Re:Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app
by wutbrodo on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @03:38AM
(#12546131)
> I'm surprised Google Duo hasn't become more popular. It's a great cross-platform video chat app.
For apps that rely on network effects, pure feature competition isn't the only (or sadly, even the most) relevant factor. I commented on this in the Duo announcement thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12295847), but the gist was something like:
With GChat, they squandered a massive, decade-early networks effect advantage with ten years of inexplicably idiotic product decisions, rebranding, failure to adequately replace deprecated products, etc. I actually generally consider them to have the absolute best products in terms of feature quality, far more often than not; Yet at this point, I can't imagine why anyone would see a Google product that relies on network effects at all and not run as far away as fast as possible.
For apps that rely on network effects, pure feature competition isn't the only (or sadly, even the most) relevant factor. I commented on this in the Duo announcement thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12295847), but the gist was something like:
With GChat, they squandered a massive, decade-early networks effect advantage with ten years of inexplicably idiotic product decisions, rebranding, failure to adequately replace deprecated products, etc. I actually generally consider them to have the absolute best products in terms of feature quality, far more often than not; Yet at this point, I can't imagine why anyone would see a Google product that relies on network effects at all and not run as far away as fast as possible.