On November 1, 2018, Microsoft officially ruined Skype.
This was a long time coming. They've been trying to encourage everyone to go to "New Skype" for quite some time -- a version with a cleaner interface, but with a huge reduction in features.
Sadly the 2008 Skype was vastly superior in functionality to the 2018 Skype. How do you release a software product which is INFERIOR feature-wise to the version you had a decade ago?
Microsoft found a way.
Everyone hates new Skype, yet they don't seem to give a shit.
On November 1, they no longer allow you to use old Skype versions. They simply won't connect.
Unless there's a workaround of which I'm unaware, I'm going to have to let Skype go.