Something tells me it was more of a move that Microsoft made to make sure they didn't lose regular customers who would still end up paying for other services (Not to mention even if you don't use the paid features, they advertise on it and therefor still make money from you using them).
Honestly, I'm not that big of a fan of Skype. I REALLY hated the way it worked on Windows. It's actually pretty different on Ubuntu, and I don't really dislike the setup now (If I had to be honest, I actually like the setup than Google +), but I'd still rather use something like Google +. Of course, I use a lot of Google services so I have good reason to like their social network.
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)