March 2, 2025 - 4:30pm
Skype has breathed its last. On Friday, Microsoft representatives announced that the company plans to discontinue its video-calling service in early May. Surviving users are invited to migrate for free to Microsoft Teams, the company’s “modern communication and collaboration hub,” which comes with calendar and file-sharing capabilities. It is unclear whether they will take them up on the offer. There’s a chance you already use Microsoft Teams for work; there’s a slightly smaller chance you would never use it for anything else.
Skype was once one of the world’s most-visited websites. Microsoft originally paid $8.5 billion to acquire it in 2011 and introduced the software as a replacement for the then-ubiquitous MSN Messenger. At peak popularity, it became a verb: “I will Skype you” or “are you down to Skype?”. If we analyse the new lexicon, we can see a semantic split. The business use-case is now occupied by Zoom, with researchers identifying this linguistic takeover as early as 2020.
For casual video calls between family and friends, Skype was also overthrown by Apple, which offers a smoother replacement. The not-even-slightly-new term here is “FaceTime” (“Are you free for a FaceTime?” “We FaceTimed for six hours last night”). As with “to Google”, the actual software used is of little consequence to the act of FaceTime. A colleague recently asked if I was free “for a FaceTime” and then placed a call on WhatsApp instead, with her front camera on.
Skype’s demise has little to do with the Covid-era Zoom explosion and lots to do with the post-smartphone tech order: big screen for business, small screen for pleasure. Now that we’re used to being tethered to a handset, calling someone on their computer is an uncool imposition because it necessitates the kind of formal scheduling you’d have to do at a job. Skype had a mobile app, but it was beaten out by smoother and more sensible competitors. FaceTime, for example, has come packaged with the iPhone since 2010. It’s one of only three bright green default icons in the system, the other two being “Messages” and “Phone.” The implication is that all of them are essential and symbiotic. The user who cannot be bothered to exit their chatlog may simply press a camcorder icon to switch to the FaceTime function from within Messages. There’s a copycat function on WhatsApp, which is Meta’s ground-zero for group chats outside the US. The monolith has had video-call functionality since 2016. Facebook Messenger has had it since 2015.
Most people probably already talk to their contacts on at least one of these apps, depending on where they are in the world. Why go to the trouble of signing up to anything else, let alone a product that will force you to add them all over again while creating separate chat histories? Microsoft could have cashed in on this integrated racket were it not for the disastrous run of the Windows Phone, which only made it onto the market when its competitors were already household names. When I was at school, an acquaintance got bullied for having one — the tiled software made them look too much like the computers we had to use in IT lessons. If they had taken off, we might still be Skyping each other today.
It seems silly to mourn software in a tech-sceptic age. But Skype’s death is sad for what it represents. It is a casualty of the age of the desktop computer, which expected far less of our availability and attention than the current smartphone wave. Some people in May will probably try to “Teams” their friends and family members. To the rest of us, they’ll seem odd and quaint, like the last holdouts of a long-gone war.
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SubscribeThe title of this article is “We are Hostages to Government Fear,” but really we’re hostages to the internet. If SARS-cov2 had arrived twenty years ago we wouldn’t have had the option of working from home and we’d have had no choice but to protect the most vulnerable as best we could but otherwise take sensible precautions and just get on with life.
I’m also not sure the situation is quite as bad as the author suggests. It appears the Brits are comfortable with another four weeks of restrictions but at some point most people’s patience will wear thin. And the 600lb gorilla in the room is the economy. A very big bill is due and when it arrives people’s attention will turn to the economy, not more lockdowns.
And with the internet came the offloading of personal responsibility and the irrational deferment to scientists and so-called experts.
The push towards a bigger and fatter state (thanks EU!), has resulted in scientists and experts who face no personal risk to the predictions of doom and subsequent overreaction, in fact, they benefit from it. We have a stratum of society holding the reigns, serving themselves, and investing in the increasing level of infantilism and stupification of society.
What is even more incredible, is due to the internet, how their constant stream of failed predictions is swamped by more, increasingly outlandish, and preposterous predictions of yet more future doom.
I agree. Your second paragraph reflects the views of one of the wisest men on earth, Thomas Sowell. It is obvious when pointed out, but nothing will ever change and that is because democracy is failing us. As Plato said, democracy effectively results in idiots being put in charge. I agree about the internet, which has whipped up hysteria similar to that in. Salem in 1692.
The Mail and The Express and endless years of TV soap-Opera with its faux emotionalizing have contributed far more to the stupification of masses of peolple than the Internet. The Intrnet contains far more truth than the above organs, if you do but have the discriminating faculties to winnow it out.
I wondered what the question was that was asked for the poll. I imagine the response would have been different if conditionals were added:
1. Would you support lockdown if furlough finance finished on June 21?
2. Would you support lockdown if It meant you lost your job?
3. Would you support lockdown if your local pub closed as a consequence?
4. Would you support lockdown if you had suspicious symptoms but could not get a face-to-face doctor assessment?
I make this points as these are the actual situations facing many people due to lockdown. Decisions are being made on the narrowest of parameters. The politicians are not taking the brave choices that entail risk.
Exactly. As shown in an episode of that great comedy (or documentary?) “Yes Minister” you can always rig an opinion poll by choosing carefully the wording of the questions!
I would start by throwing out any work produced by academics whose departments are funded by the Chinese Communist Party.
We need to go further than that. Eisenhower warned about this in his farewell address, saying, “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.” Did anybody listen? Certainly not the politicians.
Its time for civil disobedience and then vote them out asap.
There’s too many in the top of the government that cannot be trusted.
Vote them out and replace them with …?
That’s the thing isn’t it. I’m just coming to the conclusion that politician and government job descriptions have expanded way too far. We seem to have arrived in a place where a few people have too much power and too little competence but we, the public, kep looking to them and expect them to be able to fix everything in our lives. They can’t. If ever something was an advert for render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s then this is it. Govt should be a mechanism for providing essential services and pooling resources, nothing more. Controlling every aspect of our lives because they think, and we think, that’s how we’ll stop anything bad ever happening to us, is like being in a state of perpetual infantilism.
I do so agree! I’m all in favour of small government and have a great fear of totalitarianism: scribbling “a plague o’ both your houses” on the ballot paper is now a real possibility come the next election.
With a captured mainstream media, scientists who’ve morphed into politicians, corporate giants making record amounts of cash, and spineless ‘leaders’ at the helm, I’m afraid to say it’s ‘game over’.
This never ends. It only gets worse.
The moment a crack seems to appear–will Fauci be sacked?–and predictions of the ‘house of cards’ tumbling start to flutter around, *bang* the next crisis will be unleashed.
Either a brand new variant with a scary name.
Or, the BIG one. The inevitable market crash will be ‘allowed’ to happen–the forces staving it off will just be turned off. Then, in that new pandemonium, the already Huge stack of unanswered allegations of corruptions will just get buried under a thousand more.
And Big Government will be there to save the day. We’ll get all sorts of Emergency Payments. Trillions will printed. And, just like that, the government will ‘take responsibility’ for everything, and we’ll Never Get Our Freedom Back.
-OR-
We just say enough.
Excellent piece exploring all the nuances here.
A further thought, much like that they wont touch the NHS, I wonder if the fact that it’s a Tory government also plays a part.
Whilst we have seen nothing from Labour to suggest they’d do different – or in fact even more – perhaps the Tories are too cautious to fulfil their role as the “nasty” party and so have been more cautious than they would have been.
Edmund Burke described the present situation perfectly: “it is in our nature, when we do not know what will happen to us, to fear the worst that can happen, and hence it is, that uncertainty is so terrible, that we often seek to be rid of it, at the hazard of certain mischief.” We have an incompetent government, using incompetent scientific advisors, and hysteria spread through all form of media.
You’d have thought not. But the polls don’t lie. Or do they?
To be fair, this disease did originate in China under suspicious circumstances. And I am an anti- lockdown/ anti mask proponent , I too was surprised how quickly it changed shape in India and spread like wildfire. People are spooked. They are spooked worldwide. The governments are unprepared for such an engineered virus. Even though lockdown doesn’t help, it is a way of the public saying “you screw8d up, you deal with it”.
But what is most true is that we are NOT in a normal natural world of risk any more. Escaped virus, record time vaccines to vaccinate the WHOLE world, mega tech companies for social & business & who have huge control over what we say. We are in an unusual era.
We who crave for liberty and talk of fearlessness, uncensored freedoms are of dying culture. And even more alarming is that this is a worldwide shift.
Creativity is ever more vital then.
We in the west have societies of old people, gerontosocieties. When I was in school we were preached about overpopulation, now we have quiet neighbourhoods, without the sound of children. We substituted children for idiotic pets and refer to them as people. And we are afraid. That’s how we think about the unknown, we fear it. Say what you will about Muslims in Europe ( and I have little nice to say about them) but at least they look into the future and have children.
Very insightful comment.
We’re all in this together — forever.
I think Boris has been against lockdowns from the start, it’s why I think those decisions have been somewhat less snappy than some would have liked. That is why I think these decisions are not really down to him, I think he is overriding his natural instincts to defer to what Whitty et al are telling him, under sufferance. The weird thing is, at the start Chris Whitty very eloquently explained basically the Swedish approach. They stuck to their guns, we didn’t. I sometimes wonder if they know something about this virus that we don’t which makes it more unpredictable (man made), or if there is some other pressure being brought to bear on this that will not be made fully public but is being deliberately drip fed to manipulate us into compliance (great reset). Or am I overthinking this and they really all are irredeemably evil charlatans out to ruin our lives to line their own pockets and are sitting in some No.10 office rubbing their hands with glee. Sorry I know for some people that’s the default position but it doesn’t persuade me. Politics is an ugly business and all it proves to me is that too much power in too few hands is never a good thing.
Interesting in this context to read the reply of the ethics commission in relation to the fear tactics accusation of the government:
The ethics of behavioural messaging during the covid-19 pandemic
The Ethics Committee of the BPS has reviewed and considered the above issue raised with the society.
On 5 February we issued a statement in response to emails detailing similar concerns. This response continues to be the BPS position.
Covid-19 is an extremely serious public health issue. The response to the pandemic is clearly a matter of social as well as individual concern. Indirect behavioural interventions are commonly employed in public health campaigns in order to safeguard the population. Given the scale of the mortality and morbidity caused by the pandemic the behavioural interventions employed by the UK Government have been proportionate and necessary.
The Ethics Committee believed that the contributions of psychologists in responding to the pandemic was entirely consistent with the BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct, demonstrating social responsibility and the competent and responsible employment of psychological expertise.
The Committee also emphasised how psychologists’ shared values of respect, competence, responsibility and integrity will be vital in supporting the long-term recovery from the pandemic at both the individual and societal levels.
Kind regards
BPS Ethical Enquiries Team
Possible reply:
Dear Dr Roger Paxton, Chair of the BPS Ethics Committee,
This reply worries me very much: is this the end of real democracy?
Your answer suggests that the end justifies the means. That is a very dangerous position. I am sure I do not have to explain to you why.
I think it is much more ethical to work with shared values and integrity as you suggest in your last paragraph, to approach a serious public health issue.
Note, and research is suggesting this more and more, that the public health issue is indeed a new virus but much more the state of health of the population. (and this was know from the beginning)
From an ethical point of view the government should have:
Your reply is a political statement to avoid embarrassment of the government. If ethics means: I know and I tell you what you should do: it is time for you to put on your fascist uniform.
Your reply has no value in ethics. I am flabbergasted.