Skype signs off: The OG of video-calls logs out for good

Skype will be retired by Microsoft in May this year, just a few months shy of its 22^nd birthday (August 30) in favour of the Teams suite of services. The decision brings the curtains down on one of the most storied brands of the internet and a pioneer in VoIP.

Started in 2003, Skype revolutionised international calls—at the time, a particularly lucrative sliver of business for telecom companies worldwide—by relying on peer-to-peer networks for calling. It was first acquired by eBay in 2005 for $2.5 billion and divested a few years later for $1.9 billion to an investor group. It would later be acquired by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5 billion.

Skype grew on the back of the massive global spread of broadband. At its peak in 2016, it had 300 million users according to a report in The Financial Times. That number is now down to a mere 32 million. Skype began to lose favour as Teams, introduced by Microsoft in 2016, got a concerted push. Attempts at repositioning it as a primarily consumer-focused app resulted in several missteps like the inclusion of Snapchat style features which were withdrawn within a year.

Its fading relevance was underscored during the pandemic when instead of Skype faced several rival products including Zoom, WhatsApp, Teams, and Google Meet which stepped in to fill the need for video calls—both official and personal.

Skype users will be directed to move to Microsoft Teams soon. Photo: Microsoft

Even before Microsoft’s official announcement, there were signs that Skype was on its last legs with the disappearance of Skype Credits and sparse activity on its otherwise chatty social media handle on X. Brief attempts at rejigging the product to make it more contemporary, such as SkypeChannels launched last year, which allowed users to subscribe to topic or publisher-based updates failed to resonate as Skype struggled to catch up with the competition.

The decision to shutter the brand has brought waves of memories, with online commentators calling it the “end of an era”, recalling Skype's pivotal role in helping them build businesses and stay connected at a time when it would have been prohibitively expensive to do so, using conventional phone networks. 

Rip to the legend, the OG, the goat. No one will ever be like you. https://t.co/9rSoi8Fz1t pic.twitter.com/1iommllS23

— emily�� (@iamacupcakeee) March 5, 2025

Some users chose to highlight what they perceived to be the mismanagement of Skype at Microsoft. 

The biggest bag fumble of a generation

"Skype" was literally synonymous with "video calling", never upgraded for a decade, and when Covid came, and people actually had to video call, everyone left for the first possible alternative https://t.co/uo7ssJ5jZd

— Basil�� (@LinkofSunshine) March 3, 2025

Skype even got a hat-tip from Discord.

thank you for walking so we could run ��rip to the og gaming chat app https://t.co/YQusowFtep

— Discord (@discord) February 28, 2025

In a homage to Skype on LinkedIn, Mark Gillet, managing director at Silver Lake who previously served as Skype’s COO, said, “The personal connections that Skype enabled weren’t ever about sensationalism, impersonal or anonymous hate, or conspiracy theories—they were about bringing families and loved ones together whether around the corner, or over great distances, and making important connections easier at home and for work. Over the past 20+ years, many of us have connected with family in other cities or countries, celebrated firsts we would otherwise have missed, or had job interviews over Skype and worked with colleagues or partners who we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to reach. It shrank the planet just a little, collapsed time and distance and connected us all to each other a little more than we were before.”

Speaking to the FT, Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström said, “Skype was a revolutionary product of its time, and I will always be proud and grateful for the early team members and investors who took a chance on us. Now, other firms are innovating in this space to offer new services for a whole new generation, many of whom will have no idea of how expensive it used to be to call Australia.”