Adapted by:
Javier Lacort
Senior WriterI write long-form content at Xataka about the intersection between technology, business and society. I also host the daily Spanish podcast Loop infinito (Infinite Loop), where we analyze Apple news and put it into perspective.
Karen Alfaro
WriterCommunications professional with a decade of experience as a copywriter, proofreader, and editor. As a travel and science journalist, I've collaborated with several print and digital outlets around the world. I'm passionate about culture, music, food, history, and innovative technologies.
XDA Developers broke the news that Microsoft has publicly confirmed: It will shut down Skype for good. This will happen in May when Microsoft puts the finishing touches on a story that could have been very different. The company’s preferred communication tool, Teams, will inherit Skype’s role.
The end of Skype has long seemed imminent. Launched in 2003, Microsoft acquired it in 2011 for $8.5 billion, a figure that seemed astronomical at the time.
Skype was a game changer. It made long-distance and video calling accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It became synonymous with video calling (“Shall we Skype?”), something few products have achieved.
However, Skype’s story is more of a missed opportunity. It had everything needed to become a dominant platform:
- Early launch.
- High adoption.
- A globally recognized brand.
- Microsoft’s resources behind it.
But bad decisions and a consistent lack of innovation allowed competitors like FaceTime, Zoom, Google Meet, Discord and WhatsApp to take advantage. The decline of Skype wasn’t sudden—it was gradual.
- In 2015, Microsoft integrated it into Windows 10, but the experience felt unnatural.
- Microsoft also maintained a strange duality between Skype and Skype for Business. Teams replaced the second in 2019.
Meanwhile, competitors moved quickly. Zoom surged during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 by removing registration and download barriers. FaceTime was fully integrated into Apple’s ecosystem. WhatsApp leveraged its ubiquity and popularity to offer video calling as another service.
Skype, however, remained stuck in a cycle of redesigns that never solved—and sometimes worsened—its main problems: an inconsistent interface, performance issues and a confusing user experience.
Microsoft isn’t just shutting down Skype. It’s redirecting users to the increasingly popular Teams. Skype users can log into Teams with their existing credentials to access their contacts and conversations. During the transition, users on both platforms can communicate with each other. After that, Teams will be the only option.
It’s a bittersweet ending—one that seems almost merciful. Skype remained trapped in its own confused identity. It became the app people kept installed “just in case” but couldn’t remember the last time they used it, even though it once played a fundamental role.
Seeing and talking to people in other countries was revolutionary in the 2000s. Skype left a lasting cultural impact that is now turning into digital archaeology. As a final lesson, it proves that no matter how well established a platform is, it can become irrelevant if it fails to evolve with users’ needs.
The end of an era.
Image | Xataka On with Grok
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