enabled. I am trying out two more options though, since I'm always looking for better privacy/encryption. Retroshare & qTox are two that I'm currently testing. I'm not entirely happy with Trillian's encryption (nonexistent).

dandare 8y ago

> But Microsoft has paid a price for prioritizing corporations over consumers. > Skype has tried to be all things to all people Statements like these only obfuscate the real problem, that is, Microsoft simply doesn't give a flying fuck about usability and user experience. In their eyes, ease of use is not a product feature that you can charge someone for.

dgudkov 8y ago

The old Skype was perfectly usable. The new Skype sucks. But if not Skype then what? Needed: - VoIP for groups - Built-in screen sharing - Chat/messenger - One-click voice calls without the need to switch off camera every time (looking at you Hangouts Meet) - The ability to call or conference in a phone number. - Built-in file transfer - Free :)

palisade 8y ago
Discord Edit: The only thing it doesn't do in your list is call a phone number at the moment. Though, I heard about a bot that can make calls for you not sure if it works.

wittekm 8y ago

Skype for Android is unbelievably bad. I uninstalled it after the following: - a spam bot texts me asking to connect - which, whatever. - my locked phone wakes up from sleep and /launches into Skype/ to show me this exciting information - it literally could be solved by a notification - it is not configurable in settings I can understand the "bypass lock screen" behavior for an incoming phone call, but this is such an unbelievably bad interaction even for contacts you do know, nevermind contacts you don't. Skype engineers - and I know you're reading this - show this to your PMs.

VladimirGolovin 8y ago
Earlier today, I wanted to call a friend via Skype (on Android), but I couldn't -- tapping the call icon did nothing. At all. I tried several times, even restarted the app, but it still didn't work.
oblio 8y ago
The real way they should benchmark their app is do similar actions on 2 identical phones in Skype and Whatsapp. Skype is slow opening up and sluggish afterwards. It gets stuck sometimes... Whatsapp is fast and flawless, in comparison.

uhhhhhhh 8y ago

100% yes. I used to use skype with all my family. the MS bought it and quality noticeably dropped after redirecting all calls through their servers instead of p2p. we moved to other services and except for my cousin no one uses it anymore in our family. Move it back to p2p, improve call quality, and I'll recommend it again.

_rpd 8y ago

I just use Google Hangout. Microsoft Skype has become bloated adware.

newsat13 8y ago
Sorry to break it to you, but Hangouts is dead.
- tshibley 8y ago
  This hasn't been my experience at all. I've been interviewing for internships back in the US while studying abroad this winter/spring, and basically everything has been done over hangouts (since I don't have international calling).

j45 8y ago

I'm not sure if Skype was beloved. It was in many ways the first to do what it did at scale, during it's Peer 2 Peer days, was more usable than any version of skype today.

textmode 8y ago

Original HN title: How Microsoft destroyed the Skype brand

api 8y ago

There's some kind of law in operation that states that all chat and telephony apps must evolve toward increased suckitude. I've lost count of how many good chat/voice/video apps started decent but then over time accumulated bloat, experienced degraded service (often due to bloat or a shift away from p2p), and got encrusted with gimmicks and marketing junk to the point that they became unusable. I suspect it's because simple chat, voice, and video is a relatively bounded and commodity feature set. Everything must justify its existence, so there's always a drive to add more features and bloat to attempt to differentiate. Over time that swamps the original design. This is a problem for all software but it seems particularly bad in the chat/telephony domain. I also think the move away from p2p driven by lightweight mobile devices (and I suspect also by governments) degrades service. Non-p2p links are by definition higher latency and lower bandwidth as they're passing through additional indirect relay devices.

makecheck 8y ago
It’s the same curse that other utility apps suffer, if they aren’t open source: there isn’t anything attractive about maintaining them. Smart engineers that built the thing move on to better projects eventually. The only “new” things left involve revamped UIs and misguided monetization strategies.

jgaa 8y ago

Why is everybody hating skype? It's great! - It's almost as fast as SMTP for messages (pulling every 30 minutes or so). - If someone calls you, it never rings on the device you're currently using, allowing you play with that other device you had totally forgotten about. - It does it's best to distract you from what you want to do (communicate), by teasing you with social features you hate. - It's user interface is awesome. Trivial things becomes real challenges - like finding the button for screen-sharing. (I have spent weeks trying to figure out how to upload a profile picture - and I go to sleep every evening knowing how delightful I will feel when I finally find that easter egg! Seriously - Skype was great. But unfortunately, everything Microsoft touches turns into dirt. That's just how it is.

Sephr 8y ago
It used to be end to end encrypted secure p2p video/audio/text chat. That was removed, so there is every reason to hate it. Skype used to actually be secure.
imron 8y ago
> Trivial things becomes real challenges - like finding the button for screen-sharing Tell me about it! The dialpad button is now hidden 2 levels deep in the interface. 2 levels! My primary use for Skype was making calls to landlines from my computer and when they redid the interface I spent about 5-10 minutes searching for the dialpad (it used to be a top level icon). It still takes me some mental effort every time I load skype to find it because it's behind non-obvious icons.
gear54rus 8y ago
This is a problem for people who trust MS updates. I use old (7.41) Skype on Windows 7, old (7.46) Skype on Android. - It doesn't pull every 30 minutes, that's just wrong. - It rings on all devices for me - No teasing with social BS - Button for screen sharing is one right-click away like it always was. Take back your freedom from BS updates and you will be alright.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  Also, Skype 7 at least still lets you export its damn history.

jdlyga 8y ago

I would much rather trust Google Hangouts for meetings than Skype.

andreygrehov 8y ago

What are some good Skype alternatives?

papul1993 8y ago
Hangouts is a decent alternative.
Retroity 8y ago
Discord is pretty alright. It has most of the features that I want (Video calling, search, server administration, etc) and the "gaming" features are pretty easy to ignore.

11thEarlOfMar 8y ago

Example: Used to be that if I needed to find something in a chat from days or months ago, I typed Ctrl-F and entered the search term and then navigate among the hits. It was instantaneous and I used it all the time. Then everything changed. Ctrl-F did nothing. I couldn't find a search box. I googled how to search and wound up downloading a 3rd-party app (?). Later, I discovered that I had to go to a different place in the app and then select where I wanted to search (users, chat sessions, the Web, ...). Bloaty, ignorant,... pissed off!

makecheck 8y ago

Not only did they impressively annihilate the client and ruin the server protocol, they managed to invent new ways to fail. For instance (probably caused by protocol changes) my parents’ television has a Skype app that doesn’t work anymore. And the TV helpfully displays an error message every single time the TV turns on, that can’t be fixed (we checked) because the built-in app is just broken now.

brudgers 8y ago

The article mostly focuses on business users. It cites a single consumer use case and in it person switched their mother from Skype to Facetime. To me, that seems like the most likely explanation of Skype's position in the consumer market: there are competing alternatives that didn't exist ten years ago when Skype was a private company. My suspicion is that Microsoft purchased Skype in 2011 as a response to Apple's introduction of Facetime in 2010 (at least in part). Skype allows Microsoft to be in the consumer space and across platforms. It's worth noting that at the time of Microsoft's Skype acquisition, it was not yet apparent that Apple would never make good on its statements suggesting Facetime would be an open protocol. Because the issues are structural, it's hard to see an obvious case where "Skype would have been better if not for Microsoft." Particularly since it was owned by private equity when Microsoft bought it.

Bhilai 8y ago

Saw someone post this on twitter: Escape room idea: You are in a conference room with - a projector - a speakerphone - guest wifi - camera - A surface laptop with slide deck - and a Skype meeting … You can leave when everyone can see the slide deck and hear the presenter.

red_admiral 8y ago

The first time Skype really annoyed me was when it decided that all video must be in 16:9 format, with no opt-out, resulting in the picture basically being cropped at the top and bottom in my case. The second time was when it auto-updated to the "modern" version which removes the list of all your contacts, showing which ones are online. For the time being, go.skype.com/classic.skype lets you get the "proper" version back. For 1-on-1 online video chats when skype is playing up I can also recommend appear.in, you don't even need to download anything, but it doesn't have a full contacts feature either. There was a time when everyone in the publishing industry used PageMaker, until they suddenly switched to Adobe (if Joel is to be believed). I wouldn't mind if the same happened to skype, but I don't know what the alternative is yet.

bonestamp2 8y ago
> which removes the list of all your contacts Ya, they fucked this up. Favorites are no longer supported but you can "pin" your "favorite" people so they go to the top, unless you have an unread message from a non-pin then that goes above your pins. But after you read your unread message from your non-pin then that thread is moved below your pins, so... good luck finding that again after you've had a few of those threads! It was far better the way it was before when the favorites and other were separate.

MR4D 8y ago

When RIOT gets to a more usable state (see the other post recently on the remaining issues), Skype is going to die.

EugeneOZ 8y ago

Blaming users is a most favorite excuse of stupid developers.

xstartup 8y ago

This is very true. Skype had huge exploits and some blackhat folks went to Skype support and told them that the victim's account is treating them and Skype banned victims can't without any investigation. Skype also banned victim who was infected with a malware where malware would just post links to other people to remove them randomly from groups. Skype just bans you for no reason. I've lost one of my most valuable business accounts to scammers who used malware attack to destroy my account.

goofballlogic 8y ago

There's still an opportunity for Microsoft to fix this. They definitely have major problems with basic functional requirements at the moment (like reliably displaying messages that another person has sent to you in chat), but there's not really another offering out there with the brand associations that the Skype name comes with. All they need to do to bring people back is simplify and focus on robustness of the key functions. However, I'm not sure there's much of a business model they could exploit in this way. Using Skype is free. I've used in for about 10 years and in that time I've maybe spent £40 on paid calling. That's not enough to sustain a high quality offering. It only works if consumer market is the entire focus, leveraging the strategies that the like of Facebook employ. For these reasons, although it wouldn't be hard to fix, I reckon it won't happen. But who knows, Microsoft have done some things in the open source arena over the last five years. Maybe one day they'll run a product like Skype simply for the satisfaction of owning the world's best online calling service (and the money would surely follow).

makecheck 8y ago
They can’t repair an app that people just delete and refuse to download “updates” for (as I did after about the 4th downgrade-billed-as-update graced my phone).

pmontra 8y ago

Skype for business is not Skype, it's Lync with a new name https://products.office.com/en/skype-for-business/online-meetings https://products.office.com/en/skype-for-business/online-mee... That said, the true Skype is not as good as it used to be. I kept using version 4.3 on Linux until the servers stopped working with it. The reason is that the new UI is horribly biased towards video calls, which I don't do often and surely not with friends. For them there is WhatsApp since it became available and every single person I know uses it. Problems with the Skype UI, in case somebody from Microsoft reads these comments. This is version 8.20 Linux, which is a huge improvement over the previous main version (screen sharing works). The use case is talking or chatting with customers, small or medium companies (in the European way so small on the American scale). None of them had Skype for business, many use Slack. 1. When I start a voice call the chat is not opened by default. It should. 2. When I open it, it's a narrow column. The rest of screen is totally wasted. Maybe it's hoping that I start a video call, which I won't because I started a voice one. The chat should fill the screen, Slack like. The is no way to resize the chat, or they made it very difficult to find it. 3. There is a lot of white space around text, which I understand typographically but it doesn't allow me to see much back in the history unless I start scrolling, which I didn't have to. There should be an option for a compact mode. I've been tempted to open the Electron container (a zip), change the CSS, rezip and check if it works. 4. Messages used to have a visible timestamp. They don't have one anymore unless one clicks on them. This makes harder to find when somebody wrote something. As a consolation, Hangout is possibly worse. The only advantage is that one can share a link to a group chat. Skype can't. The result is that one customer of mine always used Hangout. Another one switched to Hangout for the group chats and we used TeamViewer when screensharing didn't work in Skype for Linux. I'm the only person in the team to use Linux (the others are on Macs) but everybody switched. That for whom thinks that supporting Linux is not important.

avodonosov 8y ago

Skype is ok, skype for business is difficult

ComputerGuru 8y ago

Skype hasn’t ever (with people I know) been “beloved,” merely tolerated as the only option back when it really was, well, the only option. Today, Skype’s voice quality is as bad as it was 15 years ago but even the cheapest alternatives from 3rd party cross-platform vendors easily put it to shame (such as voip.ms) and free offerings from the big names (Google’s Voice, WhatsApp audio, Apple’s FaceTime Audio, etc) also do the same if you’re willing to deal with network lock-in or privacy issues. Skype video chat is basically unusable: the latency multiplier is horrendous and the video quality is at best subpar and extremelyhorriblt noisy. The client itself is a mess. Ugly, bloated, difficult to navigate, constantly changing, buggy, and more. It’s been that way since the redesign years before MS bought them out (Skype “Classic” was the last “OK” release on that end). What’s to love, exactly?

nikolay 8y ago

Many people replaced Skype with Viber as there's no spam. I have a very old Skype account with a vanity username, which results in tens of Russians adding me and wasting a few minutes a day blocking and reporting them for spam. Also, when abroad, Viber's audio codecs seem to use less bandwidth and provide better audio quality. I actually like the new Skype very much, but the spam issue needs to be solved! There are many fake accounts, no way to merge different Microsoft IDs, etc. I have to agree that Microsoft by not having its full attention on Skype ruined a huge potential! It allowed many messengers to bloom when it was basically a monopoly. Honestly, there's very little that needs to be done to make Skype better and I'm not sure why Microsoft cares less about it!

saagarjha 8y ago
> Many people replaced Skype with Viber as there's no spam Except from Viber themselves, that is.
- nikolay 8y ago
  I agree! They obviously don't want to learn from the mistakes of others!

rozhok 8y ago

1 GiB to store nice animated emojis from movies — check 1 GiB RAM usage when actively chatting — check poor voice quality — check constant, annoying and completely useless redesigns — check "rate the call" after the each call — check well...I only use it because I have clients and people who sit only in Skype.

blklivesmatter 8y ago

Microsofts ui is so low quality oh godness.. what stone age they live ? Rip skype

SN76477 8y ago

I use skype every day for calls with my team. The problem to me is that it has become bloated. Banner ads, search functions, emos, bots, ratings... ugh just give me simple clean messaging with calling

mattbeckman 8y ago
It's the first app in a very long time that I downgraded to a previous version. Previous version is available from their download page.

camdenreslink 8y ago

I had a lot of issues a few years ago when Lync became Skype, just rebranded. I haven't had as many issues lately.

komali2 8y ago

I bet one hundred dollars that if I tried to login to my old Skype account right now, it would take an hour to figure out how the fuck to reset my password, because"Microsoft account" bullshit. I bet it would take me three hours to make a new account, for the same reason. Try making an account for Microsoft's iot cloud thing. Good luck. Edit: https://youtu.be/lfby-SOWWqQ https://youtu.be/lfby-SOWWqQ So, holy shit, somehow it auto populated maybe using Google smart Lock, and logged me straight in... To an account I don't remember ever creating. No contacts or anything so it's not my old legacy account. Lemme see about logging in on my old one Edit2: guess it's time for me to eat my own words. I definitely remember this being an absolute nightmare. Turns out the hardest part was accessing my decade and a half old Yahoo account https://youtu.be/QVLz08OiMGk https://youtu.be/QVLz08OiMGk all my old contacts are lost though :( bye bye old WoW guildmates I do maintain that the iot site is garbage and I still can't log in or create an account on it.

imnotadoctor999 8y ago
I thought I was the only one suffering with this!
- artmageddon 8y ago
  Same here! I even saved my password in KeePass only to find I still can't login!
hinkley 8y ago
When I started reading this I assumed when you said old account that you were after your contacts, not some vanity url. From that standpoint you didn’t really get what you were after, despite the process not being as painful as you anticipated. So maybe you didn’t make your point, but you made a point.
supernovae 8y ago
The microsoft account page has greatly improved over the years... if its been that long since you skyped your guild mates what would that have anything to do with anything?
8y ago

celim307 8y ago

I mean, I feel like Microsoft cares more about having an inhouse messaging system to use internally rather than pay slack. Same reason amazon uses chime and makes no effort to market it outside Amazon

spsrich 8y ago

The Skype UWP app is horribly buggy. My wife is forced to use Skype for Business, I swear the first 20 minutes of each call is people getting kicked off, people who can't be heard, etc.

brynjolf 8y ago

Me and my mom have used Skype for ages. The history is a big feature of that. With the new Skype I can't search that history, only newer stuff. Also she is permanently offline to me, she can't get notifications since there seems to be a mismatch between versions. Also if I use new client and search it shows me matches that don't matter at all, due to removing the search per conversation and turning it into a horribly messy universal search. I hate the new interface because it is worse, not because it is new. It is pleasant to look at, atrocious to use.

RandyRanderson 8y ago

For those of us that can recall, skype wasn't that great even before the ebay purchase. It seems like no one (incl google hangouts, msft, etc) has been able to solve the online conf call problem. Maybe it's not solvable? And no, other solutions are terrible too (join.me, ringcentral, etc). I don't think i've ever been on a Internet-supported conf call where there hasn't been at least one major issue. My cynical mind tells me the telcos have some custom software/hardware that detects conf call traffic and starts dropping packets but maybe that's just negative thinking[0]... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_throttling

drblast 8y ago
The most stable video conference software I've used was Microsoft NetMeeting circa 2001. It was simple and it just worked, and on very slow networks too. I don't know what happened since that that's the high water mark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_NetMeeting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_NetMeeting

sunstone 8y ago

Skype was bought during the era of Ballmer and it was quite predictably going to deteriorate. Almost immediately Microsoft re-architected skype from being peer-to-peer to a central server backend. The primary purpose for doing this seemed pretty clearly to make eavesdropping easier. Some suspected at the time that Microsoft was acting as a proxy for the US government in taking over Skype because otherwise the business justification looked pretty shaky given the purchase price and the relative ease of creating a competing technology. Given all of that people abandoned the system in droves.

gesman 8y ago
^^^ This.

jacksmith21006 8y ago

Now use Duo. Have kids now spread around and video conference them in at our Sunday dinner and Duo has very good video quality and way better audio quality versus anything else have tried.

LoSboccacc 8y ago

Wait. Skipe was necessary for a while as the only workable free solution and established a good marked hold lasting till now, but I don’t remember a single day when it was beloved. It always was a compromise between free and not terribly broken.

skate22 8y ago

I use skype pretty regularly outside of work. Its pretty convienient, especially if i need to share a screen quick. I never really have connection issues related to skype. Most people have it, and its simple

ryanmarsh 8y ago

Sounds like a business opportunity.

gnicholas 8y ago

I've received invites to Skype for Business meetings from folks at HP and MS. It never works. I literally cannot join without creating a Microsoft for Business account (which isn't clearly free — perhaps someone here can enlighten me?). I've tried with the Mac application and with the browser plugin (which it seems never to detect). Finally gave up and did voice calls instead.

coffeemug 8y ago

I always thought Skype kinda sucked. I used it due to lack of alternatives, but always begrudgingly. The UI was confusing, it crashed frequently, it was hard to find people, there was the awkward paid internet->telco layer. WhatsApp is such a dramatically better product in exactly the same way Skype never was. The UI is straightforward, it never crashes, finding people is a breeze, and I can call, chat, and share rich media so seamlessly I basically forget I'm doing it. The world has moved on. Skype was a good product for its time, but I'm not sorry to see it go.

bwb 8y ago

The UI/UX is so bad it makes me cry. It is unusable, I have so many contacts on there and use it when I travel but it rarely even boots up without a system crash...

ggg9990 8y ago

Such incompetence. I’d prefer to use Skype so I can use my Xbox Kinect and the big TV for video chat... but I can’t make my parents figure it out. So FaceTime it is.

mikekij 8y ago

I haven't been able to log into Skype since Microsoft bought it and associated user accounts with their live.com service. I can't find any account credentials, can't get a username reset / password reset, and can't create a new account, because it says my email address is already in use. It's infuriating.

z3t4 8y ago

Personally I only use Skype for video calls, and sometimes for land-line calls, and it works great. I use the web client. It feels weird to read all the comments here. I think the problem is that most people use Skype as an IRC / Instant messenger / MS-messenger replacement, but MS didn't recognize that and screwed up that part of the app.

golemiprague 8y ago

I was mainly happy with skype, needed the combination of video, chat and screen share and skype was doing it well. The problem started when I try to share screen between business skype and regular skype, it is not working and I can't seem to find any solution for it. I don't understand why a paying business customer can't share with regular user but regular free users can share, it doesn't make sense. Looking now for alternatives with those 3 features, video, chat and screen share, any recommendations? I tried discord but it killed my computer when trying to share a screen.

BadassFractal 8y ago

What exactly is beloved about Skype? It's been superseded in almost every possible way by most video conferencing and messenging competitors out there. It's felt like it's been on life support for the past half a decade.

imartin2k 8y ago

Every time I launch Skype, I recieve messages from some 2-3 contacts linking to malware (always different people). This has been going on for a very long time and shows to me the demise of this once beloved tool. It’s basically unusable. The only reason why I keep it is because of SkypeIn & SkypeOut (calling phones and having a German phone number connected to my account).

trisimix 8y ago

Skype died before the acquisition for me personally. Platform just wasnt closed enough to pull the types of things they were pulling. Nobody wants to pay per call for voip, or subscription model for a service that hasnt demonstrated any improvement.

paul7986 8y ago

Skype is flat out a bad user experience so much so it’s downright hostile to its once rabid user base. I used it daily from 2004 to about 2016 when I lost my password. Trying to reset it somehow got me into a loop where the only way I could was to enter my credit card. Umm nope and see Skype. I now use Facebook messenger for the same VOIP calls I was making thru Skype. I guess Microsoft is going to jack the crap out of LinkedIn next as they are making lots of money but in the long run their focus on $$$ vs. UX is going to bite them in the ass.

bit_4l 8y ago

Remember the good old days when we started the conversation with "Can you hear me?"

keithnz 8y ago

The thing I hate is that once they got skype they killed windows messenger, which I thought worked really well. Then they nerfed skype itself. Now I just don't use skype at all. However our PABX does go through skype services to make calls, but you don't use the skype client for that. The need to call landline / mobile numbers seems gone because 1. its a lot cheaper / flat fee on many telcos 2. who uses landlines? ( 800 / call center numbers perhaps ) 3. mobiles can run voip apps

romanovcode 8y ago

Since MS bought Skype it is gone to shit. What is even worse is that even with the "Windows Integrated Skype" which suppose to work seamlessly I get notifications about messages days later. This is just pathetic.

sidcool 8y ago

Microsoft acquired Skype for $8+ billion. That figure always sounded too high. And it's not reaping the benefits they would have liked. But I guess MS just has too much money to care.