So much nostalgia! I wonder if Skype being presented as a 'voice first' ie synchronous first service harmed its prospects. WhatsApp won as it provided 'the best' SMS alternative and that's what people wanted. Of course Zoom / Teams have given new life to synchronous interactions now.
Yes, had great fun going down multiple lanes of memory. 💾
Good point - I remember looking at KPN's earnings a year after WhatsApp had come out and it was night and day - in basically a year, WhatsApp had "eaten" the SMS business, as it did elsewhere (I remember a presentation from a DeutscheTelekom economist showing how many more lines or data bundles they were going to have to sell to make up for the earnings hit).
This, of course, would imply that Skype, which predated WhatsApp, had *not* been used as an SMS substitute - SMS definitely co-existed with it despite the obvious functional benefits of Skype (e.g. encryption, file sharing etc).
So much nostalgia! I wonder if Skype being presented as a 'voice first' ie synchronous first service harmed its prospects. WhatsApp won as it provided 'the best' SMS alternative and that's what people wanted. Of course Zoom / Teams have given new life to synchronous interactions now.
Yes, had great fun going down multiple lanes of memory. 💾
Good point - I remember looking at KPN's earnings a year after WhatsApp had come out and it was night and day - in basically a year, WhatsApp had "eaten" the SMS business, as it did elsewhere (I remember a presentation from a DeutscheTelekom economist showing how many more lines or data bundles they were going to have to sell to make up for the earnings hit).
This, of course, would imply that Skype, which predated WhatsApp, had *not* been used as an SMS substitute - SMS definitely co-existed with it despite the obvious functional benefits of Skype (e.g. encryption, file sharing etc).
This phone booth in Toyama basically embodies the phone booth described in this post
https://substack.com/profile/11111028-jon-metzler/note/c-125654719?r=6m5bo&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action