Every European country has its own plug.

"But Skype’s computers are only lightly involved in making users visible to each other and facilitating the connection; they are not all involved in the actual transmission of voice, that computing power all comes from the users own computers. Since these calls are computer to computer and don’t touch the traditional phone network, they don’t pass the toll booths of the phone companies which control last mile phone connections."

Skype's computers are involved just to address the call, as any computer of any VoIP provider.

That itself proves the fact that building as they say "A Network in the Network" is completely useless for the user, but highly remunerative for the provider.

Skype had undoubtedly the merit of having introduced to the mass market the technology of VoIp, which was not so new.
They just arrived at the right moment with the right product.

In principle, I do not understand why they were so successful, where others, who came much sooner than them, were not.
Perhaps was the quality of voice, most probably the fame of Kazaa.

When you already have a huge number of customers for one service is not difficult to keep them and upgrade the number offering something that looks "similar".
What people do not understand, because they are brought to not understand, is the fact that Skype doesn't offer more than others, in one way it offers even less, but, as I said many times, it is not the way something is, it is the way it is "packaged" that sometimes makes the product.

And that is what marketing people are well aware of.

To sell something sometimes it is easier if you know the psychology of your customer more than his needs.
The society of today, the economic society of today, CREATES more than FILLING needs.

It is a proof of it the enormous quantity of useless gadgets created to fill useless needs.
Ours sometimes is the society of the "Must have" of the "Must achieve" more than the "Simple being".
And it creates unsatisfied, useless people in order to produce more useless products.

As a matter of fact, it is probably the need of our economy to produce similar tools for similar uses.
In Europe we have at least 30 different types of electric plugs, at least three or four for every European country.
And that is not because they have different uses or qualities, in principle all of them do the same job in the same way.
But the few millimetres more or less make one plug unusable into another socket.
And that creates a huge market where there would be a very limited one.
The life of a plug is relatively long, so long that you wouldn't buy another for a certain time.
But then, they have to create the need for you to buy a new one.
That is why if you go from Cuneo to Menton which is a few kilometers away, you need to buy a new set of plugs if you want to shave or use your hair dryer.

Then if you happen to go to visit Geneva or Lugano the same problem arises.
And if you dare to push yourself as far as to Zurich, there you probably find something more similar to the German plugs than to the French or Italian.

And if they bothered to do all this for a simple, cheap and stupid stuff like a plug, would they loose the chance to do the same for a VoIP device or Network?