How many people REALLY use video chat though? I mean more than once a year. Even among techies and businesspeople, video chat rarely seems to have an advantage over regular voice chat.
Ever been in a long distance relationship, missing your kids when you're away from home, or just want to see someone's face? Video chat isn't as convenient as voice chat, but when you want to take some time out to really talk to someone, it's the closest thing to face to face.
Also, I think video chat works better and will pretty much always work better on computer than on smartphones. There's a much better screen, you don't have to hold it just right, and it's easier to sit down and make time for a video chat on a computer. If you're looking at the numerous failed attempts at video chat on phones, I can see how you'd see it as useless, but Skype is different.
I live a long, long way from my family. It's impossible to describe how much of a difference Skype with video makes. Similarly, I live in Europe and work for an American company. I can assure you that voice is not the same as voice and video for maintaining relationships with people. For both of those use cases, video makes it orders of magnitude easier to get the feeling of being near someone.
