Why I Hate Skype

I really, really hate Skype. I hate Skype almost as equally as much as I hate Christopher Columbus - if you know me personally you know how big of deal this is. Christopher Columbus (the “CC word,” as I refer to him) is the scum of the Earth, and if I had three wishes I would go back in time and use my three wishes to sink every single one of his ships, The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Mariahhhhhhhhhhhhh (that is the sound that Columbus would make as he sank into the cold ocean and DIED).

Anyways...

I didn’t realize how much I hated Skype until I met the love of my life: Google Hangouts. I believe that Google Hangouts are one of the most underused - yet best distance communication platforms. I’ve already mentioned this once in one my other blog posts, but I thought that Google Hangouts deserved a proper post to itself.

There is no doubt that Skype is the most popular way to video chat, I mean the word ‘skype’ has become its own verb: “are we skyping tonight?” and “I’ll skype you later.” But Google Hangouts, if more people knew about it, I believe, would easily surpass Skype. It has so many more features than Skype that are FREE to use. Using these two articles, (1 and 2) as well as my own experiences, I have compiled a list of reasons why Google Hangouts is better than Skype.

Google Hangouts, (which I may refer to as ‘GH’ throughout this blog) allows up to ten people at once to be in a video conference, and while Skype allows up to 25 people, you have to pay in order to get that feature. I’ve used a Hangout before with five other people when we were all studying for a big test we had the next day. It was so much easier than having to find a place to collaborate and waste gas driving all around to get there. I’ve also used a Hangout when I tutor kids down in Salt Lake, GH has this great feature that allows you write on the screen that Skype doesn’t offer. So when I’m up here at college and one of the kids I tutor needs help, I can just open a hangout and draw out the equations on the screen so that they can see my work when solving the problem.

Whenever I have used Skype in the past or observed someone using it, I always had connectivity problems. The screen would freeze, people get cut off, the audio stops working or isn’t clear, you name it and I most likely dealt with it. The great thing about GH is that it rarely has any bandwidth problems. I disagree with the first article mentioned above, I think GH quality exceeds that of Skype. The number of times that I have had to end a Skype call because of bad connection is much higher than that of GH. With Hangouts, you can also call landline and cell phone participants for free as long as they are in the US or Canada. Skype charges a per minute fee for this.

Another awesome feature of GH is that besides being able to write on the screen, there are other ‘apps’ that you can use too. It provides a suite of productivity apps that let users share what’s on their screen, collaborate in Google Docs, and view presentations and diagram. There’s also these really fun emojis that you can use on the screen, sound bits that you can play, and you can change the background of where you’re at - so it looks like you’re on a beach or on the Megatron in Times Square.

Above all, my favorite part of GH is that there are FILTERS. Yes, you better believe it. Everyone loves a good filter, that’s why Snapchat and Instagram are so popular! On Skype I always looked really gross in the video - I looked pasty white and I couldn’t find a decent angle to be at. On GH, you can alter the lighting and make it look much more like yourself than usual. It’s pretty great. There are some effects you can add to in Skype as well, but the variety is much better in GH.

Overall, my experience with GH has been one billion times better than Skype and I encourage you all to use it next time you make a videocall.