Are U on Skype,then shell out 30 bucks
In an attempt to justify its $2.6 billion purchase of Skype, eBay plans on charging $30 a year for Skype calls to regular landline and mobile phones. (Calls between computers will continue to be free). How many of Skype’s 136 million registered users will opt in for this is unclear, but even if it is just a small fraction, eBay will be making more money from Skype than it is today.
This is a deliberate shift in strategy, given that CEO Meg Whitman was predicting the era of free voice calls a year ago, when she said in a conference call:
In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the Net will trend toward zero.
I guess she changed her mind. Don Thorson, vice president of marketing for Skype competitor Jajah, says:
It sounds to me like a low-cost Vonage. Why would they do that?
But the bigger question is how many of Skype’s free-loading customers will be alienated by this move and try one of Skype’s many (and growing number of) competitors like Gizmo, Jajah, and Yahoo. Especially since some of the other Internet phone services are considering offering free calls to regular phones supported by advertising. Meanwhile, Jajah is offering free phone calls to any landline in 80 countries on Christmas Day to try to get more people to try its service. That one-day promotion is open to about 3.5 billion people.
Skype was the ultimate disruptor of the telephone industry because it introduced the concept of free calls. But now that it wants to start charging for some of those calls, we’ll soon see if it can compete with free.
