Boasting hundreds of millions of users, Skype has been adopted by individuals and businesses alike, becoming practically synonymous with VoIP services. Allowing calls to other computers and phones and even video calls with superb quality that few other services could rival along with a sleek, compact, no-nonsense approach, there were many features that made Skype such an attractive solution to the growing need for global communication.
What happened?
Following the growth of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, many internet programs began to add links to these growing social networks as well as features similar to these social networks in an attempt to draw in as many users as possible. Skype was no exception. Starting with extra features, slowly but surely growing into a much more bloated interface than the approach that had made it so popular. From version 5 onwards, however, Skype began to take some rather questionable measures.
How much right does Skype have to my resources?
The first measure Skype took was to disable opting out of automatic updates. This may seem like a harmless policy, ensuring that users always have the latest version. Not so. There are several important scenarios that this set-up ignores. First of all, while Skype is basically software the user is licensed to use, and it does have the right to block access without certain updates, it is also true that the resources used to apply said updates belong to the user. It is, therefore, the user that should get to decide if and when the Skype client should update. Not allowing the user to decide this is pretty much hijacking the user’s resources. And second of all, the forced and silent automatic updates have been used to introduce what has become the bane of many Skype users: the Skype Home page.
What is the Skype Home page?
Every time users of the latest Skype log in, they are presented with a window that pops up inviting them to connect to Facebook and telling them that their friends have not been very active yet. Considering that Skype is a program that is often used for businesses, the problem is beyond apparent. Worse still, the window will pop up at seemingly random intervals during the day, stealing the focus from any application the user was working on. It goes without saying that the consequences of this during an important activity, such as a business meeting, are beyond dire.
What is Skype doing?
The sheer silence from the Skype team is the loudest action they have performed. Thousands of users have flocked to the official Skype support forums to express their displeasure at the Skype Home page. Hundreds of users posted on a ticket in the developer page. Many others commented on the official Skype blog, but no complaints were ever published in the blog, stopped by censoring and moderation in the blog. Emails to Skype Support are met with conflicting answers, some claiming that they are “working on it” and others that there’s simply nothing to be done. Thousands of searches and downloads for third-party solutions to the Skype Home page problem have been noted in search engines. The users are voicing their displeasure. And Skype is not listening.
What comes next?
There have been stories of many great companies that became popular and then, due to not listening to their customers, crashed and failed. One can only hope that Skype will learn from those examples and get back in touch with the reason it became popular in the first place: its users.