Why I removed Skype from my dock and from my phone.

There was a time when Skype was the almighty alternative to your vintage phone, the ubiquitous internet communicator, the company which pioneered video calls once envisioned by sci-fi movies.

Skype was first released in August 2003. It was bought by eBay in 2005 for $2.6B and later purchased from eBay by Microsoft, the current owner, for a whopping $8.5B, in May 2011.

But to be honest (and R&D insiders could confirm it), it hasn’t evolved that much over the years. As I’m writing these lines, in January 2017, it’s still almost as buggy as it used to be five years ago, with a rather poor call quality and unstable video transmission (“Can you see me?”), compared with a new generation of competitors (more about this later).

It’s such a pity. Skype had a huge first-mover advantage. Even beyond video calling. It was also a pioneer in instant messaging, a decent alternative to ICQ and other players of the early WWW. It was in a privileged position to build a strong social graph around the concept of “contact lists”, just as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp (Viber, WeChat, Line,…).

But it did not, resting on its laurels, betting on its users’ habits and the verb it had managed to create thanks to its dominant position: “Skype” originally being the Communication equivalent of “Google” for Search.

I’ve been complaining about the poor quality of Skype for years but I kept on sticking to the Blue S, simply by habit. Habits, especially bad ones, are hard to break. The only reason why I still open that damn Skype app once in a while (its web version) is that some of my old-school friends and business contacts are still trapped in the Skype matrix.

Skype eats up RAM.

What made me remove Skype from the side dock of my Macbook was somehow geekier than its poor call quality. Like many other apps it eats up tons of RAM even if you don’t touch it, idle in the background. And for some reasons (just like the other ones), the burden increases over time. After a few minutes, a quick check in the Activity Monitor already displays 175MB. After a few hours, it easily goes up to 500+MB.

Why? There are many discussions about the issue on internet forums. Basically the volume of memory used by Skype will depend on the amount of opened threads, the size of your contact list (which requires status updates) and some other factors (animated emoticons, plugins,…).

To be honest, the worst memory eater — by far — on my computer isn’t Skype, it’s Chrome (it could be another browser if I was using Firefox or Safari). But at least there’s a quick fix to reduce how much RAM Chrome is consuming: close all the tabs you’re not using.

The fact is that I don’t want to have another native app opened in the background “just in case” I would use it or someone would happen to Skype me. I can do whatever I want in the browser (BTW, Skype also has a web app at web.skype.com but its onboarding and UX are definitely subpar compared to the new kids on the block).

All my contacts are on Facebook.

Skype could have owned social instant messaging but it didn’t. Facebook stole the show. Mark Zuckerberg’s ubiquitous network built a strong communication infrastructure on top of its social backbone, dedicating A-list ressources to the venture, even convincing Paypal’s former President, David Marcus, to head the spun-off division. Messenger now has more than 1B monthly active users (Skype’s latest figures were around 300m MAU).

If I want to message someone, I just open Facebook in a browser tab, it doesn’t require a long booting sequence, it’s just one click away. Then I message my contact and I close the tab. Otherwise Facebook also eats up memory in my browser and it could distract me from my workflow.

If my contact replies, or if someone else messages me, I receive a browser notification (see here how to set it up). I can even just open Messenger’s web app if I don’t want to load the whole Facebook interface (and also enable browser notifications to allow me to close the tab).

I just miss one crucial feature for professional collaboration on Facebook Messenger: screen sharing. I’ve just googled “how to share your screen on (Facebook) Messenger” but didn’t find any quick way to do it. There are some third-party apps but I don’t want to fall into the trap of another bloated RAM eater.

So this is a message to all my friends at Facebook: please add screen sharing to Messenger.

In the meantime… (disclaimer: it’s not a shameful blatant PR plug, it’s really what I’m doing).

I switch to appear.in for screen sharing.

When I need to start a video conference with someone (up to 8 people in the free version) which requires fast screen sharing, I’m using appear.in.

I just send a link to my appear.in room via Messenger and my contact / colleague joins me in a private space (you can “lock” room names, for instance for your company or business unit).

The communication quality is outstanding and I can share my screen in a tap.

The benefit of using appear.in vs Skype becomes even more obvious when it comes to multi-user standup calls. I remember being part of a startup team which was using Skype. It was so painful to add other users to a call and to interact with them. Such a nightmare. With appear.in it’s seamless, as it should be (people knock on the room’s door and you let them in).

It’s the same kind of UX you’re familiar with if you’re using Houseparty on mobile. It’s so 2017, when Skype is so… 2010.

When I just need to call someone (without sharing my screen), I’m simply using Messenger, even on 3G. I’m just warning my contact via an instant message because there’s nothing more annoying than receiving a call if you’re not prepared to engage in a voice conversation.

Recently, most of my friends have switched to Messenger for personal communication. Goodbye SMS (now only used for password retrieval), goodbye my green Phone Icon (only used for emergency calls), goodbye Skype.

So don’t look for me on Skype, I’m not there anymore. I’m on Messenger http://m.me/fredericktubiermont (and sometimes on Appear.in, ping me on Messenger to get the room’s URL).

My deepest apologies to all my friends from the so-called Skype mafia ;-) It’s time to move on.