In 2003 two men from a Swedish telecom company Tele2 named Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis created Skype. With the help from three Estonian men the software for Skype was developed. These three men Jaan Tallinn, Ahti Heinla and Priit Kasesalu had previously created the first ever computer game that was sold by Estonians. Zennström, Friis and Tallinn had also worked on an early (now discontinued) peer-to-peer file sharing service called Kazaa.
These men partnered up and in the August of 2003 the first public version of Skype was released. Skype is a service that allows for instant messaging, voice and video calls, file transfer and even calls over landline networks. It was revolutionary in that it reduced the cost of voice calls because it used a peer-to-peer protocol for which, Friis and Annus are credited for.
In 2005 Skype was acquired by eBay for 2.5 billion dollars. In 2011 it was acquired by Microsoft after which it was integrated into many Microsoft products including the Windows Store for desktop and mobile apps. Microsoft even discontinued their own Windows Live Messenger and replaced it with Skype. Today Skype is available on almost any platform such as iOS, Linux, macOS, Android and even the Xbox.
Skype's traffic continued to grow, reaching 40% of all international calls made with Skype in 2014. However, a security flaw was discovered in Skype in 2010. Anyone could get your IP address from Skype. Because of the peer-to-peer technology used in Skype you were directly connecting to other users which meant that their IP address was revealed. It took them 6 years to finally fix this issue.
During the 2020 coronavirus outbreak people were forced to work and learn from home, which drove users to video conferencing services such as Skype. Skype saw a massive increase in its user count, about 70%. But there was a better option. In 2021, Zoom became the most used video call service worldwide and with that Skype lost about 25% of its users.
Today, Skype isn't the preferred choice for personal use for a lot of people. Services like Discord and Zoom have taken over for many reasons such as privacy or massive calls with dozens of people. But Skype still has its uses. It is still built in to Windows making it convenient to use. A lot of businesses still choose Skype over anything else and you can make calls over landline which is a unique feature.
Sources:
https://www.skype.com
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/09/skypes-secrets/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazaa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype
https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-CIOB-286
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-skype-sees-massive-increase-in-usage-as-coronavirus-spreads/
https://www.pcmag.com/news/zooms-success-during-the-pandemic-came-at-skypes-expense
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