The Weird Downfall of Skype

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So, whatever happened to that Skype program? Since its creation in 2003, it quickly became the top video chatting service in the entire world. Its easy-to-use and creative user-interface and convenient tools even allowed it to be ingrained into contemporary pop-culture. It became a plot-device in movies and even became its own verb, much like how the world “google” is used today. “I’m gonna go skype my friend.” Skype was everywhere and you could not avoid it. Until one day, it kind of just disappeared, pretty much overnight, and alternatives just took over. But the weird thing is that…none of us really cared? When Skype moved on, so did we. No one has really looked back, despite Skype providing things that, I think, are now missing within the online space. And this is where I would typically ask “So, what exactly happened to Skype?” but its situation is part of a very interesting and unique phenomenon.
Was Skype the one that changed, or was it us? And how did it ever get to that point?
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ENJOY THE PROGRAM.

[@nationsquid]

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[@FanniChu]

FUCK

[@sprisawrdnme]

bros from the past

[@jonahplayscello]

Squarespace again?!?

[@r_b_gamerz]

I’m forced to use it bc Google domains got bought by squarespace

[@sams3259]

How is his comment older than the video

[@Ali_zhangHAO]

that skype ringtone intro unlocked memories i didn't know i had

[@valkyrja--]

It activates my fight or flight

[@linuxras]

Dude, I hear that Skype ring when I'm falling asleep sometimes, spent 14 years coding remotely.

[@clementpoon120]

reminds me of videocalls with my grandparents as a child

[@eglol]

Same, and I also just heard the Discord message notification sound which unlocked other memories I didn't know I had since I mute everything now

[@teddiespicker]

right like I don’t recall ever using it but I recall sitting in front of one, yanno

[@ChatookaMusic]

Its so easy to forget how long all of my online friend groups lived on skype because its like one day we all just flipped over to discord and never looked back

[@misseselise3864]

same except my friends and i moved to facetime when they added the ability to group call

[@da_pawz]

When I saw and used discord first time... I was really amazed and said to myself, this is the ultimate App that I ever wanted, Discord is like the merging of Internet forum - chat room - IM - VoIP - Video Call and VIdeo Broadcast lol

[@kamilpwn7776]

same

[@KLTRF]

I hate discord

[@Kasum_ish]

​@@KLTRFwhy

[@TheEDFLegacy]

I miss the old Skype. Microsoft killed it. Discord replaced it. Here's to hoping Discord doesn't get bought out.

[@amberhide04]

honestly i kinda prefer is someting better kills discord

[@Azurethewolf168]

@@amberhide04yeah that place has some crazy stuff on there

[@Zodex_Official]

I'd rather Discord be replaced, I prefer something that isn't slowly becoming more and more capitalistic.

[@kavinh10]

msn messenger where are you?

[@Azurethewolf168]

@@Zodex_Official somehow they made things that were legit free on Skype a paid product, but I get it, they have to get money somehow. I just feel there’s better ways of doing it than this.

[@kennyslg8914]

Damn, hearing that ringtone instantly took me back to the days of Skype lol

[@amaruqlonewolf3350]

"Microsoft was trying to solve a problem that didn't exist" Just about sums up Microsoft's record post Windows 7. Discord, as heck of a bug riddled mess with a tone deaf developer team as it is, things would've gone far south for the worst if Microsoft did buy them out as they wanted to a few years prior.

[@thegeforce6625]

agreed completely with microsoft and windows. they have no idea what theyre doing with it these days. its almost like theyre doing their best at alienating customers and users with the ever increasing bloarware and os-wide ads.

[@TheRenegade...]

​@@thegeforce6625 "Microsoft's record post Windows 7" includes everything Microsoft has worked on since 2012 when they left Windows 7 behind, not just later versions of Windows. Microsoft Office, Xbox, the AR stuff, the AI stuff, etc.

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

What's wrong with Windows 10?

[@Markokk888]

​​​@@user-vi4xy1jw7ewhat is good with windows 10 ? Its unfinished pre alpha beta garbage They can't even get a settings straight constantly fucking around with settings app and control panel everything is harder to reach set and use. Not to mention spyware and other bloated shit. This is why linux is picking up marketshare..

[@Tudorgeable]

@@user-vi4xy1jw7e The excessive telemetry, spying (has a literal keylogger), data collection, advertising, forced UWP (i like UWP, I wanted to develop for it, it was too forced and everyone pulled away from it) ... DID I MENTION the excessive advertising It is also more of a resource hog It did ran well comparative to win8, but so did 7...

[@jamesrusselleriii8284]

The moment Skype died for me was when they switched to some bizarre Snapchat-style interface on mobile way back in 2017. They took a perfectly functional program and pissed off its users with features nobody asked for and bloat nobody needed.

[@LilacMonarch]

I always find it funny how this is such a consistent thing. Small thing pops off -> huge corporation buys it out -> corporation is completely out of touch and changes it into something nobody wants -> people leave -> corporation retires it Every time

[@creativegamer_03]

@@LilacMonarch_looking at youtube_ ohno

[@melly5345]

Reminds me of discord now

[@5150Failure]

@@melly5345 for real tho. im waiting for the next good coms system to come out. im positive someone is working on something that will fix alot of the issues people have with discord.

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

​@@creativegamer_03Google has owned KZbin for over 15 years now. It's the the number one site for uploading videos, despite everyone's complaints. I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

[@thesidneychan]

At this rate, this Halloween, NationSquid will do a jumpscare and go "were you SQUARED? Need a safe SPACE?"

[@YarPirates-vy7iv]

Killer wordplay, I'm a fan.

[@Azure-Aura]

Dont give him ideas

[@muddled2566]

Going to be wild when we see the video on the downfall of Discord, they seem to be headed down a similar path as Skype. Too many weird features no one was asking for, total redesign of their mobile app resulting in a buggy experience, dropped calls/reduced streaming quality, random MTX cash grabs, increased rate of unexplained bans. A lot of the changes being made feel like Discord is just very out of touch with it's userbase lately.

[@thegoblinwholaughs1137]

dont use mobile much but it seems working well. I dont know about call since I use computer for that

[@user-in7hy9io4s]

i cant wait for discord to be gone , it has always sucked it feels like playing system shock 1 lol

[@Tsukistar1]

@@thegoblinwholaughs1137 the redesign essentially made it a lot clunkier to use. for example: if you use the search function from a channel, you can only search for messages in THAT channel (when it didn't do that before!) If you want to search the whole server, you have to go to the channel list and scroll to the top. If I wanted to search for things in a specific channel, I'd use the 'in: (channel name)' function - I don't need Discord to be limiting the searches like this. And even that aside, searches and pins themselves aren't displayed as clearly anymore. If you pin a bunch of individual images for one reason or another, and after awhile want to look for a specific one on mobile? Good luck, you can't see the images - all you see is '1 image' - so you have to click on each pin and hope it's the one you're looking for.

[@spatiumowl]

​@@user-in7hy9io4s Totally disagree. System Shock 1's archaicness is very charming (even for a zoomer like me), whereas Discord just simply sucks

[@BossKnight]

Discord will take longer than skype cause of servers, its already set its roots in the ground where tons of people have set up their fan groups and such, It’d be much harder to switch for most

[@MikeFozz]

I still can't believe how badly they integrated Skype with MSN Messenger, losing contacts, not being able to add people for no apparent reason, I'd probably still use it for messaging today if they had rolled that out well.

[@InsideOutAnus]

I'm so angry at Microsoft for killing MSN Messenger that way. At the time of the merger, MSN actually performed faster and more reliably than Skype, which made daily chats an exercise in frustration.

[@BizarePlayer]

I miss MSN Messenger.

[@forgetbeams]

my memories of skype are so distinct. when i was around 11, my best friend from school moved away to another state. when we discovered we could skype each other it was exciting to call her at night on my dad’s computer. when i finally got my own laptop at 15, i had big group calls with my internet friends and took so many screenshots of these crazy themed matching profile pictures/display names we’d come up with. i remember being devastated when windows 8 launched the new skype, it truly marked the end. i scoured some threads that detailed how to re-install the old version, and you bet i did that right away - but still, it was like everyone stopped using it over night. there was a short lull in time where i didn’t have any voice or videos calls at all until discord came around.

[@Dark-kk4jo]

before my friend group switched to discord in 2017 I remember having to tell everyone not to use the windows 8 skype and to install their desktop app from their website lmao

[@UnknownMaster21]

I also noticed Discord is going under same issues what Skype had, but I am positive Discord's lifespan is simply longer... Discord is adding too much stuff. And too much offers which doesn't even work properly.

[@alfonsoserramartinez1344]

I see discord is targeting two markets at once and it is doing it right. First is holding the "skype refugees" that only have a couple of private servers with our friends and do basic stuff (calls, ocasional video or stream) and then target kids with the features for big masive public servers, that act like a social network (like aminoo or facebook groups).

[@coquequique250600]

​@@alfonsoserramartinez1344I totally agree, as someone who never used Skype, to me calling someone on my PC is just for working or playing, besides that, if I just want to talk to a friend I rather just use WhatsApp, Instagram or whatever my friends use on the phone So to me it totally makes sense that they focus so much on the servers because you see people who is never gonna play videogames using it just for the servers

[@CringePoop]

@@alfonsoserramartinez1344ℹ occasionally see regular adults using discord. it's weird

[@Oh_the_humanity]

​@@alfonsoserramartinez1344 it's trying to be Twitter and TeamSpeak at the same time.

[@Momiku]

I always hated Skype and how they killed MSN Messenger to force us to use it. My friends and I moved on to TeamSpeak and Curse, and later to Discord. Skype was our last resource when the others weren't working lol

[@el-maiki]

Same! I never liked Skype and I hated it more when Microsoft killed MSN messenger in favor of skype

[@Introvertedpickle]

0:34 "Club Penguin isn't around anymore?" Today, 7 years ago, it got shutdown is it a coincidence that you decided to upload it today just to say that line?

[@DiscoTimelordASD]

I miss Club Penguin😭

[@avamnepohui7260]

You missed one important detail - at the same time that Microsoft began to turn the once small and fast program into an bloted, slow and buggy, smartphones began to gain popularity. It’s a good idea to use a device that is always in your pocket to communicate with other people rather than a computer. Skype for Android was as bad as it could be. It was literally the worst app you could ever install on a smartphone. And of course, people started using other, new applications, simply because they were much better. As a result, people began installing these new applications (Whatsapp, Viber) on their computers, finally abandoning Skype.

[@Damgoeh]

Around 2005 in France, it was the opposite: we used the friendly looking MSN Messenger, and Skype was the cold enterprise app that nobody was using.

[@Banz_FPSB]

I'm also from France and I completely agree. I only ever used Skype to do a few audio calls because back then MSN Messenger audio wasn't very good. And I never used the video calls feature. When Microsoft eventually killed MSN Messenger (well, Windows Live Messenger at the time) and forced people to use Skype, I tried using it for a few weeks but it just wasn't as good, and most of my contacts stopped using it, and so did I. I have no idea why he said Skype looked more friendly. Never felt that way, never met anyone before who felt that way either.

[@Damgoeh]

@@Banz_FPSB even the pop culture side was inverted. Remembering the teen movie "LOL" with Sophie Marceau. All the teens where conmunicating in MSN messenger.

[@krazownik3139]

There is a difference between countries. We in Poland used GaduGadu (locally developed text messaging app) until it was bought up, which begin it's long process of enshitification and death. Then there was a quick interregnum along the way with raise of skype and WhatsApp but they were unable to fully catch on. At some point in the early 2010's NK (local proto-facebook) lose popularity to FB, so all folks move to FB messenger, which is currently a king. It's actually interesting, since FB outside of messenger and groups is essentially a dead boomer-only zone, all the younger folks moved to Instagram when the possibility arose.

[@TheRavenir]

Same thing here, and I'm from Switzerland. Everyone used MSN Messenger back then around here.

[@Tudorgeable]

@@TheRavenir In Romania everyone was on yahoo and I was the lone hipster still with an MSN email and live messenger.

[@andtails]

Skype was my go-to chat program in the 2000s and early 2010s for communicating with friends. Skype's quality nosedive coupled with the introduction of Discord led me and my friend group to jump ship in favor of the latter. Meanwhile, while Skype for Business was okay, Teams was far better in most respects for workplace needs, especially in remote environments. As much as I am nostalgic for Skype, we have better alternatives nowadays.

[@CaptainM792]

Skype Business should meet its end soon, because Teams would take it’s place.

[@agar322]

I always thought Microsoft killing WLM for Skype was a bad idea. While this video says differently, I remember at the time I didn't really like using Skype, specially for text messages. I just HAD to use it for voice calls. So to me at the time, Skype was the program for voice calls, and WLM was the program for text messages. With the death of WLM, I thought we had entered "a dark age of text messaging", since every other program I knew of didn't have a lot of features WLM had. I was stuck with Facebook Messenger and Steam Chat until I came to know Telegram in 2016 and convinced my friends to use it. NOW I think I have something as good or better than WLM was back in the day.

[@nekomancer]

WLM was also WAY MORE customizable, while skype was pretty cold and clean. dunno why the video says that skype seemed friendlier, when it was super barebones... remember custom emotes? custom backgrounds for chatwindows? skype had just this ugly white gradient stuff going on.

[@agar322]

@@nekomancer Definitely, and custom plugins too. I used to play a pokémon plugin with my friends. You'd both type /go *any name* and it would put them forward, then /use *any name* to attack. Like, /go Goku; /use GenkiDama. It was pretty fun.

[@CyPhaSaRin]

yeah i don't know anyone that was that into skype lol, msn dying was the only time my big gamer/lan group considered it, and we quickly fucked it off for Teamspeak or Vent until Discord came along, think we were all signed up by aug '15, for anything else, we've had facebook since what.. i'd say FB was utterly established as the place to be by 09/10.

[@CyPhaSaRin]

bet the guy misses Google Plus too lol

[@agar322]

@@UCgx7OseCrundqkE8oEVeobg Windows Live Messenger aka MSN Messenger

[@miguelmontero6130]

Shiiiit, hearing the Skype ringtone brings me back to 2014-2016 whenever my older sister would video chat with my mom

[@MGlBlaze]

I remember how Skype became shittier and shittier before Discord started to gain traction. Baked-in adds, removal of features, making the user interface look like a phone screen for a *desktop application* that made everything uglier and wasted space and it just became generally less and less pleasant to use. Once the wider world learned of Discord, we happily jumped off Skype's sinking ship without a thought and never looked back. And it kind of parallels how I moved on from MSN Messenger to Skype originally because MSN felt like it itself was being made worse with every new update.

[@JamesJAKAZeldaboy14]

They also removed customization features too. I remember having a custom ringtone on skype, and the built-in version of skype to windows 10 (or current non-packed version) removed this, and other sound related features. It felt like being restricted to only use what Microsoft wanted you to use

[@TravisNewton1]

The peak of Skype was when it was under eBay. Microsoft, being Microsoft, mismanaged it so badly to the point where they even took the corporate messaging tool Lync (previously Office Communicator, previously Exchange 2000 Conferencing) and renamed it to Skype for Business (which if you know anything about the average office worker, they would generally launch the wrong thing 9/10 times). Probably the same person in Marketing who decided that there needed to be Remote Desktop and Remote Desktop (yes, there are two versions that do two different things and both have the same name and icon) and Teams for Individuals/Families and Teams for Work/School.

[@memediatek]

Teams for Work is just Skype for Business which is just Lync, in places on the initial Linux releases you could see both these names!

[@DrKoneko]

Apparently when I was about 3 on my 3rd day of pre school I went over to the computers in the corner of the room and asked my teacher "Is there Skype on this thing?" I wanted to call my parents lmao

[@ActionGamerAaron]

The fact you're dancing around the fact that it was Microsoft that killed the app is really frustrating. I don't see how anyone could be convinced the answer is that much more complicated when the truth is so obvious especially to those of us that were actively using the app at the time.

[@el-maiki]

I used Skype before Microsoft integrated it with MSN. when that happened, Microsoft killed both Skype AND msn, my friends and I just jumped to Facebook chat. Even before that I never liked Skype as it made my computer super slow, but the way Microsoft managed is obviously the reason why Skype failed

[@2001coolchemist]

What made Skype popular to gamers at the time is the ease of creating chat groups and the ability to share files within those groups. I had used Skype for 2 main purposes: 1. As part of an online gaming community where I had formed teams with people allover the world 2. To make international phone calls to my parents overseas without paying the hefty international call bills. Why I stopped using Skype? 1. I lost interest in online gaming as my life got busier so lost touch with my online community. 2. The country where my parents lived banned the use of Skype. Petty really, but the government couldn't listen to conversations and that annoyed them, and they couldn't milk those high international call fees.

[@aidaaliten8817]

what country?

[@proximitea]

this is my favorite documentary style channel on YT. i am 15 and i used to use skype to call my grandma and my friends from school, around the mid 2010s. it's crazy how we just moved on without a care, but looking back on it, we realize the impact it had on us. i agree that microsoft killed skype. i remember it got extra bad when it got the windows 10 design language, full of bugs and unnecessary features (as microsoft products from the 2010s onward almost always are). in 2020 my friends all moved on to discord. one of the final times i used skype, also in about 2020, i remember trying to skype my grandma but it had gotten so buggy that calls straight up didn't work. we switched to facetime and never looked back.

[@robertianhawdon]

For me, Skype's killer feature in the late 2000s was Linux support. It was a shame under eBay ownership, the Linux version stagnated, and it was actually quite a shock when Microsoft baught Skype, they immediately started improving the Linux version until their, web based, Electron version, was rolled out to all supported systems.

[@TheREALJosephTurner]

That's exactly why I used Skype back then- Linux support. I went through a decade and a half trying to avoid Microsoft products like the plague, switching to Linux in the early 2000s as a replacement for BeOS when it went belly up. I basically left Windows after Windows 98, and didn't come back until Windows 7. Now I'm split 50/50 between Linux and Windows, only using Windows because some very specific programs don't have a good enough Linux equivalent and don't work well under WINE.

[@AlyxxTheRat]

I still will never forgive Microsoft for making Skype a replacement for MSN Messenger...

[@sean12444]

even though i missed the very early days of skype and probably started using it around its downfall, i honestly miss the times back in 2015 - 2016 when i used skype to call with friends and play minecraft, those were good times, and im honestly sad there isnt much competition in terms of software similar to skype and discord. discord is currently better than skype, but discord isnt all that good anymore either

[@MrVIPGuest]

14:55 A true Beatles fan, never missing an opportunity to slide in a reference or two.

[@bentowerner]

Holy shit he's Elliot Roberts

[@MrVIPGuest]

@@bentowerner now THAT would be a great collab

[@vylbird8014]

There was a theory around at the time that Skype moving away from p2p was in part for legal reasons - the p2p architecture makes it quite difficult for law enforcement to intercept communications, either with a warrant or through the shadier programs. Not wanting to make enemies of any governments may have been a factor in Microsoft's decision to move away from that architecture.

[@katzlolk]

I remember getting mad at everyone for switching to whatsapp lol

[@tubersloth]

makes me wonder why we didn’t bring skype back during covid, real potential was right there

[@sinbient]

If they hopped on shit before Zoom

[@CathrineMacNiel]

Skype no longer existed and became part of MS Teams, which well was used heavily during the lockdown.

[@privateprivacy5570]

Every mobile messenger supported video calls by that time. Why would i install Skype 10 years after i stopped using it when i have Signal and Telegram both on my mobile and my desktop.

[@kotzpenner]

14:30 yeah I hate when big companies try to merge their mobile and desktop designs. Both are different for good reasons and have their own spaces. Desktops are worse when they’re designed like a phone screen and phones are worse when designed like a desktop.

[@williambrasky3891]

I hear that, “you wouldn’t download a car” music during the Napster bit.

[@martinfobert9407]

I never understood why people were so excited for Skype when it came out. I was making video calls with MSN Messenger for years before Skype came along.

[@megamix5403]

🧢

[@CyPhaSaRin]

kids, right xD

[@Paco1337]

True, and also it was horrible experience in both cases tho since everyone had shitty internet connection. Also me as a gamer hated skype since it eas heavy on cpu and ram, teamspeak ftw

[@IamTheJobsian]

12:43 Gotta have that Beatles element in every video

[@robotomo4249]

Sadly, I wasn't there for when Skype was at its peak, instead, I came around during the beginning of its demise (in 2013). As a young kid at that time, I had no idea about the serious issues that Skype had, all I wanted to do was play Minecraft while talking to my friends.

[@toreadoress]

I was 15 and in high school back in 2005 when Skype really started getting traction. It became popular basically overnight. One day you didn't even know what Skype is and within a week literally everyone was on it. In mid 2000s you were charged for each text you send or per minute for calls with a cell phone, so imagine this Skype program comes out where you can chat and send as many messages you want, make not only regular calls, but also video calls and send pictures/files for free all in one place as long as you have internet. It was compeletly bonkers. The 2000s were truly magical times, it felt like each year there were so many new and revolutionary stuff that completely changed the world.

[@Likemea]

@@toreadoress and now in 2024 with the rise of ai we can do anything we want, its super insane, but also scary, there's many unimaginable things and outcomes

[@ChakkyCharizard]

Same lol. I remember switching to discord in '17 and being blown away by how much *better* it was.

[@WilG082]

I downloaded a lot of Beatles bootlegs from Kazaa. That’s also how I first heard that Zelda song that everyone thought was System of a Down

[@ChrisHilgenberg]

Fuck, that specific reference brings me back to that period, though I remember encountering that song in a video game music pack for Stepmania back in the day. Seemed like the creator also thought the same thing about the song 😅

[@cdogthehedgehog6923]

What song?

[@Jackpkmn]

My hatred for skype for killing off Windows Live! Messenger still burns to this day. I'm filled with rage when I reinstall Windows 10 and skype pops up like "you've been signed in to skype" it makes me boil over with the anger of 100s of lost contacts and lost features. I'm glad its dead. I will piss on its grave.

[@Hyvelez]

Discord was the finale nail in the coffin for me. Microsoft's fingerprints on Skype was noticeable right away with ads etc.

[@RETROMANIAToronto]

I used to have Skype on my PSP and was cheaper to make calls on my PSP then the limited minutes I had on my cell phone Also I would love a video on Ask Jeeves how it was the dominante search engine before Google and death of Ask Jeeves

[@JoyOfCreativeService]

"If you're the right age you remember Skype" no it's more like "if your parents gave you a phone at the right age" I didn't play video games (that weren't Chess, on Coolmath Games, or on the Atari 2600) until I was 15. That was in 2018

[@JoyOfCreativeService]

Come to think about it, I really didn't hear about a lot of classic internet stuff until 2018. That was also the year I heard about Roblox, Newgrounds, FNaF, and Eddsworld.

[@typemasters2871]

I remember being part of a friend group on Miiverse When that closed down the whole friend group jumped from Miiverse and onto Skype It was so active that there a handful of different chat groups, 2 or 3 main chat groups that everyone as in and a few others to do group RPs And then one day everyone just moved from Skype and onto Discord, activity didn’t just stop the moment everyone moved to Discord but activity did very quickly went down, the activity was effectively transplanted to one Discord Server Currently the Discord server has gone from at least 15 people to 802 people due to the person who created the server essentially turning it into a fan server for those who are fans of her art (to my knowledge the whole friend group are/were fine with this decision)

[@meshel-Alotaibi]

My dad used to call his long distance friend with Skype, my dad and his friend is Saudis but his friend was in USA for chemotherapy he used to buy goats from him unfortunately he passed away الله يرحمه ويعفر له

[@marilynlucero9363]

Condolences, I hope they had good calls together.

[@SoftyBun]

I love just clicking on one of your videos and just zoning out for a while. PLEEEAAASE make a video on the death of Omegle!!

[@kiwiprotogen6524]

I love when CREEP calls me

[@shay7572]

Wow I thought this had 2.7 million views not 2.7k. After watching it it honestly felt more like millions

[@lodoscan]

the video has just been published

[@skincrawlz]

nationsquid your videos make my information seeking brain so happy ty

[@dm44444]

I just need to say that I really love your videos. I usually feel old when I think about all the computer history I've experienced, but your videos also make me feel weirdly proud to have seen it all. Not quite sure how to explain it, but your vids are such a feeling haha

[@sachikoaichan]

Windows 8 era Skype was just the worst, I remember either trying to uninstall it or not make it a start up program and it was such a pain...I don't even remember if I actually succeeded.

[@Dark-kk4jo]

you could still install the desktop version from their website but it was still annoying to have to install it twice

[@THEDubbleHelixx]

The Windows app version never worked, but always tried to interfere with the desktop version I installed. It was a nightmare 😂

[@Gogettor]

I will never forgive MSFT for killing off Live Messenger for Skype.

[@incremental_failure]

Been online since the earliest days available in my country, so about 1995-1996. KaZaa came much later, initial release is in 2001. Piracy started with FTP servers and that scene still exists but is completely inaccessible to the mainstream. Interestingly enough, Skype is built by the same people and same technology as KaZaa. The initial technology behind KaZaa was by Jaan Tallinn and the BlueMoon Interactive team. Friis and Zennström bought the company and technology, they weren't the original creators. BlueMoon also created SoundClub in the early 1990s, one of the first modern style graphical interface music editors. Those guys were really ahead of their time.

[@ChakkyCharizard]

I have found many a pirated copy of ancient programs browsing through old public FTP servers that haven't been touched in 15 years

[@vedanshchn]

Great video as always! I absolutely love your voice modulation, the script and the calm personality you exhibit!

[@hlrartschadenfreude6430]

Dude, Skype always looked corporate and pretentious, while MSN was the more fun, customizable and popular one, at least here.

[@cookieface80]

@@privateprivacy5570 It had stuff like being able to shake people's screens or display annoying full screen animated emoticons.

[@Yogsoggeth]

We're only 0.40 into this and you lost me already... No, I'm not married and I didn't have children. That's why I still have time to watch youtube all day in my 40s.

[@JamesR624]

13:35 No... by the 2010's, the industry felt that they were big enough that they could fire all the design people to save money and then market their gesture-based, confusing trash interfaces as "modern". Using devices hasn't been intuitive whatsoever since, but they knew they were "too big to fail" now so users would just begrudgingly keep using the trash we have now, since there was nowhere to go, and sadly they were right.

[@staringcorgi6475]

How was OSs like windows 7 and ios more confusing other OSs like dos and xp

[@LilacMonarch]

@@staringcorgi6475not 7. 8

[@krazownik3139]

I stick with that crap of a OS they made switching from XP to 7 then 10 until raise of proton and gaming on Linux. Insane hardware requirements, inserting adds and limiting user options were enough. I switched in 2022 and hasn't looked back. Terminal and tiling window manager are way more comfortable to use than blind searching through a mess of pop-up windows to change the one little thing.

[@shin-ateYen]

AOL AIM intent messenger was actually still around until it was shutdown on December 15 2017. I think I stopped using Skype In 2015

[@FENUSfenux]

Bro got that Kurt Cobain outfit drip fr

[@vookudlak1]

Those noises just reminded me of the worst relationship I had lol

[@TheInkTank]

Really enjoying your channel lately!

[@pyke9212]

You highlighted all the things that happened without us feeling it, good video!

[@sqiuddyplays]

A great video as always fellow squid!

[@FreestyleCarp6gaming]

Nah bro we gotta talk about ooVoo

[@vyleside]

Skype basically became teams. Same call tune, similar interface....microsofts "business" chat app

[@valkyrja--]

Did you not watch the video?

[@vyleside]

@@valkyrja-- he didn't mention teams.....far as I saw but I did see the whole thing. Was listening for it.

[@Brownd55]

​@@vyleside19:00

[@JohnnyWalkerKat]

Its cute you are so young to don't remember the behemoth that was MSN Messenger.

[@Mackmicheals]

Literally one of the biggest things ever

[@UnknownMaster21]

That was amazing. But then again, people have told IRC was more amazing.

[@JohnnyWalkerKat]

@@UnknownMaster21 mIRC was another beast alot different than instant messaging. There where channels with 100-200-500 people in but all complete strangers. It was the first mainstream way of chatting. AOL, MSN and skype was something more personal. You had there your friends your acquaintances and more. Also mIRC didn't have photos(at least not that easy) and of course webcam.

[@mikfhan]

When people said "go on Messenger" I always said "I AM!" then they said "Facebook messenger!" and I cried inside. There was also ICQ or whatever it was called back then before VoIP took off, man time flies.

[@Mackmicheals]

@@mikfhan yup icq and he forgot to mention Morpheus and pretty sure pronounced Kazaa wrong

[@TylerFurrison]

I used Skype up until between 2015 and 2016 (just getting into high school for me) when I transitioned into using Discord full time. Thought it would've been the same for Telegram, where I would stop using Discord but it turned into me using both regularly.

[@TwinRiver100]

I was kind of surprised when Zoom became a household name in 2020. I remember about a year prior I was hearing advertisements for it on the radio and sort of ignoring it. The way it was described made it sound like an expensive business app that wasn't really for regular people. And I just imagined it looking super complicated and all that. I was super surprised when i saw what it ended up becoming in the subsequent years. 😆

[@shahinazmeerriza5377]

Always a good day when NationSquid posts. Love everything you do man Wish you get the recognition you deserve ❤

[@empty_thesaurus]

I dont know if it was intentional or not but the captions being slightly misaligned at the beginning and then synching to his speech is comedic gold

[@wasiauwu]

Everybody is talking about discord, but do you remember TeamSpeak3? I know it didn't have the option to video call someone or share the screen, but I switched from Skype to TS3 because some of my closest friends did. Then after a couple years I switched again - from TS3 to Discord.

[@welfraof8667]

That voice sounds A.I generated.

[@GIGGATHEPRODUCER]

exactly what i thought

[@djolando]

@@GIGGATHEPRODUCER sameee lol

[@LiquidSteel_04]

Love your videos sir! You should do a history of Discord video next!

[@generallowres4636]

My 65 year old grandma switched from Skype to discord sometime during the "covid lockdowns" and now she has her own discord server

[@OiranDaki]

Yayyyy new Nationsquid video Love your content and old cursor aesthetic!

[@makaylaserniotti1474]

I remember Skype fondly…and sadly…

[@BBpoltergiest]

the period of time where it was basically skype with no competitor was so bad, discord's coming felt like we were being liberated

[@BraydenDarrell]

I opened my old computer after many years and saw Skype. It brought back memories I forgot I had. Great video btw

[@FinalFrantasy]

Discord beat out skype in my friend group simply because it was so easy to add a music bot so we can listen to the same trash while playing games together lol

[@Zdwojson]

My foreign friend, Nationsquid. Since you're talking about things that define us and the Internet, could you make a video about Adobe Flash Player and sites like Newgrounds and Flash-based games? 😃

[@FatheredPuma81]

The biggest thing I remember about Skype was thinking it was the reason the internet became super slow. Totally wasn't the abysmal ISP we had at the time that so "up to" 15Mbps and gave probably around 10Kbps during busy hours of the day.

[@avix3454]

I haven’t thought about Skype in years. I used to use it when I was younger and my dad was deployed in Afghanistan! It’s super nostalgic to be thinking about it again.

[@paisan8766]

36 years old. Big internet kid. However … Only time I used Skype was at one of my jobs who had it as an IM service, before they replaced it. That was circa 2015. Never used the video chat. Just wasn’t big around me I guess.

[@MyNamesNotShaneKid]

2:11 thats not a square nationsquid

[@AtomBacon]

I had a friend move away at the end of elementary school, stayed in touch for years over Skype. Even dated long distance for several months.

[@MayaSalila]

Skype has one feature that nobody else has - automatic answering. For someone with a physical disability, it's a huge help.

[@xXVibrantSnowXx]

Skype was pretty meh to begin with Give me MSN over it, any time any day, that thing was the shet back then

[@Papasot]

You deserve a veteran’s discount if you remember calling your friends on Skype to play video games

[@skullsofdeaf]

Yo Nice Vid! Keep on going!

[@gmodplayerthatplaysgmod]

cool vid

[@FanniChu]

You didn’t even watch it.

[@gmodplayerthatplaysgmod]

@@FanniChu its still a cool vid

microsoft be losing money with this one 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@josephhughes1498]

I remember me and my dad mocking zoom before it got big because they had an advert boasting about “stunning HD video” like it’s 2005 when it was really 2018

[@Big_Human]

I haven't heard that ringtone in decades and I still jumped after it started in the beginning of the video

[@CallumOutHere]

skype was when times were much more simpler

[@r_b_gamerz]

Rip Skype

[@MushroomVortex]

Skype’s biggest downfall was how deeply unsettling the call music was

[@QuixEnd]

I still use skype as a verb. People laugh but then they call it face timing..

[@MusicaX79]

TLDR they stopped innovating, and other products replaced them.

[@pineappleman570]

Discord is terrible. I can’t wait for whatever replaces it

[@penngheeney]

Except that Zoom had been around since at least 2011-2012. Obviously, it rose in popularity during the pandemic, but it didn't just suddenly appear in 2020. I was part of a global Facebook-based administrative team that used Zoom regularly since 2018.

[@blacksongoku312]

Bro this autoplayed & the intro got me running to answer "the call" 😂 🤣 😭