Why does Skype make us all update software?

Opening the laptop today [the original article is dated 08.08.2014 - approx. trans. ] and launching Skype, I noticed that the session under my account was interrupted. The following message appeared on the screen: "You have been disconnected from the network because you are using an outdated version of Skype."

To be honest, the version of Skype installed on my laptop was not that old: 6.3.0.602. Yes, she is more than a year old (dated March 2013), but Skype has always been famous for being “just working”.

And we, the users, are used to it.
')

Community outrage

Several people with whom I communicate in the Skype public chat, also encountered a similar problem. There has been a marked increase in user complaints in the Skype for Windows and Mac community forums over the past week. The problem did not pass by even the Linux-community (the company rarely pays attention to it), in which on August 1 the moderator published the following message :

Starting today, users who have Skype for Linux version 4.2 and below installed will no longer be able to use Skype. When you try to log in with your account, an error message will appear: "Could not connect to Skype server" or "Could not log in with Skype account". If you want to continue using this software, please update it to the latest version.

Judging by the responses of users, the "new" version of Skype does not work on various Linux configurations. The 99th answer in the topic of discussion conveys all the negative:

You are diligently trying to assure us that a forced transition from version 4.2 to 4.3 will positively affect your experience with Skype, and also make your life easier. So, if you really read all the comments on this topic, I hope, you understand that Skype did not become better . Version 4.3 breaks audio compatibility. The Pulseaudio sound server does not work with my external USB sound card. Other applications designed to work with sound simply stop working if you start it. If you want to really improve the work of Skype - return support ALSA. Or post the source code so that we can do it ourselves. Or stop blocking version 4.2 so that we can use the version of Skype that really makes our lives easier. What you did with Skype is sacrilege.

A similar view can be found in a fairly long discussion thread of the Mac community. Below is a quote from the 78th post of this thread:

Hello. I will go straight to the point. What you are offering is not a solution at all . I tried to approach this issue in different "ways": starting from using version 2.8 and ending with the regular update of Skype to the latest version, as requested by the application. Attempt to log in with my account after the update failed: the session under my account was interrupted, and the application again offered me to update it. I even tried to remove Skype and download it again, but it also did not help. And no, I'm not going to upgrade the OS to the Mavericks. I'm quite comfortable with the current version. I like Skype, it is great for work (I use it every day ) and just to communicate, but the current state of affairs is no good. Please solve this problem . Thank.

It seems that one of the most significant problems faced by users of old OS versions is the inoperability of the new Skype version on these OSs. The following is an example :

I am ready to abandon Skype. Even Apple cannot decide for me how to set up my computer, much less Microsoft (who bought Skype in 2011). I'm not going to go to the Mavericks. This is simply not necessary. In addition, I still use applications that are required by the Rosetta translator [approx. translator: used to launch applications for the PowerPC architecture], and it has become unavailable for the OS since version 10.6.8.

Goodbye Skype. I will continue to use it on the iPhone, but not on the desktop. If something happens with the version for the iPhone, then Skype will simply lose its client. And the point.

There are a lot of similar examples. And even more in the Windows community. In general, this “forced transition to the new version” does not bode well for a large number of users.

Skype Position

Judging by what I see, representatives of Skype are asking users to pay attention to the reference article on the update process. It states the following:

We want everyone to enjoy the best of what Skype has to offer: from quality improvement, in order to increase stability, to security innovations. This is the new version of Skype. In order for all users to experience these benefits, we, from time to time, decommission old versions of Skype. This applies to all platforms, including mobile. There is nothing difficult about updating Skype. Putting an update, you will get access to all the new features that our team has worked so hard on.

If after the decommissioning of old versions you do not upgrade Skype, then your account will be automatically logged out. In this case, you can no longer use Skype until you upgrade it. Just follow a few steps described below to download, install and launch a new version, after which you can immediately continue working with Skype.

In the company's blog of July 16, 2014, an entry was posted with the following heading: "To improve the user experience, update Skype now." In this post, the company representatives described all the advantages of switching to the new version and briefly mentioned the planned decommissioning of the old versions:

Therefore, in order that the recent improvements could be felt by all users, we will, in the near future, decommission the old versions of Skype on all platforms, including mobile ones.

As it turned out, the “near future” meant the end of July, that is, about 2 weeks from the moment of post publication.

But why, Skype?

The question arises ... why now? There is no exact answer to this question.

I agree with the statement that Skype has always worked without any problems, and this was one of its greatest strengths. You could login using your account using any version. This fact helped Skype to become an incredibly common means of communication.

However, the presence of so many old versions did not allow Microsoft / Skype to give access to new services (or show its advertising) to all users.

For the same reason, they cannot switch to a new architecture, which would improve the quality of service. As an example, we can take their transition from the initial peer-to-peer architecture to a centralized "cloud" architecture to improve the quality of support for mobile clients.

I understand all this.

I can understand why Microsoft wants (even why they need it ) for everyone to use the new versions.

But why now? Why at the end of July 2014? Was this date chosen randomly? Or was it made conscious?

What changes have been made to the new version? Was this done to abandon the P2P architecture, or was it dictated by other technical changes?

What made the company decide that now is the right time to take a similar step?

There is something crazy about choosing a time for such an update, because Skype is not the only solution in its field. There are dozens of competitors on the market. For example, I recently began to use more Apple Facetime and Google+ Hangouts. As I wrote recently, Facebook wants to turn your Messenger into a voice and text tool. There are also many other mobile apps trying to be “next Skype”. In addition ... you should not forget about the whole world of WebRTC , as well as millions of new applications and websites that provide new channels for communication.

Perhaps this is the whole point. Probably, Microsoft understands that in order to maintain rivalry with these new services, as well as to further develop Skype, they just need to get users to upgrade. Perhaps they hope that any inconvenience to users is only temporary. That after migration to the new version they can develop faster.

Is it - I do not know. Skype says nothing about the purpose of the update, except for common meaningless words.

Do users want to change Skype to other services?

More precisely, the question is whether users really want to change Skype to other services ?

Judging by the discontent in the community forums, it seems that Microsoft has underestimated the possible technical problems that users will encounter after the update. I have seen a fairly large number of complaints from people who can not upgrade because of the version of the OS, and for various other reasons.

Strictly speaking, Skype for them is dead.

They are forced to seek a replacement, because just can not use Skype.

However, it is not so easy to calculate the percentage of users who have encountered problems after the upgrade. This percentage can be quite small. Perhaps the vast majority of users are automatically updated to the new version without any problems.

I took a look at Skype user statistics from Hudson Burton, but unfortunately his statistics collection system stopped working after July 31st. At the moment, he has restarted it ... but the data for the last week is no longer available. And they could show how the incident changed (if at all) the picture. According to his data, at the time of this writing, 77 million users were online. Similar numbers were before.

It is also not clear when exactly Microsoft / Skype launched a forced update of old versions. Based on user comments in communities, the main stream of complaints began on July 30 or 31. In my case, the update notification came on August 6th. I also heard from other users that they did not receive a push update notification and are still using older versions.

A similar situation has already been observed in the past. In December 2010, there were problems in the work of Skype, because of which almost everyone could not log into the network for several days. Many of us might have thought that this would give an impetus to try another service ... but this did not happen. Once the problems were resolved, users simply returned to Skype. It was easier. In addition, Skype already had a user base. I mean that when many of your friends use Skype, there is nothing easier than to contact them through this channel.

However, this time everything is somewhat different. Solutions to replace Skype has become much more than 4 years ago. Apple, Google and Facebook offer quite interesting solutions and already have their users. Perhaps the number of users of these services is not the same as that of Skype, but it is quite impressive.