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0 pointsbloomingkales1y ago0 comments

What happened? It's kind of hard to fuck up a chat app. The Skype ring tone is iconic.

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8 comments · 4 top-level

grandpoobah1y ago· 3 in thread

Don't forget MSN Messenger was discontinued/merged into Skype. So they fucked it not once, but twice. Literally handed over their dominant position in instant messaging for nothing.

skeeter20201y ago

Wait - what about MS Lync/Office Communicator? I don't remember if that was just a branding change of "MSN Messenger for Business" about the time right before the Skype acquisition, or folding in (and failing with) yet another IM/Video chat solution. So should the count actually be three?

VyseofArcadia1y ago

That's Teams. MS Lync was rebranded as "Skype for Business" which was then rebranded as Teams.

sjm-lbm1y ago

Yeah, it's actually three, though only from a branding perspective. They did rebrand Lync/Office Communicator as "Skype for Business" for a bit, though I don't think there was ever any code shared and it was just a branding thing.

Honestly I think they simply don't care, and from their perspective they finally have gotten it right with Teams.

akgoel1y ago· 1 in thread

It was a p2p phone and video call app that Microsoft purchased when mobile phones started to take off. Phones cannot participate in a p2p network the same way a desktop can, so it had to be re-architected to use central servers, and they never got it to work the same after that.

no_wizard1y ago

Wonder if P2P networking is hindered by the hardware back then vs now. I can imagine now most phones could deal with P2P networking just fine.

Software wise though idk if there is limitations baked into iOS and Android that limit this

epolanski1y ago

It's quite interesting that despite chat and video messaging apps being those that should stick for long they actually tend to be replaced with relative ease.

Since I started my online journey I've been through ICQ, IRC, MSN, Skype, Hangouts, Kik, Teams, Telegram, Whatsapp, and many many others I don't even remember.

Yet at every point it seems that something breaks, they feel like they have to add more and more features, core features start sucking, etc.

Whatsapp is the only one that stuck since I started using it, and I suspect part of the reason is both the fact my friends and relatives just won't move from it (it essentially replaced SMS) and the fact that Whatsapp cares a lot about the client being very performing even on lowest end old devices.

wccrawford1y ago

I vaguely remember they making unusable in some situation that many people wanted, and people drifted away from it.

Combined with not advertising it at all recently, and other services taking the spotlight ("Let's facetime!"), I'm not surprised that people have largely stopped using it.

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