By Imlisanen Jamir
There was a time when Skype was the internet. When video calls still felt like science fiction and the blue bubble ringtone was the sound of long-distance love, late-night group calls, and bad internet connections. If you were around in the early 2000s, you remember it—the pixelated faces, the awkward lags, the weird echo that made you feel like you were talking to yourself. It wasn’t perfect, but it was magic.
And now, Microsoft is pulling the plug. In May 2025, Skype will officially shut down. No grand farewell, no last hurrah—just a quiet, corporate goodbye. In its place? Microsoft Teams, another sterile, office-friendly, productivity-driven tool, because that’s where the money is now.
It’s not surprising. Skype has been on life support for years, losing ground to Zoom, WhatsApp, and FaceTime. It never quite recovered from its Microsoft buyout in 2011, when it stopped feeling like the scrappy, independent underdog and started feeling like another bloated piece of software people used because they had to. The writing was on the wall when “Let’s Skype” stopped being a phrase.
When was the last time you actually used Skype? Exactly.
But here’s the thing—just because something is inevitable doesn’t mean it isn’t sad.
For a whole generation, Skype was more than just an app. It was the first taste of what the internet could be. It was video calls before FaceTime, group chats before Discord, free international calls before WhatsApp. It was long-distance relationships made bearable. It was a lifeline for students, for freelancers, for anyone who had to leave home but wanted to stay connected. Even in Nagaland, where the internet came late but arrived like a storm, Skype was a gateway—letting people study, work, and reconnect across borders in ways that had never been possible before.
Technology always begins with grand ideals—connection, freedom, choice—until the companies that build it find a way to own and control it. The internet was once an open frontier, a place where people could talk, create, and connect on their own terms. Now, it is being fenced in, turned into a marketplace where every interaction is tracked, every conversation is a data point, and every tool is optimized for profit. Skype, for all its flaws, belonged to an earlier internet—unpolished, unpredictable, and still somewhat free. That version of the internet is disappearing, replaced by something sleeker, more efficient, and far less human.
Now, it’s just another casualty of progress.
The future of communication isn’t warm and personal; it’s streamlined, professional, and corporate. Where once there were spontaneous calls and late-night conversations, there are now scheduled Zoom meetings and sterile Teams conferences. The internet doesn’t want you to talk anymore—it wants you to engage, optimize, produce.
So, here’s to Skype. The bad connections. The awkward silences. The blurry faces. The missed calls. The late-night catch-ups that stretched till morning. It wasn’t perfect. But it was ours.
And that counts for something.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
