The question if it works or not is one of many, not the most important. Thats the wonderful thing about our society: Even though it's said that consumers make rational choices, in fact they don't. There's always a lot of emotion ínvolved. (Like people buying a certain brand because its associated with "young", "free", "independent" - even though they sell furniture which has no potential of making you any more free or independent ) Likewise, the choice for a certain technology is (at least for some of us) influenced in part by moral aspects. We use OGG vorbis partly because it has better quality, but also because its free - even though there's hassle getting the codec to work on some platforms. We use GNU/Linux partly because we like its flexibility, but also because we support an ideology - even though its a nightmare getting the webcams and scanners to work. So: No, I dont think the most important point is if it actually works. Consuming only what works and whats easily available is somewhat irresponsible, even indecent. Skype (via EBay) and Google both have a very negative reputation - you know, privacy concerns, closed system, connections to US-administration, all this kind of stuff. They're not the companies I would voluntarily provide additional information like where I am, who I talk to etc.