How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare?

Re:How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? by slacka on Saturday February 10, 2018 @10:56PM (#16351093)

Yes for over a decade I was able used Gaim/Pidgin as my one stop instant messenger. In the early days, I used it for MSN,AIM, and ICQ. And when Google Talk took off that worked too. Could even talk to my coworkers in China over the QQ network. And when I joined a company that used Skype, there was a plugin for that too. Life was good.

The consumer really has been the loser now that Apple, Google, and Facebook have walled off their messengers.

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Re:How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? by kakarot on Sunday February 11, 2018 @01:24AM (#16351470)

I miss those Pidgin days so much... Even Facebook was rocking XMPP for a while. Things were so simple back then.

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Re:How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? by stordoff on Monday February 12, 2018 @06:39PM (#16363424)

I remember setting up Trillian (later Pidgin) and setting up a bunch of accounts just in case I had a use for them - not sure I ever used AIM/ICQ, but I _could_.

Now it's just more trouble than it's worth.

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Re:How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? by thallium205 on Sunday February 11, 2018 @02:31AM (#16351651)

Franz is the modern day equivalent of Trillian/Pidgin.

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Re:How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? by TeMPOraL on Sunday February 11, 2018 @03:40AM (#16351802)

Not really. That's just yet another instance of web browser, this time with chat-specific tab switching and - as I learned recently - a need to create yet another cloud account...

In Pidgin, you actually had it all in one place, with the UX defined by Pidgin.

That's another bad thing about current fragmentation. You have no way to unify the UX.

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Re:How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? by Freak_NL on Sunday February 11, 2018 @04:02AM (#16351860)

That's by design of course. The client side software is where the interfacing with the user happens, and if your business model is 'first become huge and indispensable, than figure out a way to monetize', you need absolute control over what the user sees and how they interact with your service.

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Re:How did Google Talk change from a dream to a nightmare? by dTal on Sunday February 11, 2018 @06:52AM (#16352309)

Let's not beat around the bush - if you "need absolute control over what the user sees" so that you can "figure out a way to monetize", then you have already decided that you are monetizing with ads. That is the only possible reason to maintain iron control over the user's eyeballs.

This business practice of pushing the product unsustainably in order to drive out the competition was rightly condemned when WalMart did it. I don't see a similar public backlash in the tech sphere these days.

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