Most of Skype's commonly-used features have always been free, but one aspect the Microsoft-owned company has kept behind a paywall is group video calls. That will no longer be the case as the company today announced it will be allowing free video conferences on PC, Mac, and Xbox One to those without subscriptions.
Voice calls with more than two people have always been free, but attempting to turn on video during a call brought up a message informing you that this was a feature limited to Premium members. Skype has changed its strategy, presumably figuring it's more beneficial to have users stay on the service for video calls as opposed to seeking out alternatives.
"While Skype is known for one to one video calling, we know it's also essential to connect with the groups of people who matter most, whether friends, family or colleagues," the official blog said. "For the last few years, we've offered group video calling to Premium users on Windows desktop and Mac and more recently Xbox One."
"Today, we're excited to announce that we're making group video calling free - for all users on these platforms. And, in the future, we'll be enabling group video calling for all our users across more platforms - at no cost."
A visit to the Skype Premium page now greets you with this message: "Now that group video calls are free for everyone, we've removed Premium to give it a refresh. But don't worry, you can still call phones worldwide at great low rates with our subscriptions."
Subscriptions still exist for international calling, but the Premium service no longer held an advantage and is temporarily off the table.
