Goodbye, Skype. The messenger has been shut down

The software for messaging, audio, and video calls has ceased operation. Users were warned about this in advance and were offered to switch to Microsoft Teams. The announcement on Skype’s official website began with: “Farewell, Skype, hello Teams”.

The Skype messenger from Skype Technologies was launched in 2003. It was created by Estonian programmers with the support of Danish entrepreneur Janus Friis and Swedish investor Niklas Zennström. As early as 2005, the application was acquired by eBay, and a few years later, Skype was bought by Microsoft. They wanted to integrate the messenger into the Windows operating system, the Xbox gaming console, and other developments. Nevertheless, the service did not achieve widespread adoption.

Skype's popularity declined noticeably during the coronavirus pandemic, when the new owners decided to bet on a similar product and replaced Skype with Teams, which combines chat, video meetings, notes, and various attachments in a single workspace. The platform had appeared back in 2016 and was integrated into the OS and the Office application suite. However, the most popular service for video communication during the COVID-19 period was Zoom. Thus, back in 2016, about 300 million people communicated via Skype every month, but by 2023 it was used by just over 35 million users.