Enshittification: A Death of Skype Story
"What a piece of junk!"
A long time ago, in a startup galaxy far, far away…
(Episodes I–III, the lost years, began in 2003—Skype’s clunky birth and awkward adolescence.)
Episode IV: A New Hope (circa 2009–2015)
*Intercom crackles to life*
"Uh... hi. You recording okay?"
"Loud and clear. How's the connection?"
"Everything's under control. Situation normal."
"Something sounds... off."
"We had a mic malfunction, but everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine, we're all fine here now, thank you…
How are you?"
Skype was the transmission beacon that didn’t sound like a droid trapped in a trash compactor during a meteor shower.
Ecamm Call Recorder? Easy. Like shooting womprats back home. A steal at 9.82 credits. Your input was recorded. All other participating guests share on a single commline.
Janky? Kinda. You overlooked its quirks. You always let the Wookiee win.
Don't get cocky, kid.
Episode V: Empire’s Systems Failure (circa 2016–2020)
Cracks slowly formed in the Navicomputer. System updates went full Tusken Raider.
The interface was a Kessel Run of menus—convoluted, insulting to your neural net, and more sluggish with every jump. Podcasting with a restraining bolt.
Still transmitted… barely. Like coaxing a dying hyperdrive through one last jump. Tolerated. No faster transports in this sector. Yet.
Episode VI: Revenge of the Bugs (2020–2025)
The Corellian shipyards rolled out new, sleek Apple Silicon models, and the old freighter started to fall apart.
Skype’s internal comm recorder? Utter garbage compactor—no separate channels, no controls, just one compressed audio file of static.
The HoloNet feed? Swamped with spam and Crypto scum bots. The desktop interface? Malfunctioning astromech that needs a charge.
Every time, you had to constantly log in. By now, everyone knew how to pilot a Zoom or Google Meet.
And then—finally—2025.
The Microsoft Empire gave Skype a clean blaster shot to the head. No Stormtroopers were harmed—or even involved!
You could have made your first step into a larger world. Fuck off forever, Skype. You could’ve been great.
I feel like you snuck a few Star Trek metaphors in here, but otherwise well said. I still feel like I have to say that as a Microsoft product, Skype was easier with PCs (I almost never had to log in), but you're right that by the end, it was an R2 unit with a faulty power converter. Still, it got us through almost 15 years of podcasts. Gotta give it a medal ceremony for that.