Skype is going to start charging for calls to landlines and cell phones in the US. These calls, which were free, will now cost $30 a year.
Skype users will probably be all bent out of shape. They have viewed the service as a populist gravy train for free calling anywhere, anytime.
But, EBay did pay $2.5 billion for the VoIP company and it would probably like to get some of that back.
It is still open to debate whether the "click to call" service that allows Ebay vendors to talk to buyers using Skype makes any sense. The value of 136 million registered users is also in question, since almost none of them have paid anything for the service.
But, if they all pay $30….
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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