To be honest, I haven't paid much attention to Skype since eBay arrived on the scene. After that deal went down, it seemed like Skype lost its momentum or, least, its rebellious buzz. Of course, Skype is still moving forward within the eBay empire but there appear to be troubling signs on the horizon. SBC CEO Ed Whitaker's recent "rant" in BusinessWeek about how Web-based services such as Yahoo, Skype and Google may have to pay to ride on his company's high-speed is the first shot in what could be a nasty war over who has the "right" to travel on the Web and what, if anything, to do have to pay. Skype also seems to be headed for a battle with carriers and cablecos with a deal to sell its service and phones through RadioShack (hat tip to Om Malik for putting the spotlight on this agreement). As Om succinctly points out, it may be just a matter of time before Radio Shack's phone partners "put the squeeze" on it. (Om also wonders Skype is going to have QoS issues). Fundamentally, I think eBay acquired Skype at the zenith of its popularity, industry impact and value - kudos to Tim Draper and Niklas Zennstrom for their brilliant orchestration of the sale. As VoIP quickly goes from novelty to mainstream consumer service, the need for Skype for many consumers will disappear except for hard-core users and people who want a softphone on their desktop. Rather than being a telecom play, Skype's real potential could be as a pay-per-call play - that is, if PPC materializes financially anywhere near how pay-per-click (Thank you, Bill Gross!) has performed. If you're looking for another sign of Skype's demise, check out Skype Killer, which lets IT administrator quickly eradicate Skype from their networks. When this market becomes a growth industry, it's lights out Skype! Russell Shaw provides a step-by-step lowdown on how Skype Killer works - complete with screen shots.