Ask HN: Skype, but properly peer-to-peer?

I've just had to talk my 80-year-old father through setting up Skype on his new computer. For some reason he had to create a Microsoft account, and it was encouraging him to store all his documents on some drive in the cloud, and it combined his existing Skype account into the new Microsoft account, and all the while I was thinking "it shouldn't be like this."

It shouldn't be the case that for what could be, should be, a single, stand-alone application such as IP-telephony, there is all this cross-linking, central registration, etc., etc., etc., ...

It's probably a consequence of Microsoft buying out Skype and forcing integration with their own universe. So I ask, is there now an alternative to the centralized, you-will-do-everything-our-way system? I've searched, but had no success.

Suggestions?