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What’s a good alternative here? I just want to make outgoing international calls cheaply.
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 than some "automatic captioning" based on Bing, and interface changes that are annoying for computer-illiterate people, barely anything changed.
For several years, Skype had been a very lightweight way to communicate with people with not-so-good computers and flaky Internet connection. Trying to replace it with Jitsi, for instance, quickly shows how much more CPU is needed to run that instead. But then the Linux version started being packaged differently (Electron?), so that was lost as well.
Well, it will likely survive for some time on old companies that still use Skype for Business.
Skype got me through my first few years living in a different country from my family/friends/girlfriend/enployer. There was a time when whole companies were on Skype the way they're now on Slack. It's incredible how badly Microsoft mismanaged it.
Skype got me through my first few years living in a different country from my family/friends/girlfriend/enployer. There was a time when whole companies were on Skype the way they're now on Slack. It's incredible how badly Microsoft mismanaged it.
I’m surprised, in some ways, that it took almost 15 years for it to die. If Microsoft absorbed the Skype tech in 1 year and rebranded/reskinned Live Messenger to look like Skype, they could have been done with it in 2012.
Now, they are retiring Live Messenger and Skype. Two technologies have become zero. It is interesting that they chose to go this way.
Tangential: I have a U.S. Skype Number (i.e., a real phone number offered by the Skype service) that's mainly used to receive and make (occasional) calls from/to a bank and to receive SMS occasionally. The cost is about $40 a year. With Skype Number not available for purchase since December and the Skype platform (including Skype Number) going away soon, what are some simple, good (and preferably cheaper) alternative…
Unfortunately, I went so long without actually using it that they took my number away (my fault because they did send me a warning but I just forgot about it). Now I'm in the same boat as you as I had switched to a Skype Number after that.
But Google Voice is a decent free option to consider if there's someone in the US who could help you with initial activation. Until Google finally decides to kill it, at least. I'm frankly surprised that Microsoft killed Skype before Google killed Voice.