Microsoft shut down one of the most popular apps ever

During Covid, my family struggled with Zoom meetings—some had cameras in awkward places, others couldn’t get their mics working.

At that time, I had been using Zoom for some work meetings and some broadcasting. I was also still using Microsoft Teams for certain meetings (most of which were with actual Microsoft employees), and I had a few colleagues who insisted on using Google Hangouts, a now-defunct product that never made a major mark.

During that period, however, Zoom became the default video conferencing brand for a variety of reasons that may never have come to be had it not been for the pandemic forcing schools, families, and other non-business users to need a video conferencing solution.

I even had one weekly meeting, a recording session for a podcast, that took place over Skype, Microsoft’s second-tier videoconferencing system behind the emerging Teams.

You could argue that, of all the platforms named above, Skype was the biggest loser during the…