The 1 billion download club on the Play Store is a pretty exclusive ones, with most apps belonging to Google's or Facebook's (including WhatsApp) conglomerate. Now Skype is joining this elite club and getting the coveted 1 billion round bubble on its Play Store listing.

There was a time when video calling someone was synonymous with Skyping: very few other competing services existed and even then, they weren't as attractive since everyone was on Skype. But with Facetime, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger's video calls, Hangouts, and the more recent Duo, Skype feels like the old exec who's trying to stay relevant by throwing "cloud" and "mobile-first" at every board meeting. The recent updates to the app have brought a more personal feel, which I think isn't nearly enough to bring in the regular crowd but even worse, it alienated the business crowd that I still feel is the crux of the user base. Anecdotally, I installed Duo on my mom's and my mother-in-law's phones over the past week and they both had the same reaction: "this is so much faster than Skype." I couldn't agree more, I haven't used Skype in months and now I have less reasons to do so. I just Duo.

So I guess I'm saying congrats to Skype for reaching 1 billion downloads, even though I don't really recommend the app. Artem tells me Skype Lite is so much better (sign up for the beta first) and I'll take his word for it.