"Introducing Skype Lite Built for India - Chat and share with friends."

it appears to exist only for Android phones.

It's nothing but a joke that you'd have to switch to a "lite" version that is built explicitly for India [because of bad infrastructure] just to make it work in a country with much better infrastructure.

It's like buying a low-end car built for Indian market, because your regular car doesn't fit on the narrow roads in the US, the fuel consumption is too high, it leaks oil constantly and there is no service because nobody cares.

This is a worthless analogy, because some software is paired down and is "built for india" it sucks?

A paired down debloated skype sounds like a godsend to me.

...that's not what they were saying at all. The insults were being heaped on the 'normal' skype.

And skype lite is definitely lacking in configuration, like the ability to make emoticons less annoying.

(I've also switched to skype lite for the remaining two chats I'm in that use skype, now that the slightly-older android version stopped connecting and the newest interface is amazingly painful and laggy.)

It that like the Facebook Lite app that's geofenced to emerging countries? How bloated an app has to be to make a company with the size of M$ to create an alternative client?

I (relatively) happily use the Facebook Lite app in Ireland where I got it from Play Store. I'm not sure we're emerging from anything.