Yesterday Skype announced a new update for Skype Beta. It contains the usual bug fixes, and a brand new feature: Skype Prime Beta.

Skype Prime enables paid Skype-to-Skype calls and video calls, in order for experts to be able to gain some revenue from their expertise. It works like a normal free-call at the beginning, and when the “expert” decides he can ask for a “payment request” from the caller, one time fee, or a minute based fee. Everything sounds great so far, not depending on borders anymore to make paid calls to experts, but it has a few drawbacks. First of all, Skype charges 30% from the revenue, so a person who has enabled Skype Prime Beta for his expertise, and stays 100 minutes on the line with a $1 fee per minute will end up with about $70 in his pocket, the rest goes to Skype, and that only if he resides in a country which is covered by PayPal, because you cannot use Skype Prime if you don’t have a PayPal account.

Another thing that comes to mind, are certain people who would just love to use this in a different way. Yes, You’re thinking what I’m thinking, sex calls, video chat, and so on. Is someone at Skype going to monitor that? If yes, where is the privacy between a lawyer who wants to share his expertise through Skype Prime and his customers? lots of questions come to mind right about now.

TechCrunch reported this, and the original announcement is here.

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