An emotional farewell Byebye Skype - that's why we'll never forget you
Skype will soon be history. The former king of video telephony is saying goodbye forever on 5 May. A wistful look back with many good moments.
For many, it was their first contact with digital communication - and for some, their first moment of frustration with jerky images and distorted sound. But despite all the shortcomings, a certain nostalgia remains. Here are five things we will really miss about Skype.
The legendary ringtone
"Dü-di-dü, di-dü-di." When you hear this tone sequence, you are immediately catapulted back to a time when video calls still had something magical about them. The gently bubbling tone sounded like a mixture of a sci-fi communicator and a washing machine false alarm. Today, we have sterile notifications - but nothing that sounded as nice as "Aunt Ruth calling from Australia".
"Can you hear me?"
Nothing brought people all over the world together as reliably as this phrase. And it still holds true today, even Microsoft Teams and Zoom haven't changed that.
Whether university seminars, job interviews or dates - every Skype conversation started with a hectic fumble with the microphone and a loud "Hello? Can you hear me? I can see you, but you're mute!" Only when both sides had somehow managed to hear each other did the actual conversation begin. Usually with a laugh - or an annoyed sigh. In everyday business life today, it's more likely to be the latter.
The free line into the distance
At a time when international calls cost a small fortune, Skype was the savior for long-distance relationships, international students and business people. Hours of calls with your best friend in Canada or your exchange partner in Argentina? No problem. Except for the WLAN connection, which dropped out just when things were getting exciting.
The overoptimistic connection quality
Skype was always optimistic when it came to the quality of the connection. "Very good connection", it said - while the picture looked like a flipbook from the 90s and the other person's voice sounded like they were transmitting from a deep shaft. But somehow that's exactly what made it so charming.
The beginning of all legendary group chats
It's hard to imagine today, but Skype is actually six years older than Whatsapp. And so group chats appeared long before that and are now an archive of fond memories. We laughed, cried, celebrated, messed around and sent each other matching gifs with office colleagues. Unforgotten and still a channel for less serious topics today. So it's all the more bitter that we now have to say goodbye to Skype forever.
