Before Zoom, Skype made video calls a thing and I'm gonna miss it

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It was the sound of communication and possibility.

Who knows what would happen during that video call, what I would learn, what I would say?

Where would we be without Skype?

Almost 25 years ago, Skype was part of the peer-to-peer (P2P) decentralized revolution.

By 2005, unlikely suitor eBay bought it and then sold a majority stake to an investment group.

Two years later,Microsoftpaid $8.5 billion to acquire the by-then wildly popular video communication platform.

I’d dallied with using it to call friends and family.

Skype wastranslating the spoken word in real timelong beforeGoogleandSamsungbrought the feature to phones.

We’re getting a preview of “the next generation of Skype.”

Note the Cortana integration.

I’d argue it was Skype.

Eventually, broadcasters and most of my Skype buddies moved away from Skype.

Media companies started using Zoom and the aforementioned Cisco.

It was the realization of a dream that stretched back to 1927’sMetropolisand the 1960s cartoon of the futureThe Jetsons.

I’ll miss Skype, its dial-in sound, and even the name.

Maybe Microsoft will find another use for it, though I struggle to imagine what that might be.