On 07/01/2020 16.08, Anton Aylward wrote:
I wonder ...
To many, the term 'skype' or 'to skype' entered into the vocabulary as a new word just like 'to google' means to research online'. "To skype" meant to make a videocall; yes Skype the product was the primary tool for that but not the sole one. It was, however the one that we were most sure of the other party having.
A bit more than a decade ago it was the most popular voice application. It started to decline when bought by Microsoft.
That Skype has gone says a lot about the reliably, sustainability and availability of any product. Even open source ones.
There's a groundswell about 'privacy'. Perhaps Google will be replaced by DuckDuck but we'll still use the term 'to google'. If universals that had such market dominance as WordPerfect can vanish (See "In Search of Stupidity") then maybe others can too. If you'd asked a year ago who 'owned' the videocall market the answer would be 'Skype'. To suggest using hangouts or one of the other products suggested on this thread would seem laughable. If you'd said 'videoCONFERENCE' the answer might be different, there were practical alternatives. The same with videoMEETINGS or videoTEACHING.
Few years ago I knew people that would do video conference who had never even heard of Skype. They were using Whatsapp in their phones. It is the single most popular application here (it replaces SMS messaging here), and it is so easy to do that may happen by accident. You live in Canada, so you probably don't realize. Many Canadians and your southern neighbours use SMS to communicate, to do "texting"; it is gratis for you. In Spain, and in most of Europe, sending SMS had a cost, maybe 20 cents each one. Much more if you sent photos. So here became popular applications that would do texting using Internet, which is "almost" free, such as Whatsapp. This one in Spain is a "must have", except for some paranoid people who may use Telegram instead, or a few others. So for us, texting is done with Whatsapp - even now, SMS are not free. My plan allows me a thousand per month, only inside Spain. An SMS to CAN costs about a dollar. Each SMS. Plain text. So you have a situation when almost every phone has Whastapp, and one day they add calls. Right there in the tabs. A bit later, they add video conferencing. So, here, probably the most popular video conferencing app is Whatsapp. They only need to be aware of their internet plan, or being in WiFi area. On computers it is different. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.1 x86_64 at Telcontar)