🔗 Skype is dead. What happened? - On my Om

🔗 Daring Fireball

Microsoft now talks about Teams being their focus, showing that even today they haven’t realized what made Skype a cultural, consumer force. Microsoft Teams is a terrible product – and I dread using it. In simplest terms, Teams is a perfect encapsulation of a bureaucratic, archaic, and outdated 50-year-old company that is trying to reinvent itself as an AI leader.

💬 Om Malik

It single-handedly destroyed the long-distance calling business. Most young people today don’t remember, but long-distance calls used to cost a lot of money. Especially for immigrants, calling home used to cost a fortune. Skype made it free.

💬 Om Malik

In the early days of podcasting, seemingly every show used Skype because it was so much better than anything else. And it was free! It felt like the future. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that if not for Skype, podcasting would’ve been set back several years.

💬 John Gruber

Sharing these - and Om nailed it in that second quote.

Especially for immigrants, calling home used to cost a fortune. Skype made it free.

I was one of those immigrants calling home.

SAD.

Final

In August 2024 he was ‘considering’ a complete and permanent move to New Zealand. Read More

As of yesterday he’s outta here - Kiwi passport in hand - and still hanging on to a large chunk of property in the South Island.

• Other than that what exactly was that all about?
• How much of that wealth trickled into New Zealand?
• How did it benefit any Kiwi?

It was a publicity stunt. The Kiwis were played. And they are going to be played again because National have just brought that idea back …

New Zealand changes ‘golden visa’ to lure wealthy migrants

To Remind Real Thiel’ emerged in his attack on Gawker.

But his Palantir investment is tanking …. but am sure that it will all be ok once his old Paypal mates ‘sort out America’

And please don’t cry too much. After dropping 30% in the past 5 days, the Palantir price is still UP 150% just since August last year.

I just spotted that Giancarlo Esposito was in this - and I decided that I should add a review - because it was ... is ... so good.

It started well … it went on fine .. until the last 15 minutes. Queued up for a sequel .. but I don’t think so.

Over on LinkedIN .. 🔗 The downfall of Soho House.

Turns out that SH is in the ‘dodo’. Personally not surprised. Never a member - often as a guest back in the day - but more recently as I noticed that ‘everyone was a member’, I felt something was up - but too many other rabbit holes to dive into.

Back in the day it was a wonderful place. Seems to me that it fails for similar reasons that exclusive fine dining restaurants and this ‘boutique wineries’ ultimately fail .. you can’t scale exclusivity.

‘But what about Patek Philippe Watches and Hermes bags’ I hear you cry. ‘Different’ I reply. Product - not service. You can manage the demand. For example - there are Hermes bags for sale that you can’t buy - even if you can afford one.

Anyway - back to Soho. This came to mind.

That’s why it was predictable.