One thing that's really fun is getting inundated with spam from random accounts
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Microsoft is killing Skype
221–230 of 682 posts
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#222Microsoft killed Skype for me a few months ago: the Linux version simply stopped working, and unless I install a Snap-based one (which I cannot do remotely on family computers), it's now useless. Also, my Skype credit simply disappeared from the account (granted, it had been sitting idle for a few years, but still). WhatsApp, Signal and similar apps completely replaced Skype, which stopped innovating years ago. Other…
And the amazing algo that made skype work as a P2P system with very little bandwidth circa 2000 is now lost. Locked down in Microsoft's proprietary attic gathering dust while each conf app gets worse as the time goes by.
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#223I put $10 on an account over ten years ago to make sporadic calls (e.g. customer service in other countries). That account still has $5 left, and I’ve made a ton of calls to many different countries. What’s a good alternative here? I just want to make outgoing international calls cheaply.
I'm in the same boat, I wonder if you can use the web interface from a 4g modem to make calls/send&recieve SMS messages. Could install a cloudflare tunnel on it and access it while abroad.
I know you can do sms messages, but I'm not sure about calls.
Perhaps an old Android phone could be used for this?
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#224perhaps they can open-source it for great good ?
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> actively harmed by US tech giants Both Nokia and Skype went under due to usual European leadership stagnation and comfort before getting bought. Thankfully both sales funneled enough funds into EU to bootstrap a startup culture here.
> Both Nokia and Skype went under due to usual European leadership stagnation and comfort before getting bought. Thankfully both sales funneled enough funds into EU to bootstrap a startup culture here. What? None of those were EU government owned, all was private. Do people really have this sort of (completely incorrect) view on how things work in Europe? Not even donald was ever stating such ridiculous things
Who said they were government owned though?
Stagnation and risk averseness is pretty much the default when it comes to most major European companies. In almost any sector.
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Microsoft killed it the moment when they made everything move through central servers before everyone had good network connection, everywhere. It was P2P before. It was slow, laggy and unstable for most of the time. Also, they didn't invest in the transportation codecs much. After it's marred, they didn't try to mend it much, and when it started to work well due to better bandwidth, they didn't push it back a…
Personally I think their big, incomprehensibly stupid manoeuver was the Skype vs Skype for Business (Link) split. Had they merged them into a single client that could speak either protocol and share contact lists the story would have been very different. Why are megacorps so incomprehensibly clueless about this? Is the money pit so deep that they knock each other in while in-fighting for control on the edge of it?
>Why are megacorps so incomprehensibly clueless about this?
Management by committees. Lots of office politics. Most senior execs have successfully failed upwards. Once every 18 months they let go of people they stick the blame on thereby losing any memory of design decisions.
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been using Gvoice pretty much since it started. I'm just as surprised as you that Google hasnt killed it. The writing has seemed to be on the wall a few times but it's still around, thankfully. When they semi-killed hangouts a couple years ago I thought for sure Gvoice was gone.
Google Voice is weird. It seemed like they should've killed it, but they just added a few minor features this week.
Somewhere we are going to get the novel about the quiet hero team anonymously keeping Google voice going all these decades.
contorting to keep it off management's radar, explain away any foibles, redirecting minor funds to get maintenance and tech debt paid off just enough to work another year, someone's going to write that tech story some time.
Even if it's fictional it will be a good read.
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I believe Skype originally functioned using some kind of p2p network. It did! It was some impressively cool tech too. At the time, at least in my country, some ISPs would disable your internet access when you didn't pay, but the LAN between subscribers still worked. So obviously nothing worked, except Skype . My theory then was that it would find a path to route around the disconnection by having the Skype client o…
This approach to technology has serious problems. I would send a message to someone and turned off my computer, thinking that the message would be sent whenever the recipient was online. However, that was not the case. The message only arrived when we were online at the same time. Therefore, Skype is completely useless as a tool for asynchronous communication, for the main type of messaging!
I'm pretty sure that's how most, if not all, instant messaging services worked 20 years ago... Was a feature, not a bug. The whole idea of sending an instant message. If you wanted to send a non-instant message, you'd send an email instead.
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Microsoft killed it the moment when they made everything move through central servers before everyone had good network connection, everywhere. It was P2P before. It was slow, laggy and unstable for most of the time. Also, they didn't invest in the transportation codecs much. After it's marred, they didn't try to mend it much, and when it started to work well due to better bandwidth, they didn't push it back a…
Personally I think their big, incomprehensibly stupid manoeuver was the Skype vs Skype for Business (Link) split. Had they merged them into a single client that could speak either protocol and share contact lists the story would have been very different. Why are megacorps so incomprehensibly clueless about this? Is the money pit so deep that they knock each other in while in-fighting for control on the edge of it?
Skype for Business, which was really just a rebranding of Microsoft Lync, destroyed the Skype brand.
But it also indirectly damaged both variations.
Skype for Business became less of a “business” software like Lync was. So unlike Lync, which was fairly spartan but information dense, Skype for Business added a ton of white space, colors, icons, etc making it less efficient and less serious than Lync.
At the same time, Skype itself became purely consumer and went way down that route, focusing more on Temu like animation gimmicks than actually being a communication tool for friends and families.
Re: Microsoft is killing Skype
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
This approach to technology has serious problems. I would send a message to someone and turned off my computer, thinking that the message would be sent whenever the recipient was online. However, that was not the case. The message only arrived when we were online at the same time. Therefore, Skype is completely useless as a tool for asynchronous communication, for the main type of messaging!
I'm pretty sure that's how most, if not all, instant messaging services worked 20 years ago... Was a feature, not a bug. The whole idea of sending an instant message. If you wanted to send a non-instant message, you'd send an email instead.
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