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skype alternatives do have a (small) chance despite strong network effects. 1/ policy makers do not like running a third-party closed-source obfuscated binary
by thisisfmu 16y ago
skype alternatives do have a (small) chance despite strong network effects.
1/ policy makers do not like running a third-party closed-source obfuscated binary with undefined behavior aggressively evading firewalls inside their business or country (in the case of China).
2/ the network effects are not nearly as strong as, for instance, ebay's. i do not care about being able to call random strangers on skype, only about my contacts. the scope of the network effect is to some extent that of a social group, not an entire market.
- pmjordan 16y agoThe network effects are (luckily) also not exclusive. There's no reason why you can't use Skype AND a SIP phone AND GNU phone software - the only time it's an issue is when you want to do a conference call. That said, if GNU want to win this one, they'd better not make freedom their main "selling" point. Skype's usability and reliability leave some room for improvement, and users might care about those points enough to switch.
- tomjen3 16y agoActually in this case they can win on freedom and they can do so by telling people that anybody can listen to their phonecalls (which is very likely true, almost certainly with a warrant) -- people care about their privacy (even though most likely nobody cares what they are saying). But more importantly Skype can fix the ux. They cannot fix the freedom issue (and if they somehow manage to do so anyway, great).
- tghnjtghn 16y ago>only about my contacts So Alice has to install Google talk to call you, skype to call Bob and SIP to talk to Carol Meanwhile Bob has microsoft phone to talk to ....