[-KarumA-]

I think I have been kept in the dark about the whole hotmail is stopping and changing to outlook thing. I have never got any email about this topic I just read about it in comments of a news message that MSN is stopping too.
My question then is are there consequences for someone like me? I have used hotmail for my primary leisure email adress since I first got internet, I do not use any other service really; I don't use Skype often (in fact I only used it about 3 times this year for projects )and registered that account to my gmail, have no windows phone or anything. I read you can change the email to outlook.com by visiting the outlook website which is supposedly like the gmail page sort of speak and not the old program you have on your hd as I remember it (which changed to windows live mail). Can anyone explain this old news to me cause frankly I am getting mixed or confusing results all together.

Another is msn is stopping, all I hear from other people is; "ooh you still use msn?!". Yes I do, I read whatsapp is also a desktop application for chatting (which I thought was only used on phones) and so many seem to use the annoying facebook chat which for me is annoying cause I have to keep my browser open and get to hear the annoying message sound every time someone messages me (which is never). I have quite some friends who still use msn and do not use facebook or skype (skype is primarily videochat which I only use for official business, not leisure). Will the old version of msn (right now latest) remain in function? Will it stop working altogether? How is skype integrated with the same functions of msn, any good or terrible? And what are good alternatives; not things that do not allow the basic functions such as sharing, and what also allows importation of the contacts.