And calling Australia costs me 0 öre/minute, since my kid is apparently the only member of my family clueful enough to install and use Skype.

It's time for POTS to be put out to pasture, in any case.

You were using Skype strictly for IM?

The Android client worked just fine prior to the MS takeover, thanks.

Since then, they've been dumbing down the interface and removing functionality from it just as fast as they can.

I sometimes get better audio quality via Skype than I do making POTS calls, on the same mobile phone.

I remember when cigarettes reached 60 cents a pack and I swore I'd quit if they ever reached a dollar.

Now they cost me about 50 Swedish crowns, so I'm not sure whether that means I have to quit now, or what. ;-)

That's right. Now, can some developers kindly learn this, and apply it?

I have similar issues with my mother and my daughter.

Can't get Mom to use Skype because it's some program that didn't actually come with her PC and it's therefore Unknown and therefore Too Scary.

Can't get the kid off Skype because none of her school friends have ever heard of Viber or Jitsi, and therefore they're Unknown and therefore Not Fully Sick.

(Dad is even worse: He just says, "This would all work out a lot better if everybody would just switch to AppleTalk." *facepalm*)

That is, he lives with the wife in Sweden, the parents live in the US, the kid lives in NSW... heh.

BTW, an interesting fact about wives which I'd forgot in between marriages: They ring their mothers and talk to them for at least 2 hours every weekend. Do you have any bloody idea what a 2-hour POTS call from Stockholm to Guangzhou costs? If it weren't for Skype, I'd be living in a cardboard box. :D

TFTFY, says the bloke with US parents, an Aussie daughter, and a Chinese wife (we got married in September, if anyone cares) with whom he lives in Sweden.

That would be Sakhalin.

Some Americans recall the alternative, perhaps.

Or did you think that li'l ol' war was just going to end itself?

Don't you mean, "'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds"?

Well, we *did* get free international video calling and a rather nice operating system out of the deal.

But, yeah, it feels like the dream is pretty much over.

Bit of both IMNSHO.