I sometimes wonder how Google's Product/PM team views their products and how they think having a reputation among techies for a very fragmented software base and focus helps them.

I get the idea of internally challenging yourselves to come up with replacements for your products but at least have some clear focus. Why are there so many different ways for me to connect with people when using Google's platform?

The beauty of iMessage at least in the mobile space is that it's your single app for text communications and Facetime for video. That's it. Bonus if you have a Mac since you can use it from your computer as well.

Messanger which got renamed to Android Messages a few weeks ago

That's just the SMS app.

Hangouts, Voice, and Allo are all meant to be SMS replacements — so they are directly competing with their SMS app.

Their newer approach of different products targeted at consumer vs. business use cases has some merrit. All/Duo for consumer, Hangouts Chat/Meet for business. The needs are different and one size fits all often means one size ideal for nobody.

And not one of them respects your privacy

It's almost like Google is the new Microsoft according to a certain famous parody of corporate hierarchies.

Google+ Communities overlap with group chat in some ways.

Inbox by Gmail

I mean Inbox is just an alternative Gmail client, so its not like you can't communicate between Gmail and inbox. This is not the case for e.g. hangouts and allo