Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and assorted bits of hardware new and old.
Wednesday 13 August 2008, 1:43 PM
Why Skype Insists on Spouting Inflated User Numbers
The numbers presented in The Borderless Communicator are convincing, but I disagree with their conclusion. They suggest that the reason is that new Skype users are dissatisfied with Skype support (and thus must be dissatisfied with Skype itself, if they need support to begin with). I agree with that, as far as it goes. But I think a much larger factor is that Skype is not being tried at all by anywhere near the number of "new users" that the statistics would imply. I believe that the overwhelming majority of new Skype accounts created every day are in fact "throw-away" accounts created by the spammers and pornographers who now infest the Skype user space, and flood Skype users with contact requests and chat. Those accounts are created, used once (or a very small number of times and/or for a very limited period), and then discarded and never touched again.
How many of these are created every day? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Who knows? The Skype Cheerleading Squad (aka The Skype Journal) published detailed instructions on how to set up such a spamming system not long ago, so it is a safe bet that anyone with an interest in doing it can easily find out how. Skype is obviously very happy with the situation, as it tremendously inflates the number of "registered users", and helps them mask the fact that their real uptake and acceptance by new users has probably been declining for several years now.
jw 13/8/2008
PreviousComments on this post
I am "The Borderless Communicator" (http://glimfeather.com/index.html), and you sir have unfortunately gotten it wrong again. While it is true that Skype's count of "registered users" is terribly misleading, it is not untruthful and I do not believe it is misleading through intent. It simply is the only hard number that Skype has, so that's what they report.
My count of "real users" is a better measure of Skype usage but it is not a more honest measure. The fact is that it is a statistical calculation and not a hard number. The chief advantage of the "real user" estimate over other estimates is that it is not arbitrary in terms of methodology or analysis. It measures how well Skype is actually growing its business, and thereby goes beyond your noisy rhetoric about "throwaway users."
"Real Users" is growing at a very fast rate, somewhat faster than the Internet as a whole, so it is your effort to diminish that record that is less than honest. The other favorable statistic for Skype is that its revenue per real user is growing rapidly. The combination of those two rates reveals a company that has few peers anywhere on the Internet and zero peers among companies that participate in VOIP and IM spaces.
That being said, Skype's churn rate is rising. Its growth may someday turn negative (relative to its peers) if it is unable to participate fully in mobile markets, and unable to realize its potential in social networking. My own view is that Skype is running out of time with respect to these challenges. It needs to succeed in both areas. Right now it's succeeding in neither. I'm a realist.
You are not a realist. Two of your mistakes are that you refuse to understand Skype's superior technology and its overwhelming lead over its competition. Your worst mistake however is that you endlessly demean the integrity of Skype's leadership.
Thanks for reading, and commenting. Your opinion may be correct, and in fact it may be best for the health of this market segment if it is. However, I strongly disagree, not only with your interpretation of the numbers, but also with your opinion of Skype's "leadership". In my opinion, that is the single largest problem at Skype - the lack of leadership. If they had good leadership, they would not be a multi-million dollar company, with somewhere between 30 million and 320 million customers, and absolutely no competent technical support. They would not have an accounting department which takes their customers money and then blocks services, without explanation, and takes a minimum of four days to reply when asked by desperate customers what is going on. They would not be spending their time and effort on developing new versions which are despised by a large majority of the users who have tried them, yet which still contain all the same old bugs which have been driving their users to distraction for more than a year (probably closer to two years now). They would not be spouting unsubstantiated claims of "70% approval" of the new version, when in fact every shred of public comment on that version shows overwhelming rejection. That isn't leadership, it is deception, although perhaps including self-deception.
In my opinion what has happened is that the "leadership" of Skype believes that they have already become "too big to fail", and they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, with total disregard for what their users and paying customers say, need or want. They believe that they are the equivalent of Microsoft, they know best in every situation, and the rest of the world just needs to learn to understand that. That may be proven to be correct, but I hope not.
Again, thanks for reading and sharing your opinion.
jw 14/8/2008
As my mother taught me, when you demean someone's integrity, especially in public, it says more about you than about them.
Skype is facing new competitors today that it did not face in 2005. I agree with you that its leaders don't have a clue how to compete against multi-faceted communication platforms like iPhone, RIM, Facebook and Google. That doesn't mean they don't see their predicament. They're scared to death.
Possibly true. But I have yet to see anyone prove that the statements I have made in my blog are not true. If they are demeaning, that's sad.
For the case in point, you came up with the numbers, which I thought were very good and very important. You made your own interpretation and opinion of them. My interpretation and opinion differs from yours. I included statements which I believe support my opinion, and a clear qualification saying that I have no way of knowing how many of those "new user accounts" created every day are throw-aways. The only ones who have any chance of even approximating that number is Skype, and they are obviously not interested or willing to do that. If there is anyone other than you and I reading this blog, they will have to decide for themselves what is more likely.
The situation is the same as it was in the discussion with Mr. Durchslag. He made an unsubstantiated claim that Skype has 70% approval for the 4.0 beta. I provided data from the only public sources available, which support my claim of overwhelming rejection of that beta. Again, anyone else who might read that exchange will have to decide for themselves which is more likely correct.
I do agree with you about one thing, though. They are scared to death. I would be too, if I had recently cost my owners such a substantial write-off.
jw 14/8/2008
GREAT DISCUSSION...on both parties!! i agree slightly on both ends. Skype is becoming more used throught this generation but at the same time it is not all it is cracked up to be. To many bugs and possible security flaws! Thru time skype will learn more but for now there are other services that are better!!
@stl_saint - Thanks for reading and commenting. I'm glad that you find the discussion interesting and useful. I think it is important for others to know that there are a number of very good alternatives to Skype available (far too many seem to think that Skype is the only game in town), that some of those alternatives are significantly better than Skype in many ways, and that if something doesn't work, with Skype or any of the alternatives, the users deserve and should expect adequate, competent customer support (which they certainly are not getting from Skype).
