The Mobile Messaging Wars Continue - Facebook Forces Separate Messenger App On Mobile Users
Walk-Through: Skype 5.4 For iPhone Lets You Host Audio Conference Calls

Why Is Skype Forcing A Software Upgrade On All Of Us? (Plus The Community Outrage)

Today when I opened up my laptop and switched to Skype, I found that I had been logged out:

Skype

The text in that image says:

We've signed you out because you're using an outdated version of Skype. Download the latest version now.

Now, to be clear, I wasn't using an ancient version of Skype. My laptop had version 6.3.0.602 from sometime in, say, March 2013 - so yes, it was over a year old, but the thing with Skype is that it has had a history of always "just working", which perhaps we as users have gotten used to. The upgrade went fine on my MacBook Pro that is still running Mountain Lion (10.8) and I'm now using Skype version "6.15 (334)".

Community Outrage

In a Skype public chat in which I participate a number of other users said they'd been logged out - and looking in the Windows Skype community and Mac Skype community web forums I see MANY messages from people who are experiencing problems over the past week. The frustration is even visible in the Linux Skype community (a community Skype has often ignored), where a staff moderator posted last Friday, August 1, this message:

From today, users with Skype for Linux version 4.2 and older will not be able to sign in to Skype. The error messages user will see during sign in may include “Can’t Connect to Skype” or ”Can’t login on Skype”. To continue using Skype, please update to the latest version.

The replies mostly indicate that the "new" version of Skype won't work on various configurations of Linux. The 99th response to the threadperhaps sums up the anger best:

In all your web content you people claim that forcing us to drop 4.2 and move to 4.3 improves our lives and makes our Skype experience better. If you have bothered to read all the responses in this topic, by now I hope you understand: YOU ARE NOT MAKING SKYPE BETTER FOR US. 4.3 breaks audio compatibility. Pulseaudio does not work with my USB external audio equipment, and running it causes my other audio-based apps to stop working. If you want to make Skype better for us, put ALSA support back in. Or release the source code so we can do it ourselves. Or stop blocking 4.2 so we can continue using the version that DOES make our lives easier. What you have done to Skype is an abomination.

You can see similar sentiment in the lengthy thread in the Mac community. Here's the 78th message in the thread:

Hello. Okay, straight to the point. THIS is not a solution. I've tried many times diferent ''approaches'' to this problem. From trying to use an old version 2.8 to just plainly updating in the skype app as asked (which I downloaded and when I tried to sign in it logs me out cuz its asks AGAIN for the update); I even tried unistall skype and download it again, but everything fails. And no, I won't update to Mavricks; I'm fine with the current version I have; thanks. So, plz, I do like skype, its awesome for work (which I use EVERYDAY) and keep in contact, but this is waaaaaaay out. PLEASE GIVE A SOLUTION. THANK YOU. :happy:

A big issue in reading the threads seems to be that many people still need to use older versions of their base operating system - and the latest versions of Skype will not work with those operating systems. Here's an example:

I'm ready to drop Skype. I do not allow even APPLE to tell me how to configure my computer, much less MICROSOFT (who owns skype since 2011). There is no way I'm upgrading to Mavericks. Absolutely no need, and I still use applications that require Rosetta, which is not available in anything past 10.6.8.

Bye bye skype. I'll use it on my iPhone, but no more on my desktop, and if it gets weird on my iPhone skype will simply lose a customer. Period.

There are MANY more examples... and many more in the Windows community as well. All in all it seems that this "forced upgrade" is not going down well with many people.

Skype's Statements

As far as I can see, Skype is pointing people to this support article about upgrading that says:

We want everyone to experience the best Skype has to offer – from enhanced quality to better reliability to improved security – and the newest version of Skype is the way to do that. So everyone can benefit from the latest improvements, from time to time we retire older versions of Skype across all platforms, including mobile devices. It’s easy to update Skype; once you do, you’ll have access to the latest features our team has worked hard to deliver.

When we retire older versions of Skype, if you are still on an older version, you would be signed out of Skype automatically and won’t be able to sign in again until you upgrade to a new version. Simply follow the steps below to download, install, and sign in to the latest version, and you’ll be back in Skype in no time.

Skype also provided a bit of a preview of this action in a July 16, 2014, blog post titled "Update Skype now to improve your experience" where they trumpted all the benefits of upgrading and included one little line about the impending retirement:

So everyone can benefit from the latest improvements, we’ll retire older versions of Skype across all platforms, including mobile devices, in the near future.

where it turns out that "in the near future" meant about two weeks later at the end of July 2014. :-(

But Why, Skype?

The lingering question is... why now?

I mean, I do understand that one of the strengths of Skype historically has been that it "just worked" and that pretty much any version of Skype would still let you connect. This has allowed Skype to become the amazingly ubiquitous communication tool that it has become.

The down side of this for Microsoft/Skype is that they can't get people to use all their new services - or see their new ads - if there are so many older versions.

Similarly, they can't move to new technical architectures that may provide better service when they have to also support a long history of past releases. (For example, their move away from the peer-to-peer architecture that was their original highlight to more of a centralized "cloud" architecture to provide better support for mobile clients.)

I get all that.

I can understand why Microsoft would want - even need - everyone to use newer versions of Skype.

But why now? Why the end-of-July 2014 point? Was that just an arbitrary date? Is there something else driving it?

And what changes are being made in these newer versions? Is it, as one friend said, because Microsoft wants to move away from P2P chat? Or make some other technical changes?

What are they doing that caused them to decide NOW was the time to move?

The somewhat crazy thing with the timing is that it is not like Skype is the only choice for people now. There are a ton of competing communication channels. I've personally been using Apple's Facetime and Google+ Hangouts a good bit more these days for communication. As I wrote about recently, Facebook is clearly looking to make their Messenger be a mobile tool for voice and chat communication. And there are many other mobile apps that are trying to be "the next Skype". Plus... there is the whole world of WebRTC and the zillion new apps and sites that are providing new ways to communicate.

And maybe THAT is the driver. Perhaps Microsoft realizes that to compete with all these new services and to be able to evolve Skype they NEED to force users to come up to the latest versions. Perhaps they are hoping that any disruption in users behavior will be only temporary and that after that migration they can then move ahead faster.

Or perhaps this is just part of the general changes that Microsoft is making to re-focus their energy and staff. As shown by their recent large round of layoffs, the way they have been doing things hasn't been working - and they need to change. Perhaps they view the customer hostility (and potential switching) that will come from forcing these upgrades will be balanced out by their lower support costs by not having to support older models.

Or perhaps they just think of us all as sheep who won't be bothered to change.

I don't know. And Skype doesn't seem to be saying beyond their vague platitudes about how upgrading will benefit everyone.

Will Users Move To Alternatives?

The question is, of course, will users actually move to alternatives?

Judging by the outrage in many of those community forums it appears that Microsoft may have underestimated the technical problems that users would face with these upgrades. I see a lot of people saying they can't upgrade to Skype due to their operating system version or other issues.

Skype is effectively dead to them.

So in this case they will have to find an alternative because they simply can't use Skype.

But there is no easy way to know what percentage of people are affected by these upgrade issues. It could be quite small. It could be that the vast majority of users have automatically updated with no problem.

I took a look at Hudson Barton's Skype user statistics but unfortunately his system stopped collecting statistics on July 31st . He's restarted it now... but the data has been lost for this past week that might have shown us what, if any, impact there was. He is showing 77 million Skype users online right as I write this, which is consistent with recent numbers.

It's also not clear where Microsoft/Skype is in rolling out this forced upgrade to their users. From the user community posts it seems many people started experiencing this problem back on July 30th or 31st. I just received the notification this morning, August 6th. I know from others online that they are still using older versions and have not yet received the forced upgrade notice.

We've been here before, too. Back in December 2010 there was a Skype outage that disconnected almost everyone for several days. Many of us thought this might provide a push to people to try another service... and it didn't. Once the outage was over people generally went back to using Skype. It was easy - and the directory is there, i.e. so many people you know use Skype that it makes it super easy to connect with people that way.

Times are different in 2014, though. There are more and better choices than there were four years ago. Offerings from Apple, Google and Facebook all are quite compelling - and bring with them a directory of users. Perhaps not as many as on Skype, but still quite solid.

What will you do?

Switch to using more of another service such as iMessage, Google+ Hangouts or Facebook? Try out a startup such as Tox?[1] Use one of the many mobile apps?

Or will you just stick with Skype? (Assuming, of course, that you can upgrade.)


[1] Naturally I'm trying out Tox, but that's just because I'm always trying out new services... and hey, how can I not try out a service that encourages people to use IPv6? :-) (And if you want to try connecting to me there, my Tox ID is the incredibly hard to relay string of B1B85CBFB6DFBC72729F8D6113A626B116317A224C09A50BFB9C5ABDCCE5187A13701016DE8A ... I think they need to work a bit on the user experience for this to really be useful!)


If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:


Comments

Nale Dixon said...

Also factor in that over the past 3 months, Microsoft has "retired" the Office 2002 suite, effectively forcing out their longtime users. So now, programs like Front Page, Word, and Excel will no longer open. Meaning that folks will be scrambling (like I was) to access their own website, data, even text documents. With Front Page, even Microsoft's substitute program "Expression Web" is already discontinued. This is RUDE. And now, Microsoft has its way with Skype, and longtime users are forced out there, as well. WOW! I have already been struggling for 2 weeks to rebuild my workstation, and now you're telling me that Microsoft also doesn't like my version of Skype, and that I had better comply with them? Seriously? I guarantee that their rationale is "If you won't agree to our mandatory updates, we don't want your business." So, I had to CANCEL Skype, and everything else Microsoft-related. Yeah, NO THANKS. Frankly, when I saw that the Skype upgrade they were forcing on me had a Facebook component in it, that's where they TOTALLY lost me. Well, sorry that I don't have much of a solution here, just pointing out that MIcrosoft is really bad and I doubt they will ever see any more support from me. I also think users should be just prepared to abandon certain software programs. I just do. If your instinct tells you that a company is getting too pushy (Google Plus, anyone?) you can always choose just to walk away. Figure something else out. It was okay while it lasted. Am I right, or am I right?

Dan York said in reply to Nale Dixon...

Nale, Interesting, I was not aware that Microsoft had retired Office 2002. Again, I'm sure it was because they are tired of supporting what is to them 12- or 13-year-old software. (Assuming it probably came out in 2001.)

With Microsoft's recent layoffs, it's clear that they have to do things a bit differently... and it would seem that part of that is ending support for older software products to minimize their customer support issues.

For users, obviously, this is NOT desirable... and there will, I am sure, be some who try other options.

Justin Goldberg said in reply to Nale Dixon...

How can they force office 2002 to not open?

kenbaker@email.com said in reply to Nale Dixon...

Dead right I uninstalled this morning.

Justin Goldberg said...

I think the NSA is behind this as well. Too bad there's not a decent replacement that is both as easy to use as skype and is also impossible to shutdown, in a true peer-to-peer decentralized fashion.

Tim Holt said in reply to Justin Goldberg...

Are you serious? NSA and GMHQ are babes in the woods when it comes to snooping compared to Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc.

Jeff - VoipDIY said...

For me, Skype is essentially a non-entity anymore. I'm not really much of a mobile VoIP user anyway, so I don't depend on Skype these days. But, to put this in context, I was one of the early adopters of VoIP (perhaps at least 10 years ago when Skype was touting 3 million active users)and Skype back then was one of the few options available on a desktop PC. Back then, I would promote how good Skype was for me to use - but in return I got a lot of nasty comments back that Skype was "garbage"... Of course, those days are long gone and Skype has come a long ways and the masses have come to rave about Skype as the holy grail of desktop and mobile VoIP.

Now, I no longer use Skype (unless I have no other option available). There are just so many other ways to make low-cost, or free VoIP calls (or video chat). I spend most of my time working on a desktop PC and I do the majority of my calling with low-cost BYOD VoIP services and ATA's and IP-Phones. If I want to make a free PC based phone call, I do it with Gmail (via Google Apps, in my case).

As far as the forced upgrades go, I don't have a big issue with that for myself. While Microsoft may have other business and marketing motives for this move, security is my main motivation for keeping all my software fully up to date. Keeping in mind that software updates is the common method of continually upgrading our software to help fight back against hackers. I use Chrome as my primary web browser. Google regularly upgrades Chrome in the background, and usually without any user interaction. Besides feature upgrades, it also insures the latest security feature implementations, too.

Nobody really likes change - it a big nuisance - but, sometimes it is necessary.
But, like I said, Skype is mostly a non-entity in my world of VoIP....

robertbowen_emc@yahoo.com said...

to run an older version of skype on OSX...

add this line to the hosts file:

(/private/etc/hosts)

127.0.0.1 ui.skype.com

That will block skype from checking whether it's allowed to run the older version.

Pete said in reply to robertbowen_emc@yahoo.com...

Thanks, this sounds great but apparently doesn`t work as my skype is still asking for an update to latest version. Any ideas how to bypass this?

Tim Holt said...

I have stuck with Skype 2.8 because I hated the "Windoze" steal as much desktop real estate as possible attitude of the later versions and that it rooted around my computer.

But that's the way of the world: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/08/economist-explains-3

It was simple and worked.

Now I have to upgrade - and might just abandon it.

Wonder if they will refund me the money left on my account?

Jim said in reply to Tim Holt...

Skype automatically charged my credit card for my monthly subscription plan on July 31. I then discovered on Aug 2 (without having received email notices) that I could not log in nor upgrade due to being on a MAC 10.5.8 system like the rest of our graphics department. Now, I can't even log in to my account to close it and stop the automatic monthly billings. (Let alone even ask for a refund.)

Ironically, Skype does not have phone support to resolve customer issues and complaints. Mircosoft 800 number tech help guy was useless to. Rather than being able to point me somewhere obvious, he had to give me this customer chat url to type in by hand:

https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10656/what-is-live-chat-support

When I complained that this chat url should not be kept hidden like some secret code, he said sorry, that's all he could do. I asked him to hold while I checked the link and of course it turned out to be fruitless. The link immediately requires the user to log in to their Skype account to start the chat session!

Looks like I will have to contact my credit card company directly. I will be making every effort NOT to continue using Skype. I have been enjoying my Vonage service more and more these last two weeks.

Dave Lucas said...

It's all about money and forcing people to facebook and the cloud.
Keep watching the net for those who figure out how to MacGyver programs like Skype and Office - and turn off any Microsoft updates.

I has just empowered my Skype with a webcam when suddenly I got the notification about the old version. I went back to Skype 3.something - installed it - it has a box that displays when it is trying to update - you just click on that box and cancel! So simple!

mark said...

thanks robertbowen!

Mike said...

Well, I was using Skype 4.2 on Windows up until last week because I hope(d) that that version was old enough to maybe not have a NSA backdoor implemented which the Microsoft versions most certainly do.

So, the feature argument may be valid, but I think they also wanted to make sure that everyone has to use a NSA complient version.

Leon187 said...

Have anyone found workaround to login with older versions of Skype?

SkypeFan said...

I also hate(!) being forced to update. The 4.2 version was working just fine for me and my contacts until last week. No, we do not need "enhanced quality, better reliability or improved security". We also do not need any additional services like facebook-plugins or new protocols for displaying unwanted ads. If Microsoft wants to make Skype better for us, they should allow us to keep using previous versions. Using older versions has obviously not been any obstacle to a new development in the past 15 years and it will be hardly possible to find any arguments proving that suddenly the old versions have just now become an issue preventing the software development. You should also do not forget, that there were a couple of manufacturers like Asus, who brought to the market VoIP phones based on Skype a couple of years ago. Now when reading the forums you will see that all this equipment stopped working because of the retired skype versions. The official answer of Microsoft is that they do not care, as Asus itself stopped selling these devices two years ago(?!). Basically all VoIP phone owners have now a piece of equipment that has suddenly become useless, just because of some highly disputable commercial policies. I will keep my (currently not working) 4.2 version for another two weeks, and if they do not reconsider, then I will just uninstall it and say goodbye forever. I will also keep that bitter taste memorised for the future, when I will be considering the purchase or the usage of any other product from the same company or from a competitor.

Was_a_Skpye_Fan said...

This Sucks!.. My three Workstations running Windows XP-64 will not launch Skype anymore.. I'm take this piece of you know what off my machines! I'm now looking for a replacement software.. Any suggestions?

Ivan said in reply to Was_a_Skpye_Fan...

There appear to be some workarounds circling around the web. I'm using XP 64 as well and this version 4.2 of skype seems to be still working:

(EDITOR NOTE: I am uncomfortable publishing links to software whose origins I cannot verify. For that reason I published the comment to note that such workarounds exist - but removed the direct link to the software. - Dan)

HTC Desire Lover said...

I have been pushed out as a client by skype too. I can not use skype in my smarphone any longer.
I had a couple of smartphones that could have handle the new updates, but bouth of them have been stolen long ago, so I decided not to throw away my money a third time in the latest smartphone, and I bought a good old second hand 45 € Htc Desire. I have been using skype in my non Desired (at least by thiefs)smartphone for the last couple of years (rejecting updates of course), and I found out last week that I could not log in because I needed an update. But my phone, that works perfectly ok, suddenly does not support this brand new skype.

EX-skype user said...

One of the things i hate most is forcing me to use something i don't want to over something that i do.. so my answer to these new updates would be for skype TO GO F___ THEM SELFS! If you bring back versions like 3.6, 3.8, 4.0 i'll continue using skype.. otherwise as i said, go f___ yourselfs..

gsf said...

I'm still on snow leopard and this latest Skype upgrade doesn't work on it. It shows up on the toolbar, but that's it. Every time Skype "improves" something it becomes less and less intuitive. I tried un/reinstalling and reading forums but beyond that I'm not going to spend my life trying to solve this problem. The only thing now I need is to figure out how to get the $10 Skype credit back I just bought. I've had it.

wacker said...

Thanks guys, wondered why I couldn't sign-in on my 2005 iBook running 2.8. Ok, Apple need to start selling the new Broadwell (we live in hope!) Mac Mini I'd decided to uprate to. So it's back to emails in the meantime, or are they going to b#gg#r that up too?

Donnie said...

There's only 1 reason to (retire) older versions of any software, even if you love that version as an individual, and that it Gov Control, Nuff said?

Peter said...

Who cares? just update and get over it. You don't OWN them, so they can do whatever they want. If they want you to update it 3 times per day you will. If you have a problem with it, then stop using skype at all.

Tom said...

Hi Dan,

The "new" - "post-Balmer" Microsoft is all about monetizing users.

Microsoft intends to force its user base into cloud-based services and slowly convert them to paid subscribers, and Skype is being migrated to the "cloud" away from dedicated servers too. Also, the older versions of Skype such as 3.8 & 4.2 had well-known hacks to shut down advertisements, and the newer 6.xxx versions are much more robust against shutting down ads- keeps the advertising dollars flowing into MS's coffers. Microsoft will get its pound of flesh.

PS- do a search. Hacks are already being posted telling you how to get Skype 3.x, 4.x, 5.x working again . . . and even 6.2 for those masochistic users who seem to like running bloatware that takes up massive amounts of desktop real estate :)

powered by Typepad