Skype Shuts Down After 22 Years, Ending an Era of Internet Calling

Microsoft's Skype has finally shut down, concluding its 22-year tenure as the once-dominant internet calling and messaging service.

skype logo
Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion in what was then its largest-ever acquisition. At its peak, Skype had more than 300 million monthly active users and was synonymous with internet-based voice and video calling. For many, Skype was their first experience of speaking to someone halfway across the world for free, a radical shift from the dominance of telcos and expensive long-distance calls.

The service steadily declined in relevance in recent years, with its active user base shrinking to approximately 36 million by 2023 as competitors such as Zoom, WhatsApp, and Microsoft's own Teams platform gained traction.

Teams has since grown to 320 million monthly users, far surpassing Skype's remaining user base. The company's decision to discontinue Skype is apparently part of a broader effort to prioritize artificial intelligence features within Teams. Employees who worked on Skype will be reassigned to other projects rather than being laid off.

Skype played a key role in popularizing VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology, enabling businesses and individuals to connect around the world with minimal costs. It also served as an early testbed for AI-powered real-time language translation, a feature Microsoft showcased in a widely publicized demonstration in 2014. However, its frequent UI changes, reliability issues, ill-conceived social media-like features, gradual shift toward enterprise, and inability to keep pace with newer competitors, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, ultimately led to its obsolescence.

Existing Skype users had until May 5 to migrate their data and contacts to Teams or seek alternative solutions. Skype's legacy lives on in the VoIP technology it helped to normalize—but as a product, it stands as a case study in how brand recognition alone can't save a stagnant platform.

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Top Rated Comments

sniffies Avatar
17 weeks ago
Long live AIM and ICQ
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
techyOS Avatar
17 weeks ago
i am happy to have lived in a time when skype was a thing. let us all have a moment of silence for this goat of an application.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Substance90 Avatar
17 weeks ago
Still works 10x better on macOS than that buggy mess which is Teams.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dugbug Avatar
17 weeks ago
Skype is so much easier to work with than teams. Skype's IM capabilities for enterprise are much nicer from an end-user perspective. If only they had refreshed and updated Skype rather than pushed teams. What an odd pivot.

I'm guessing this was VP pet project vs VP pet project and one had to lose.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jblank Avatar
17 weeks ago
It was good in its day but it seemed as though its competition quickly outpaced it, when it was needed its most.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cocky jeremy Avatar
17 weeks ago
Can we just get AIM back, please? Or AOL chat rooms.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)