Dear Skype [UPDATED] ✭
Saturday May 10th 2008
Dear Skype,
I do love you. I really do. But I’ll be honest: we’re on rocky grounds right now.
When I broke up with Gizmo, you seemed like a big step up, Skype. You had better software, a sweet wifi phone, better voicemail management, and you actually worked most of the time. I quickly realized you didn’t properly send a caller ID, so people had no idea who was calling them (it’s typically either +000000 or +0123456 or something). Also no receiving text messages, and no text messages or chat at all on my Netgear handset. But those were the days of optimism and hope, and simple joy over a $6/month phone bill, so everything was excused with the assumption that you were working on these issues.
It turns out I misunderstood your priorities. You weren’t working on caller ID for US callers; you weren’t working on simplifying your bloody confusing array of payment and subscription options; you weren’t working on breaking the stranglehold of oppressive, expensive, technologically-backward telcos; no, you were working on shitty cell phone compromise add-ons that just admit people should carry expensive, crappy mobile phones and use you as a third-party. You may not want to admit it, Skype, but you’re becoming the telcos’ bitch.
What happened to the revolutionary Skype? Skype the game-changer? Skype, the little Estonian P2P communication company that made calling free and set the telcos’ knees trembling? Do you still care about shaking things up?
I still care.
You’ve changed my unlimited calling plan again. I bought “Skype Unlimited” a year-and-a-half ago or so. Then that got cancelled, and replaced with Skype Pro (never mind that, if I recall, the name “Skype Pro” used to refer to something totally different, and at the very least it’s somewhat confusingly-similar to “Skype for Business” and various other boring names). Now it’s just Skype Subscriptions. All of these have been almost identical, but with minor little differences that left me wondering if I was still going to be able to do what I had been doing. Also, each change has required me to cancel my then-current plan and sign-up for the new one. A time-wasting hassle, with literally no gain, other than the fact that this unlimited calling thing should probably have been called a subscription from the beginning.
I say all this because really, I do love you, Skype. You’re cheap, you’re easy to use, and you’re a hell of a lot better than those cell phone companies. And you have potential, lots of potential. When popular mindset comes around and embraces the internet as the single necessary network of communication, with all its advantages of price and innovation, you’ll be in the best place to take advantage of it.
I just hope for both our sakes’, Skype, that you don’t muck this up. I want us to have a long and happy future filled with many happy hours of free calling.
And give me freaking caller ID, dammit!
UPDATE: They gave me freaking caller ID!
{love},
{ryan}