If there was any doubt that eBay sees Skype as a global linchpin, consider that today’s announcement was made from London at a time covenient for the European press. In a sense, the greatest impact ePaySkype has on the content biz is something Rafat alluded to earlier this morning: it removes the single largest potential purchase out there from consideration. No more News Corp. rumors. No Google or Yahoo Skype hype. Skype clearly priced itself out of rational reach for most companies, seeing more potential in an e-commerce component than as a complement to other services offered by media and search companies. Meanwhile, some of those companies found other ways—some are still looking—to get what they want or most immediately need in terms of VoIP.
As for ePaySkype, each unit should get a boost from the other in the short term that will help make numbers. The big questions won’t be answered until a year or two from now when the low-hanging fruit has been picked and Skype’s growth has slowed down considerably from the 150,000-a-day current pace.
It’s also worth remembering that while eBay and PayPal have fervent users, each also has managed to alienate some users with various policies. Skype may have as much of a balancing act keeping current users happy as MySpace.com will with its acquisition by News Corp.
It occurs to me this also removes some of the doubt about Skype as a business model, at least in 1999 terms: if you build it, they will buy.