5 ms·

Skype (the original product/service, before Microsoft's corporate hug of death) was an amazing piece of technology. It was pre-cloud in every aspect, not only

by lxgr 2y ago

Skype (the original product/service, before Microsoft's corporate hug of death) was an amazing piece of technology. It was pre-cloud in every aspect, not only using P2P for actual VoIP traffic but also for contact list management and node discovery (via DHT and promoting random people's PCs to act as core nodes! Opening up Wireshark on my laptop when on fast university Wi-Fi with a public, unfirewalled IP was quite the experience). It was also available literally everywhere: Linux, the Sony PSP, Nokia's Linux-based "internet appliance/tablet" series, Symbian smartphones, cordless landline phones in some countries... I've long since moved on, but I do have some very fond memories of it being a lifeline to friends and family when backpacking and studying abroad in a time of horrendously expensive international/roaming calls. Rest in peace!

timewizard 2y ago
> before Microsoft's corporate hug of death Abuse of the law to buy a competitor, form a monopoly, and then price fix an entire market. It sounds cute when you say "hug of death" almost like they didn't intentionally seek out this precise outcome. > It was also available literally everywhere Funny how that was literally the first thing to get the axe. I guess some "hugs" are like that, huh? > Rest in peace! Justice for Skype!
- Liquix 2y ago
  but m$ doesn't have a monopoly on video/instant chat? teams is so objectively bad that anyone who was using skype will move on to a different company's product
  - timewizard 2y ago
    That they failed to successfully profit from their crime does not obviate it from being criminal. Skype was created in 2003, I do hope it's appreciated how much smaller the market was back then, on top of how bandwidth constrained it was. On Hacker News of all places what I think gets lost in the monopoly conversation is that it's not just the consumer market you need to pay attention it's the _labor_ market. I always assumed that would more be more readily apparent here. I am often surprised to find out it is not.
  - avhception 2y ago
    In a personal setting? You may be right. In a corporate setting? "We already have Microsoft accounts for all of our users, do you want us to maintain a separate user list? No way. Teams may be bad, but it's not bad enough to warrant that."
    - mvdtnz 2y ago
      Some corporates, yes. Many others, no. A true sign there's no monopoly here, just regular old vendor lock in.
  - threePointFive 2y ago
    I wish that were true. Every enterprise I've seen has thrown their hands up and said "we already use microsoft for everything else (generally email, ad, or office) and teams is bundled why would we use anything else". So instead of getting good chat and VoIP apps, the decision makers just stick with the cheapest option (Teams, they're already paying for it in one of their tens of other Microsoft subscriptions)
    - Flameancer 2y ago
      Didn’t MSFT recently uncouple teams license from O365? I think you now need a separate license to use business teams, but also why use anything else.
      - znpy 2y ago
        Yes, they did. They were forced by the eu commission to do so as bundling teams was an anti-competitive practice, similar to when Microsoft bundled internet explorer into windows, effectively killing the market for web browsers.
    - cycomanic 2y ago
      Compared to the rubbish that is MS accounts or email, teams is outright awesome compared to it's competitors! At least you don't get logged out of your email app and don't get notifications or any indication until you dig deep into what's going on (let's not even talk about how agonizingly slow outlook is). Or the rubbish of having to dig 3 levels down into the settings to get outlooks 2fa token (good look if the aforementioned lock out happened). I could go on. I seriously don't understand how companies would go with this rubbish (especially for shops which use Linux for a large fraction of their dev machines).
  - mynameisash 2y ago
    > teams is so objectively bad What is better than Teams? I don't love Teams, but it's light years beyond what Zoom provides, and the services that Amazon and Google offer were pretty garbage last time I checked.
    - abustamam 2y ago
      I worked at a company that used teams a few years ago, after an acquisition. I'd routinely not get notifications for DMs and other important messages. The devops guy was trying to figure out how to port our slack prod errors channel to teams. I felt bad for him. Can't remember if he ever succeeded. I also really like Slacks huddles and Discord VC's (we treated them like conference rooms).
    - niutech 2y ago
      Jami (https://jami.net https://jami.net) and Tox (https://tox.chat https://tox.chat) are better, being P2P and open source.
- EA-3167 2y ago
  Speaking of hugs, remember the mantra: "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish."
  - hulitu 2y ago
    > Speaking of hugs, remember the mantra: "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." They are working hard now on the Extinguish phase. Linux was set back by systemd and wayland. And what's left of it is available as WSL.
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  Monopoly? My god man get a grip.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    Thank you for this thorough analysis.
- SideQuark 2y ago
  Skype was founded 2003, wholly bought by eBay in 2005. MS bought it from eBay in 2011, when Skype had 30m users, which was and is tiny compared to relevant markets for videoconferencing. Even now Teams has around 30% of the market. In the 14 years since the purchase MS increased Skype usage significantly and brought the tech to a vastly bigger audience. So no, there was never a monopoly, the market share was vastly too low to “price fix an entire market,” and “the hug of death” certainly doesn’t mean making a product better and more used and only shuttering it after 14 years when it’s been vastly outclassed (Skype usage sits at around 1%, and Zoom completely slaughtered it). Most tech fails much quicker.
notpushkin 2y ago
> It was also available literally everywhere I remember trying to run SkypeKit on my Kindle. Didn’t get it to make calls, but I think it received chat messages!
kvakerok 2y ago
Pre Microsoft Skype was malware-grade good. I still remember sysadmins imploding in impotent rage as it near effortlessly evaded their firewalling attempts.
- echelon 2y ago
  2000's era P2P was wickedly good. P2P was such an interesting part of internet history. It's a shame client-server prevailed over it. Decentralized systems are so much more liberating. It felt like being a part of something rather than being a serf in someone's platform.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    Jini may be an example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jini https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jini I remember Bill Venners used to write about it on his site artima.com .
  - 1970-01-01 2y ago
    >2000's era P2P was wickedly good. I think it's only the WWW that went from wickedly good to sour and evil. The P2P world is just as good as it used to be, just not as force-fed and loud as the unhinged hellscape that is Web 2.0. If you look, you will probably find whatever you're looking for with just a DHT link.
    - anacrolix 2y ago
      This. The tech works and is great. But it's not in the interests of the megacorps that took over from 2008ish onwards.
      - dartos 2y ago
        Well that and people seem to really enjoy (or at least feel compelled to use) social networks. Social networks tend to be pretty difficult in p2p systems since the amount of traffic usually scales exponentially with network size (as posts get published to followers and shared over and over by the users of the network), which you’d want to maximize
giancarlostoro 2y ago
Smart phones killed Skypes rich P2P. Then Microsoft added permanent nodes too little too late. The synching was awful on mobile too. The app would lock up waiting to download every single chatlog going back years. Just download the last ten and quietly download the rest in a separate thread. Microsoft was not fast moving enough to keep Skype at its prime.

by lxgr 2y ago

timewizard 2y ago

> before Microsoft's corporate hug of death Abuse of the law to buy a competitor, form a monopoly, and then price fix an entire market. It sounds cute when you say "hug of death" almost like they didn't intentionally seek out this precise outcome. > It was also available literally everywhere Funny how that was literally the first thing to get the axe. I guess some "hugs" are like that, huh? > Rest in peace! Justice for Skype!

Liquix 2y ago
but m$ doesn't have a monopoly on video/instant chat? teams is so objectively bad that anyone who was using skype will move on to a different company's product
- timewizard 2y ago
  That they failed to successfully profit from their crime does not obviate it from being criminal. Skype was created in 2003, I do hope it's appreciated how much smaller the market was back then, on top of how bandwidth constrained it was. On Hacker News of all places what I think gets lost in the monopoly conversation is that it's not just the consumer market you need to pay attention it's the _labor_ market. I always assumed that would more be more readily apparent here. I am often surprised to find out it is not.
- avhception 2y ago
  In a personal setting? You may be right. In a corporate setting? "We already have Microsoft accounts for all of our users, do you want us to maintain a separate user list? No way. Teams may be bad, but it's not bad enough to warrant that."
  - mvdtnz 2y ago
    Some corporates, yes. Many others, no. A true sign there's no monopoly here, just regular old vendor lock in.
- threePointFive 2y ago
  I wish that were true. Every enterprise I've seen has thrown their hands up and said "we already use microsoft for everything else (generally email, ad, or office) and teams is bundled why would we use anything else". So instead of getting good chat and VoIP apps, the decision makers just stick with the cheapest option (Teams, they're already paying for it in one of their tens of other Microsoft subscriptions)
  - Flameancer 2y ago
    Didn’t MSFT recently uncouple teams license from O365? I think you now need a separate license to use business teams, but also why use anything else.
    - znpy 2y ago
      Yes, they did. They were forced by the eu commission to do so as bundling teams was an anti-competitive practice, similar to when Microsoft bundled internet explorer into windows, effectively killing the market for web browsers.
  - cycomanic 2y ago
    Compared to the rubbish that is MS accounts or email, teams is outright awesome compared to it's competitors! At least you don't get logged out of your email app and don't get notifications or any indication until you dig deep into what's going on (let's not even talk about how agonizingly slow outlook is). Or the rubbish of having to dig 3 levels down into the settings to get outlooks 2fa token (good look if the aforementioned lock out happened). I could go on. I seriously don't understand how companies would go with this rubbish (especially for shops which use Linux for a large fraction of their dev machines).
- mynameisash 2y ago
  > teams is so objectively bad What is better than Teams? I don't love Teams, but it's light years beyond what Zoom provides, and the services that Amazon and Google offer were pretty garbage last time I checked.
  - abustamam 2y ago
    I worked at a company that used teams a few years ago, after an acquisition. I'd routinely not get notifications for DMs and other important messages. The devops guy was trying to figure out how to port our slack prod errors channel to teams. I felt bad for him. Can't remember if he ever succeeded. I also really like Slacks huddles and Discord VC's (we treated them like conference rooms).
  - niutech 2y ago
    Jami (https://jami.net https://jami.net) and Tox (https://tox.chat https://tox.chat) are better, being P2P and open source.
EA-3167 2y ago
Speaking of hugs, remember the mantra: "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish."
- hulitu 2y ago
  > Speaking of hugs, remember the mantra: "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish." They are working hard now on the Extinguish phase. Linux was set back by systemd and wayland. And what's left of it is available as WSL.
mvdtnz 2y ago
Monopoly? My god man get a grip.
- timewizard 2y ago
  Thank you for this thorough analysis.
SideQuark 2y ago
Skype was founded 2003, wholly bought by eBay in 2005. MS bought it from eBay in 2011, when Skype had 30m users, which was and is tiny compared to relevant markets for videoconferencing. Even now Teams has around 30% of the market. In the 14 years since the purchase MS increased Skype usage significantly and brought the tech to a vastly bigger audience. So no, there was never a monopoly, the market share was vastly too low to “price fix an entire market,” and “the hug of death” certainly doesn’t mean making a product better and more used and only shuttering it after 14 years when it’s been vastly outclassed (Skype usage sits at around 1%, and Zoom completely slaughtered it). Most tech fails much quicker.

notpushkin 2y ago

> It was also available literally everywhere I remember trying to run SkypeKit on my Kindle. Didn’t get it to make calls, but I think it received chat messages!

kvakerok 2y ago

Pre Microsoft Skype was malware-grade good. I still remember sysadmins imploding in impotent rage as it near effortlessly evaded their firewalling attempts.

echelon 2y ago
2000's era P2P was wickedly good. P2P was such an interesting part of internet history. It's a shame client-server prevailed over it. Decentralized systems are so much more liberating. It felt like being a part of something rather than being a serf in someone's platform.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Jini may be an example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jini https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jini I remember Bill Venners used to write about it on his site artima.com .
- 1970-01-01 2y ago
  >2000's era P2P was wickedly good. I think it's only the WWW that went from wickedly good to sour and evil. The P2P world is just as good as it used to be, just not as force-fed and loud as the unhinged hellscape that is Web 2.0. If you look, you will probably find whatever you're looking for with just a DHT link.
  - anacrolix 2y ago
    This. The tech works and is great. But it's not in the interests of the megacorps that took over from 2008ish onwards.
    - dartos 2y ago
      Well that and people seem to really enjoy (or at least feel compelled to use) social networks. Social networks tend to be pretty difficult in p2p systems since the amount of traffic usually scales exponentially with network size (as posts get published to followers and shared over and over by the users of the network), which you’d want to maximize

giancarlostoro 2y ago

Smart phones killed Skypes rich P2P. Then Microsoft added permanent nodes too little too late. The synching was awful on mobile too. The app would lock up waiting to download every single chatlog going back years. Just download the last ten and quietly download the rest in a separate thread. Microsoft was not fast moving enough to keep Skype at its prime.