15 ms·

I never quite understood why Microsoft is so hell-bent on adding stupid features, removing useful ones and creating unwanted re-designs for Skype instead improv

I never quite understood why Microsoft is so hell-bent on adding stupid features, removing useful ones and creating unwanted re-designs for Skype instead improving core features. The new design is awful, they removed contact groups, something I used daily. Didn't they also experiment with stupid stories at one point? And now this. I'm surprised people were not mad about it a lot earlier, since it's been a while since they did this. All in all, it seems very tone deaf, at least to me.

cantrevealname 8y ago
> I never quite understood why Microsoft is so hell-bent on adding stupid features, removing useful ones and creating unwanted re-designs for Skype instead improving core features. I'm looking forward to a Microsoft insider's exposé on what really happened inside the Skype team to destroy such a beloved product. It was indeed loved in its pre-Microsoft heyday around 2008-2010: I remember an international student telling me that Skype changed her life because she could stay in audio & video contact with her family overseas. Since the Microsoft acquisition, every single aspect of Skype has gotten worse. It's remarkable that if Microsoft had done nothing with Skype other than simply keeping it up-to-date with new releases of Windows, OS X, Linux, etc., it would be a far superior product. As far as I can tell, only two things keep it alive: the tremendous installed base from when it was a much esteemed program and the fact that it runs on everything -- making it the common denominator when the grumpy Windows desktop guy needs to video chat with the hipster on the newest iPad Pro. :-).
- 8ytecoder 8y ago
  Got my parents a Skype camera that plugged into the Sony TV. The best way to stay in touch with them. They didn't even need to know to operate a smartphone. A few years later - the TV app was disabled, Skype on the phone doesn't stay logged in, call drops, the interface is confusing and we have moved on to FaceTime and WhatsApp now. They took a great product and decimated it.
  - setquk 8y ago
    To be fair this was probably Sony. I bought one of their smart TVs and they canned the YouTube app on it after six months. Plus it was slow as molasses. I’ve only owned a cheap ass dumb bottom end Samsung TV since and life is better.
    - felipelemos 8y ago
      It was indeed Microsoft. They disabled for all brands. I had the same problem at the time with my Samsung TV. Ref: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/08/skype-is-killing-its-smart-tv-app/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/08/skype-is-killing-its-smart...
      - setquk 8y ago
        Gah. That's just horrible. There should be a minimum supported period of 6 years for all software on smart TVs, the consequences of which are full refund of the initial purchase price of the TV. That'd kill this shit overnight.
        alias_neo 8y ago
        I'm inclined to agree, I'm on my second flagship TV in 7 years, the first, A Samsung OLED 3D Smart TV had most of its apps killed within 2-3 years, I'm now on an LG, WebOS so not many apps to start with, but I see this going the same way soon. I'd love to be able to just not have all of the "smart" features that they kill well within the lifespan of the TV and instead offload them to an external box. At least the Samsung didn't have huge Netflix, Amazon etc buttons on the remote, like the LG, which will end up doing nothing some day.
        CWuestefeld 8y ago
        This is a mega-tangent, but... Frankly, if you're dumb enough to buy a smart TV, this is what you deserve. It should be obvious that (a) the expected lifespan of the hardware investment in a TV is a pretty long time - 10 years, maybe? But (b) the expected lifespan of the "smart" part is obviously much smaller: for example, you know that codecs are going to change, and computational requirements for them will increase significantly (e.g., from MPEG2->DIVX->H264->H265) on a much faster scale, maybe 2-3 years. With the hardware for the display being on drastically different horizon than that for the computation, it should be obvious that the overall product design is flawed. And it's flawed in a way that updated software will eventually be unable to cover. EDIT: obviously we want to be able to do "smart" stuff with our TVs. But the right approach for this is with separate components (e.g., Roku, Fire, Apple TV) that we can swap out as they become obsolete while retaining the longer-term investment in the display.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Gosh, the more recent microsoft acquisitions (e.g. linkedin, github, etc) won't suffer the same fate, right?
  - pmlnr 8y ago
    LinkedIn would deserve it though.
    - setquk 8y ago
      I’m not sure you could make LinkedIn worse if you tried.
    - Tor3 8y ago
      I took a final look at Linkedin some weeks ago.. hadn't logged in in ages. Totally useless, never-ending scrolling pages, tried to look like FB I guess. No informational content anywhere. So I deleted my account. Something I've had in mind since MS bought it. The updated layout was the final nail in the coffin. No more Linkedin for me, and definitely nothing to miss.
      - LadyCailin 8y ago
        Eh. Both of my last two jobs were through LinkedIn, so if nothing else, it’s worth it for that. Having said that, the social features are fairly useless, and other than when I’ve been actively searching for jobs, I don’t really use it.
  - toper-centage 8y ago
    Linked also suffered the same fate. They pushed it so hard for it to be a mainstream social media for professionals. Problem is that no one wants to use it as such.
    - alanfranzoni 8y ago
      Sort feed by date -> OK. But the setting is not retained. Terrible.
- bertil 8y ago
  > I'm looking forward to a Microsoft insider's exposé I interviewed there, soon after the acquisition, maybe nine months. Probably one of the most shocking experiences in many aspects: they flew me from Europe, no one was ready to talk to me, or knew I was coming at all. I waited more than an hour, thought about leaving, hoping they wouldn’t mind paying for my hotel room and flight either way. Then someone who I recognised from their LinkedIn photo passed me, I said hi—they were surprised and thought the interview wasn’t happening. I had three interviews from people at most three months out of university (nothing but the same two brain-teasers); overall, the place seemed like completely lacking self-awareness. I had lunch with the only person with any experience, the UX researcher/ethnographer (six months out of post-doc) who was… way over everything. Chosen quotes: “Children running a daycare”, “the entitlement is staggering”, she was happy because that paid way better than academia and she could learn about private research, save money, go to meet-ups and interview. I liked the lunch because I had tried to make my joke during the interview, one about how Skype allows me to get three alerts about the birthday of a recruiter with whom I had an awkward 20-min chat six years ago (wink, wink: I care about users’ experience too). Blank stare from Chad. The UX researcher got it. It wasn’t funny, but at least I felt like I had pushed my bug report at the edge of my ability zone. I didn’t get a call-back. I was stranded for six months on an email chain with the recruitment coordinator who was only able to reimburse me with a paper check in dollars (I had bank accounts in four different currencies at that point but not dollars). I honestly think that I got so tired of it all that I just forgot… Or maybe I ended up cashing it at pennies on the dollar because my bank had pity on me. Anyway, a couple of years later, a new colleague at Facebook joins from there. The guy spent his first three months listing all the terrible, terrible things he saw there. Just new ways of being broken, every day over lunch, for a hundred days. I was impressed. That guy isn’t shy. Not sure he’s a great writer, but there was a lot to be learned there.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    This is disturbing. Satya, are you there?
    - java-man 8y ago
      He is busy pushing code to overwrite users' font preferences and install multigigabyte updates...
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>I never quite understood why Microsoft is so hell-bent on adding stupid features, removing useful ones and creating unwanted re-designs for Skype instead improving core features. Maybe it's all relative. Others may find them useful. I would guess that they test and ask about before making changes to billion dollar programs.
- photoguy112 8y ago
  Youd be surprised. I have worked with some large multinational companies that do zero testing before making product changes.
  - PunksATawnyFill 8y ago
    Same. People think some very big, much-fawned-over companies do comprehensive usability studies... when they basically don't do ANY.
vardump 8y ago
Not to mention Skype is also getting slower and slooower. Voice latency has increased from what it used to be before Microsoft. Can't send large files directly anymore. It recompresses sent images destroying the quality. Video call image quality is low, nowhere near HD even with gigabit internet. Memory consumption has ballooned. Desktop Skype: No more narrow width chat windows, so useful for preserving desktop space. Very bad use of space for chats. Find feature is unusably slow for large chat logs. Even selecting another chat contact has noticeable latency before window contents update! I think I could just go on and on. It's horrible. I seriously need a replacement. I can think of just one thing that has improved: online/away indication is more reliable now. It's so sad what Microsoft has done to Skype. I wonder if this is a some kind of experiment how bad the product can be before long time users switch.
- toper-centage 8y ago
  On the other hand, Google makes great chat products, polishes then for years, then discontinues them. Everyone's crazy.
  - vardump 8y ago
    > Everyone's crazy. Indeed. None of the chat messaging platforms interoperate. Chat should be like email, but everyone just wants to push their proprietary app consuming battery power and storage.
    - egeozcan 8y ago
      I think this is the craziest part. Got fed up with your client? Well, you should wait until all your important contacts are fed up with it as well. I can't believe I have to use a client as bad as Skype.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      The golden age of chat was back when you could use one client to talk to all your friends despite them being on ICQ, AIM, MSN, IRC or half a dozen smaller networks.
petre 8y ago
They're now ending support for the web based client and replacing it with a preview version with HD video and call recording that only works in Chrome and Edge. Welcome back to the 90's "best viewed in IE".
Moru 8y ago
People have been mad at Skype many years already if you follow forums on the net. When people get mad enough they search alternatives and then Skype isn't a problem any more.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Sound theory, but it's been 8 years since the acquisition and Skype is still very much a problem!
  - Moru 8y ago
    Yes, it's good in market theory. Reality is sadly different even on the open market.
- cm2187 8y ago
  I don't know what is their market share but I think the google trend chart is pretty explicit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=skype https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=s... Acquisition in 2012.
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    Wasn't it acquired in 2011?
    - cm2187 8y ago
      Correct, sorry
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
> I'm surprised people were not mad about it a lot earlier, since it's been a while since they did this. Not really mad, they're just moving to zoom for this and several other reasons. Skype is kept as legacy for some contact or a backup solution.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
They had the goto platform with MSN then they shut it down. Then they had Skype and as much as I try to like Microsoft and not hate on them and say they screwed thing up when it just feels like a meme to say so: They totally ruined Skype. I dont use it anymore. I think my first issue was skids getting my IP without effort. On MSN one somewhat similar though not as critical annoyance was locking people out of logging on to their account by brute forcing the login instead of banning the IP from logging on they punished the actual owner of the account. Back to Skype... Then they ruined sync on Mobile. You login to your phone and it stalls because instead of pulling in as many messages as you can scroll up one pages worth or only the unread ones, they wanted to pull in the whole chat history like a blockchain update which put Skype to its crawl. Now they have teams and I would love to use that. It looks awesome but its a little late Microsoft. I guess new Microsoft centered shops will use it. Slack and co are rooted into businesses now instead. Skype was fine before Microsoft sad to say. Dear Microsoft: stop screwing up Skype.
dana321 8y ago
The fact they removed the "away" status is annoying enough without the app crashing randomly
trumped 8y ago
Most software companies end up doing this in the long run... Even Firefox is not immune. My guess as to why this happens is that all those engineers need something to do/something to show for (AKA fix what's not broken)... and I can't really blame them... I just wish that it would be possible to keep 2 branches of any given software; one with only security patches, and one with feature and security patches.
Ntrails 8y ago
I hear people say this, and all I'm thinking is "why did they have to break msn messenger for this heap of shit?"
EGreg 8y ago
Is there an open source alternative?

cantrevealname 8y ago

> I never quite understood why Microsoft is so hell-bent on adding stupid features, removing useful ones and creating unwanted re-designs for Skype instead improving core features. I'm looking forward to a Microsoft insider's exposé on what really happened inside the Skype team to destroy such a beloved product. It was indeed loved in its pre-Microsoft heyday around 2008-2010: I remember an international student telling me that Skype changed her life because she could stay in audio & video contact with her family overseas. Since the Microsoft acquisition, every single aspect of Skype has gotten worse. It's remarkable that if Microsoft had done nothing with Skype other than simply keeping it up-to-date with new releases of Windows, OS X, Linux, etc., it would be a far superior product. As far as I can tell, only two things keep it alive: the tremendous installed base from when it was a much esteemed program and the fact that it runs on everything -- making it the common denominator when the grumpy Windows desktop guy needs to video chat with the hipster on the newest iPad Pro. :-).

8ytecoder 8y ago
Got my parents a Skype camera that plugged into the Sony TV. The best way to stay in touch with them. They didn't even need to know to operate a smartphone. A few years later - the TV app was disabled, Skype on the phone doesn't stay logged in, call drops, the interface is confusing and we have moved on to FaceTime and WhatsApp now. They took a great product and decimated it.
- setquk 8y ago
  To be fair this was probably Sony. I bought one of their smart TVs and they canned the YouTube app on it after six months. Plus it was slow as molasses. I’ve only owned a cheap ass dumb bottom end Samsung TV since and life is better.
  - felipelemos 8y ago
    It was indeed Microsoft. They disabled for all brands. I had the same problem at the time with my Samsung TV. Ref: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/08/skype-is-killing-its-smart-tv-app/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/08/skype-is-killing-its-smart...
    - setquk 8y ago
      Gah. That's just horrible. There should be a minimum supported period of 6 years for all software on smart TVs, the consequences of which are full refund of the initial purchase price of the TV. That'd kill this shit overnight.
      - alias_neo 8y ago
        I'm inclined to agree, I'm on my second flagship TV in 7 years, the first, A Samsung OLED 3D Smart TV had most of its apps killed within 2-3 years, I'm now on an LG, WebOS so not many apps to start with, but I see this going the same way soon. I'd love to be able to just not have all of the "smart" features that they kill well within the lifespan of the TV and instead offload them to an external box. At least the Samsung didn't have huge Netflix, Amazon etc buttons on the remote, like the LG, which will end up doing nothing some day.
      - CWuestefeld 8y ago
        This is a mega-tangent, but... Frankly, if you're dumb enough to buy a smart TV, this is what you deserve. It should be obvious that (a) the expected lifespan of the hardware investment in a TV is a pretty long time - 10 years, maybe? But (b) the expected lifespan of the "smart" part is obviously much smaller: for example, you know that codecs are going to change, and computational requirements for them will increase significantly (e.g., from MPEG2->DIVX->H264->H265) on a much faster scale, maybe 2-3 years. With the hardware for the display being on drastically different horizon than that for the computation, it should be obvious that the overall product design is flawed. And it's flawed in a way that updated software will eventually be unable to cover. EDIT: obviously we want to be able to do "smart" stuff with our TVs. But the right approach for this is with separate components (e.g., Roku, Fire, Apple TV) that we can swap out as they become obsolete while retaining the longer-term investment in the display.
craftyguy 8y ago
Gosh, the more recent microsoft acquisitions (e.g. linkedin, github, etc) won't suffer the same fate, right?
- pmlnr 8y ago
  LinkedIn would deserve it though.
  - setquk 8y ago
    I’m not sure you could make LinkedIn worse if you tried.
  - Tor3 8y ago
    I took a final look at Linkedin some weeks ago.. hadn't logged in in ages. Totally useless, never-ending scrolling pages, tried to look like FB I guess. No informational content anywhere. So I deleted my account. Something I've had in mind since MS bought it. The updated layout was the final nail in the coffin. No more Linkedin for me, and definitely nothing to miss.
    - LadyCailin 8y ago
      Eh. Both of my last two jobs were through LinkedIn, so if nothing else, it’s worth it for that. Having said that, the social features are fairly useless, and other than when I’ve been actively searching for jobs, I don’t really use it.
- toper-centage 8y ago
  Linked also suffered the same fate. They pushed it so hard for it to be a mainstream social media for professionals. Problem is that no one wants to use it as such.
  - alanfranzoni 8y ago
    Sort feed by date -> OK. But the setting is not retained. Terrible.
bertil 8y ago
> I'm looking forward to a Microsoft insider's exposé I interviewed there, soon after the acquisition, maybe nine months. Probably one of the most shocking experiences in many aspects: they flew me from Europe, no one was ready to talk to me, or knew I was coming at all. I waited more than an hour, thought about leaving, hoping they wouldn’t mind paying for my hotel room and flight either way. Then someone who I recognised from their LinkedIn photo passed me, I said hi—they were surprised and thought the interview wasn’t happening. I had three interviews from people at most three months out of university (nothing but the same two brain-teasers); overall, the place seemed like completely lacking self-awareness. I had lunch with the only person with any experience, the UX researcher/ethnographer (six months out of post-doc) who was… way over everything. Chosen quotes: “Children running a daycare”, “the entitlement is staggering”, she was happy because that paid way better than academia and she could learn about private research, save money, go to meet-ups and interview. I liked the lunch because I had tried to make my joke during the interview, one about how Skype allows me to get three alerts about the birthday of a recruiter with whom I had an awkward 20-min chat six years ago (wink, wink: I care about users’ experience too). Blank stare from Chad. The UX researcher got it. It wasn’t funny, but at least I felt like I had pushed my bug report at the edge of my ability zone. I didn’t get a call-back. I was stranded for six months on an email chain with the recruitment coordinator who was only able to reimburse me with a paper check in dollars (I had bank accounts in four different currencies at that point but not dollars). I honestly think that I got so tired of it all that I just forgot… Or maybe I ended up cashing it at pennies on the dollar because my bank had pity on me. Anyway, a couple of years later, a new colleague at Facebook joins from there. The guy spent his first three months listing all the terrible, terrible things he saw there. Just new ways of being broken, every day over lunch, for a hundred days. I was impressed. That guy isn’t shy. Not sure he’s a great writer, but there was a lot to be learned there.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  This is disturbing. Satya, are you there?
  - java-man 8y ago
    He is busy pushing code to overwrite users' font preferences and install multigigabyte updates...

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>I never quite understood why Microsoft is so hell-bent on adding stupid features, removing useful ones and creating unwanted re-designs for Skype instead improving core features. Maybe it's all relative. Others may find them useful. I would guess that they test and ask about before making changes to billion dollar programs.

photoguy112 8y ago
Youd be surprised. I have worked with some large multinational companies that do zero testing before making product changes.
- PunksATawnyFill 8y ago
  Same. People think some very big, much-fawned-over companies do comprehensive usability studies... when they basically don't do ANY.

vardump 8y ago

Not to mention Skype is also getting slower and slooower. Voice latency has increased from what it used to be before Microsoft. Can't send large files directly anymore. It recompresses sent images destroying the quality. Video call image quality is low, nowhere near HD even with gigabit internet. Memory consumption has ballooned. Desktop Skype: No more narrow width chat windows, so useful for preserving desktop space. Very bad use of space for chats. Find feature is unusably slow for large chat logs. Even selecting another chat contact has noticeable latency before window contents update! I think I could just go on and on. It's horrible. I seriously need a replacement. I can think of just one thing that has improved: online/away indication is more reliable now. It's so sad what Microsoft has done to Skype. I wonder if this is a some kind of experiment how bad the product can be before long time users switch.

toper-centage 8y ago
On the other hand, Google makes great chat products, polishes then for years, then discontinues them. Everyone's crazy.
- vardump 8y ago
  > Everyone's crazy. Indeed. None of the chat messaging platforms interoperate. Chat should be like email, but everyone just wants to push their proprietary app consuming battery power and storage.
  - egeozcan 8y ago
    I think this is the craziest part. Got fed up with your client? Well, you should wait until all your important contacts are fed up with it as well. I can't believe I have to use a client as bad as Skype.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    The golden age of chat was back when you could use one client to talk to all your friends despite them being on ICQ, AIM, MSN, IRC or half a dozen smaller networks.

petre 8y ago

They're now ending support for the web based client and replacing it with a preview version with HD video and call recording that only works in Chrome and Edge. Welcome back to the 90's "best viewed in IE".

Moru 8y ago

People have been mad at Skype many years already if you follow forums on the net. When people get mad enough they search alternatives and then Skype isn't a problem any more.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Sound theory, but it's been 8 years since the acquisition and Skype is still very much a problem!
- Moru 8y ago
  Yes, it's good in market theory. Reality is sadly different even on the open market.
cm2187 8y ago
I don't know what is their market share but I think the google trend chart is pretty explicit https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=skype https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=s... Acquisition in 2012.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Wasn't it acquired in 2011?
  - cm2187 8y ago
    Correct, sorry

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

> I'm surprised people were not mad about it a lot earlier, since it's been a while since they did this. Not really mad, they're just moving to zoom for this and several other reasons. Skype is kept as legacy for some contact or a backup solution.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

They had the goto platform with MSN then they shut it down. Then they had Skype and as much as I try to like Microsoft and not hate on them and say they screwed thing up when it just feels like a meme to say so: They totally ruined Skype. I dont use it anymore. I think my first issue was skids getting my IP without effort. On MSN one somewhat similar though not as critical annoyance was locking people out of logging on to their account by brute forcing the login instead of banning the IP from logging on they punished the actual owner of the account. Back to Skype... Then they ruined sync on Mobile. You login to your phone and it stalls because instead of pulling in as many messages as you can scroll up one pages worth or only the unread ones, they wanted to pull in the whole chat history like a blockchain update which put Skype to its crawl. Now they have teams and I would love to use that. It looks awesome but its a little late Microsoft. I guess new Microsoft centered shops will use it. Slack and co are rooted into businesses now instead. Skype was fine before Microsoft sad to say. Dear Microsoft: stop screwing up Skype.

dana321 8y ago

The fact they removed the "away" status is annoying enough without the app crashing randomly

trumped 8y ago

Most software companies end up doing this in the long run... Even Firefox is not immune. My guess as to why this happens is that all those engineers need something to do/something to show for (AKA fix what's not broken)... and I can't really blame them... I just wish that it would be possible to keep 2 branches of any given software; one with only security patches, and one with feature and security patches.

Ntrails 8y ago

I hear people say this, and all I'm thinking is "why did they have to break msn messenger for this heap of shit?"

EGreg 8y ago

Is there an open source alternative?