While all of those things are (apparently) possible in Skype and friends, they haven't been the focus, or what the product is all about. I use Skype on a weekly basis perhaps (not an expert, but a regular-Joe user), and replicating the kind of experience presented in the article seems like it would be a huge hassle, if not impossible based on my knowledge of Skype. That matters a hell of a lot more than whether or not it's possible, especially when it comes to adoption of an application for certain use cases.

Skype and Hangouts are synonymous with video calling/conferencing, and that's it. They may have more features tucked away somewhere, but it's not what they are.