Forecasting the Future? Remember Skype

Since the news broke two months ago, most folks know that in the next week or so, Skype will go dark.

It’s a bit of a sad day, since it signals the end of an era—albeit only a 22-year-old one. Still, for a once-nascent technology that became so popular that giant eBay acquired it three years later for $2.6 billion to fade into irrelevance? It’s a reminder of the dizzying pace of modern life. A pace that I think is making us relationally poorer.

As CNN noted in its story, Skype fell prey to products like Zoom, Google Meets and Cisco Webex, as well as FaceTime and WhatsApp. And, ironically, Teams, the software heavily invested in by Microsoft.

My last completed Skype call (according to the software log) took place in May of 2021. So for me, the service’s demise will be one of those: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?” situations.

No offense to Skype. I acquired it more than a decade ago when I discovered its capability to talk to another Skype user anywhere in the world.

At the time, I was working on a story about a multi-national financial scandal. One victim alleging fraud was a retired missionary living in France. With overseas long-distance rates then in the stratosphere, a free alternative sounded great.

Zooming On

Not only did we connect, it sounded like talking to a neighbor down the street. A few months later, I interviewed a church planter in Hong Kong. Then a guy in Austin, Texas. A friend in Florida. A missionary in South America.

And then, it slowly faded away. By the time of my last Skype call, I had already switched most long-distance sessions to Zoom, the app that came on like gangbusters during 2020’s lockdowns.

Like Skype, Zoom provided clear sound and video (except for the time an aging laptop sputtered out 10 minutes into a call, leading me to acquire a new back-up computer).

Zoom particularly came in handy during two book projects with pastors based in Australia and South Africa.

Not all calls are made via Zoom these days. My wife and I had a meeting with an out-of-town friend over Teams a few months ago; my most recent interview for a story took place there too. In fact, one associate prefers it to Zoom.

This may be a case of Microsoft cannibalizing itself, since it is offering Skype users the chance to migrate to Teams. Log in with a Skype account and automatically transfer your contacts.

Shaky Forecasts

The cautionary tale in Skype’s demise is the difficulty of forecasting the future. Had Microsoft known its largest-ever (at the time) 2011 acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion in cash would fizzle, someone would have called a halt to the plans.

The only difference between giants like Microsoft and we average Joes of the world is deep pockets. Soon after 2020’s lockdowns started, a contractor told me of knowing two entrepreneurs who had invested their life savings into their restaurants. Both were ruined.

So there’s a reason James 4:13-14 says: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring’” (MEV).

We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, next week, or next year; the disappearance of Skype is Exhibit A.