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Microsoft is killing Skype

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Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#331

Post by jjice »

Lots of good times on Skype in high school. Plenty of 12 hour calls on that service for free, and I really appreciate that it was a thing. It was really solid for the time. We had so much fun buying $10 of Skype credit when we finally were old enough to get jobs and then prank calling people over Skype. Very juvenile, but that's what we were.

Thankfully, P2P calling and video calling in general is a solved problem now with web standards included. I'm glad Skype was there when it was.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#332

Post by zero_shift »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #314
legitster wrote: post #270

Skype is the epitome of technical debt. Millions of lines of code for a service that isn't technically difficult to provide anymore. When I was at Microsoft, I was told working on Skype was about as popular as being sent to a gulag. The value of the brand is so strong, I am surprised they never launched a "2.0" version built from scratch and without all the vestigial tails.

This Joel on Software blog post is now 25 years old, https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... , but when it first came out it was widely viewed as gospel. I'm generally a big fan of Joel Spolsky, but in retrospect, I think this advice is just wrong, and I think Skype is a perfect counterpoint. That is, sometimes a rewrite is a horrible idea, but at the same time sometimes not doing a rewrite is…

Sometimes the technology "background" changes so much that the codebase you have just becomes irrelevant.

We live in a world with WebRTC, embedded agents and digital telephony. The platforms, OSes, infrastructure are so different from how they were in 2009. Does having your own, 500 kloc C++ real time video chat stack make sense any more?

What I don't get is how MS couldn't use the Teams stack to power Skype as a consumer brand. Probably there was some effort but something got in the way. It might even have been a cultural barrier - Skype was an acquisition, and acquired codebases generally fossilise

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#333

Post by linwangg »

concerndc1tizen wrote: post #325
linwangg wrote: post #284

I still use Skype, mainly out of habit, but I guess it's finally time to move on. Telegram seems like the best alternative for me, but I wonder—what are others switching to? Feels like every few years, we have to migrate to a new chat platform.

Telegram requires permission to view all your contacts on iOS :) So I refuse to use it now.

That’s fair, but almost every messaging app does this (WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, etc.). The question is: do you trust Telegram more or less than the alternatives? Personally, I see it as the lesser evil compared to some big tech options.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#334

Post by vel0city »

basisword wrote: post #276
caseyy wrote: post #38

When Microsoft acquired Skype (the company), it was clear they would kill it. Skype had previously been bought by eBay, for which it served the purpose of entering a new market. Then, it was bought by some investment funds, for which it served the purpose of making money. However, to Microsoft, which already had its Windows/Live messenger (which copied Skype’s homework anyway), Skype served no purpose except to remov…

Live Messenger (previously MSN Messenger) was another massive fumble by Microsoft. It was absolutely essential as a teenager in the 00's and people spent insane amounts of time on it. If MS put out a 'dumb' phone with Live Messenger they might have stood a chance when smart phones came around.

I had a few dumb phones that IIRC supported MSN messenger pre-iPhone. They also often supported AIM and even sometimes Yahoo messenger.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#335

Post by marcosdumay »

h2zizzle wrote: post #247
hnlurker22 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what happens when you hire leet code engineers and they become managers. Look at Google now. This isn't some magical outcome of big corps. A big corp is practically the people who work there.

America has multiple examples of companies that thrived for decades until a certain type of manager showed up (of which leet code engineers are an aspect; clueless MBA grads are another; there are more). Sears. General Electric. IBM. Companies need to develop a sort of immune response to this type, as they are as charismatic as they are deleterious to company outlooks, and WILL worm their way in if not checked. A mor…

As long as the companies have a completely autocratic structure, there is no possible way to develop any kind of immune response.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#336

Post by zero_shift »

bee_rider wrote: post #323

Skype’s peer-to-peer architecture seemed like an interesting idea. I mean that’s the sort of thing the internet was supposed to facilitate, distributed communications. Of course MS screwed it up pretty quickly after buying it, and the name has been a mockery of it’s former potential for much longer than it was an actual thing. RIP Skype, we never met you.

I forgot about that. It used to create a lot of issues in a shared house I once lived in, we had a housemate who left Skype running and flooded our router with junk packets.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#337

Post by onlygoose »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #139
jim180 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use tello.com. You can get eSIM and activate it while you are outside the U.S. If you won't activate roaming, sms and calling will use wifi calling.

Do you know how providers detect your country when using wifi calling? Mine says it's only valid while you are within the country, wonder if VPN would work around it.

They can detect your country by IP address. Also AFAIR your cellphone sends CellID and/or location with every wifi calling connection attempt.

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#338

Post by theyknowitsxmas »

legitster wrote: post #270

Skype is the epitome of technical debt. Millions of lines of code for a service that isn't technically difficult to provide anymore. When I was at Microsoft, I was told working on Skype was about as popular as being sent to a gulag. The value of the brand is so strong, I am surprised they never launched a "2.0" version built from scratch and without all the vestigial tails.

Sell the brand to Signal

Re: Microsoft is killing Skype

#339

Post by paulddraper »

pif wrote: post #321
legitster wrote: post #270

Skype is the epitome of technical debt. Millions of lines of code for a service that isn't technically difficult to provide anymore. When I was at Microsoft, I was told working on Skype was about as popular as being sent to a gulag. The value of the brand is so strong, I am surprised they never launched a "2.0" version built from scratch and without all the vestigial tails.

> I am surprised they never launched a "2.0" version built from scratch and without all the vestigial tails. I'm surprised that you are surprised! Rewriting a million-lines-of-code project from scratch without the stupid bits is easy. Getting the equivalent of the working bits, instead... Joel expressed this concept quite well already 25 years ago: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

Skype is 20 years old.

Tech has advanced enormously in that time.

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