by csomar on 12/9/24, 7:34 AM
Great. So now the only useful feature and why I keep Skype around is removed? I need this every 1-2 months where I need to make an international phone call. I am on different country every 2-3 months and my call can go to Europe, US or Japan. Skype credit was just amazing because I'd charge a 100 bucks and consume as I needed. Sometimes I need 30 seconds and sometimes it can be a lengthy 20 minutes.
I don't understand this. Their new "plans" require that I subscribe to a full plan, for example, to call India? Does anybody have any good alternative?
by paxys on 12/9/24, 7:13 AM
Has any popular service disappeared overnight quite like Skype? It was common to set up Skype calls with friends/relatives as late as 2018-2019. Starting 2020 people would laugh at you if you even suggested it. What happened?
by relistan on 12/9/24, 8:17 AM
I was once called in and questioned by the police in Munich because of Skype’s phone service. When I moved to Germany, lots of places required a local phone number, including the bank to set up an account. But you needed a bank account most places to get a phone number. I will not follow that thread down all the you-can’t-get-there-from-heres. Anyway, to solve a problem, I got this fixed SkypeOut phone number. It turns out that O2/Telefonica provided the German numbers to Skype, and whoever had the number before me was committing some kind of fraud with it involving shipping containers. The police asked them who owned it and they said me. So the police called me in for questioning. I had no idea why. I don’t speak German and they didn’t provide translators. I luckily had a good, ex-punk friend who volunteered to translate for me. We spent a couple hours in the 1930s era police station. It all worked out in the end thanks to my friend and my retention of the sign up emails from Skype. But what a mess. Thanks Skype. Has made me leery of other similar phone number services.
by cbsks on 12/9/24, 7:39 AM
My elderly grandmother who lives in the Bay Area uses Skype daily to talk to her sister in Hungary. I bought her an iPad a few years ago and loaded $50 of credits on it. I check her balance when I visit and occasionally top it off. Now I need to set up a monthly subscription??
As an aside, Skype has a terrible iPad app for accessibility. My grandmother can’t see very well anymore and needs the font to be increased a lot. The iPad Skype app doesn’t do well at large font levels. The interface spills out all over itself and it’s unusable. Microsoft badly needs usability testing.
by lambert99281 on 12/16/24, 5:03 PM
This is happening due to Microsoft buying Skype so they could create/market Microsoft Teams. In their continuing push of Teams, Microsoft has eliminated the Skype Credit process entirely. I am canceling my Skype account and going with my cellphone provider's WIFI Calling feature. What we all knew and loved about Skype has passed away.......
by relyks on 12/9/24, 7:12 AM
I hope they refund people or still allow people to use their existing credit... I use Skype to get a virtual number so I can call places in England from the U.S. before I visit there and so I can continue to use the same number while I'm in England :)
by te_chris on 12/9/24, 7:17 AM
Oh man, I use Skype to call foreign numbers ever 4 months or so when we’re on holiday.
by gorbypark on 12/9/24, 7:42 AM
The company I work for (full time contract) uses Skype as their communications platform. Besides notifications sometimes being wonky and getting false missed call notifications (this only happens like once a month), it works well. I also have like $4 in credit left, I sometimes use it to call foreign numbers. It's a shame, really, since it works well and I in no way need a subscription because I use maybe $1/year in credit.
by thedailymail on 12/9/24, 7:32 AM
I confess to still using skype w two old friends, mainly because i resisted getting a phone until a few months ago and couldn't text by SMS. But I'll be unsurprised when microsoft finally pulls the plug
by xvector on 12/9/24, 7:06 AM
Skype is still alive!?
Back in the day my entire extended family used it to connect with each other across the globe. But today? I don't know a single person, old or young, that still uses it!