Liking Skype and Skype being profitable on the scale neccessary to justify its acquisition price are two different venues.
The goal of skype was to empower the eBay users and drive more users to eBays core auction business. It never materialized. The probelm is that VoIP services have a tendency to try and compete by being free or near free. It's not that there is no cost associated with the technology, but that's the easiest, least creative way to pull customers.
VoIP is evolutionary not revolutionary. They treated it as something revolutionary and made a messy business acquisition that was far outside their realm of expertise.
The goal of skype was to empower the eBay users and drive more users to eBays core auction business. It never materialized. The probelm is that VoIP services have a tendency to try and compete by being free or near free. It's not that there is no cost associated with the technology, but that's the easiest, least creative way to pull customers.
VoIP is evolutionary not revolutionary. They treated it as something revolutionary and made a messy business acquisition that was far outside their realm of expertise.