Skype Shutdown: How Did Skype Become Obsolete? The Rise, Fall & Public Chatter On Reddit & Quora

Last Updated:March 01, 2025, 17:47 IST

Farewell Skype: Skype once dominated the world of video calls, but soon it faced competition and eventually collapsed

Why Skype Failed: User Discussions on Reddit, Quora & More. (Source: Reuters)

Skype Downfall: The era of Skype, which started two decades ago, will come to an end on May 5 when Microsoft closes its doors, bidding the world of internet adieu.

The step is being taken by the company with the hope that users will now move towards their more popular product “Teams".

Skype once dominated the world of video calls, but soon it faced competition and for years, was forced to kneel down in front of them.

The newer rivals caused significant losses for Skype and it lost a significant market share.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of Zoom calls became the final nail in the coffin for Skype.

The reason behind the failure of Skype also captured the interest of Reddit and Quora users who discussed at length what led to the fall of once famous video-calling platform.

Here’s What Users Said On Quora And Reddit?

The users debated on Quora about what led to the decline of Skype as some said that it never became obsolete while others argued that the competition and Zoom’s popularity took over the video-calling site.

“Skype never became obsolete in my opinion. The principle and operating features were very good. It was a very innovative and clever app in the day, created by Estonians it has screen sharing with audio, whiteboards, in-app apps sharing and much experimental stuff. Sadly the creators sold out to investors who ruined the features somewhat, but it mostly worked ok," said a user.

“Seriously? Skype for Business was rebranded as ‘Microsoft Teams’. It’s one of the leading pieces of business software. Microsoft continues to update Skype to keep it in touch, but the company’s main focus is Teams," wrote another user.

Crediting Zoom’s popularity for Skype’s decline, one user said, “In the meantime, Apple’s Facetime, Whatsapp and other services took over the casual consumer market. During Covid, Microsoft was just moving to Teams and it wasn’t initially very good, which gave Zoom a huge boost.

Video conferencing is an add-on for everyone but Zoom."

One user clearly blamed Microsoft’s bad management for the decline of Skype.

“Sheer disinterest and bad management at Microsoft. It had been neglected for years in favour of teams and other business tools. When the pandemic started Skype was trampled underfoot by Zoom, because Zoom was up-to-date, simple, and let you make casual connections far more easily," said the user.

However, Redditors confidently called Skype ‘old’ which was never meant to last in Zoom’s era.

“Skype was a verb. Old people would use Skype. It was free to use. One would think it would have been the perfect solution when everyone suddenly needed video calls. Now we have Zoom. I had not heard of Zoom pre-pandemic. What the heck?" said a user.

“Microsoft mostly killed off Skype in favour of Teams. Consumer Skype still existed, but the business one was discontinued. And teams were nowhere near feature complete, and meetings with people outside your organisation were either difficult or impossible," said another user.

“Skype for Business was always pretty much s**t. It never really was that good, and Microsoft started moving towards Teams. As for Zoom, a huge reason they became so big at the start of the pandemic, beyond already having a mature, enterprise-grade videoconferencing system, was that Zoom provided free conferencing systems to a shitload of schools, becoming the de facto standard practically overnight," wrote a user.

Another user said that Skype sucked. “Slow as hell, wouldn’t turn off, limited people. Teams is like a dream come true compared to Skype," the user said.

Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

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