detailed in a post on the official Skype blog, with a confirmation in the comments that group screen sharing is now also free:
“While Skype is known for one to one video calling, we know it’s also essential to connect with the groups of people who matter most, whether friends, family or colleagues. For the last few years, we’ve offered group video calling to Premium users on Windows desktop and Mac and more recently Xbox One. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re making group video calling free – for all users on these platforms. And, in the future, we’ll be enabling group video calling for all our users across more platforms – at no cost.”Skype can handle up to 10 people in a group video chat, in case you were wondering. Now while the official Skype apps have made leaps in progress over the past few months, work still remains to completely streamline them for users of the service. This and fixing the various niggles, and we should be pretty much there.]]>
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I don’t want to sound like a spoiled, internet guy, but this should’ve been free a long time ago! Once google hangouts started, Skype should’ve been right on top of this. At least they’re realizing it now.
My feelings exactly. The only reason most other people I know, including myself, still use Skype is because of the name recognition. Every alternative boasts better features that still work just as well, yet lack the market dominance and name recognition to get others to use them.
About 2-3 years late, but I guess it’s better than never.
I second this. Skype gets by on name still because it was a trailblazer of sorts a while back. However, Google Hangouts took over and Skype didn’t react accordingly. As you said though, they’re at least doing it now. It could be too late in my opinion.
The one thing I will say for Skype over Google Hangouts is the video and audio quality has typically been a little better in my experience. Maybe it’s just me, but I do think they have the edge in that.
Skype should be free. I’m sure they’re not making that much money off premium features of Skype. Skype like some other apps are going to be part of the core OS for the most part. If it’s going to be a main part of the OS experience, it should be free