When the World Connected on Skype

It’s the end of an era: Today, May 5, 2025, the world bids farewell to Skype, the video-calling service that connected people for more than two decades. “For those of a certain generation,” write Isra Fejzullaj, Rina Chandran, and Michael Zelenko, “Skype changed everything.” For many around the globe, it was the go-to way to stay in touch—free of charge—with loved ones overseas. It also served as a digital bridge between countries such as Estonia and the wider world, and became an essential tool for running businesses. In this playfully designed Rest of World feature, longtime users reflect on how Skype became a lifeline.

At its peak, Skype had about 300 million users around the world. But it was a product of the desktop era, and as users went mobile, Skype lost its edge to upstarts like WhatsApp and FaceTime. Today, the app is forgotten on most phones and computers, particularly in the West. ⏰

To me, Skype meant a window to the world, and a milestone in my adulthood when I started making deep connections with others.

There was a Bollywood fan community, a Shah Rukh Khan fan community, a One Direction fan community. I was not a very popular teenager, so I did not have many friends in school. But then I found a lot of like-minded people on these communities and they were from around the world.