Skype started out as a peer to peer VoIP tool. Microsoft who now own Skype turned it into a centralised thing, with unfettered access for the US intelligence services, and further diluted the Skype name with Skype for Business which isn’t Skype at all (and doesn’t interact with ‘consumer’ Skype).
Today on the back text of a book I just bought I came across an endorsement by one of Skype’s founders, and I thought back to the conversation we once had in his living room. That made me ask myself the question:
Are there currently any VoIP software tools for individuals that work peer to peer as Skype was originally envisioned?
Now it maybe an easy question with an obvious answer, and I know there are standards for it out there. But are there any applications out there that implement P2P VoIP? If not, why not? Shouldn’t there be, as when Microsoft subverted Skype, they left a niche didn’t they?
@ton Signal?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Servers
Signal (software) – Wikipedia
Signal, as it made clear in https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/26/taking-back-our-privacy, is dogmatically not decentralized.
Nextcloud Talk is P2P-first (https://nextcloud.com/talk/). Unfortunately it’s also, in my experience, somewhat flaky at present, and is focused on use within the enterprise, so although you can use it with “guests” (outsiders), that’s not at all intuitive.
@metbril relies on cemtralised servers afaik
@ton depending on your use case. This was used by Hong Kong protesters. https://bridgefy.me/
Home | Bridgefy
@ton not sure if p2p, but platforms like rocket chat, matrix, Nextcloud talk should all be at least self-hostable.What’s ultimately the goal in your situation?
@ton jitsi is P2P when just 2 people meet. When a 3rd joins, it routes via the Jitsi server.
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