> and has multiple chat apps for the same reason GM has multiple automobiles.
But all of GM's cars (and their competitors) can use the same roads.
All those chat apps with their own user bases and incompatible protocols create isolated bubbles, ultimately harming all of them.
Re:Google Hangouts Chat
by dragonwriter on Wednesday February 28, 2018 @05:11PM
(#16487603)
> But all of GM's cars (and their competitors) can use the same roads.
And all of Google's messaging apps use the same internet. (If you mean to suggest endpoint compatibility, “parking spots” might be better, though that's not entirely true even of the cars, but certainly more true than the analogous thing would.be of Google messaging apps.)
I suspect there are two main reasons:
(1) Google will often put two products in the same market where one is relatively low-risk and designed to fit perceived current needs, and the other is aimed where Google thinks the market will be going longer term (and often is part of the strategy to draw the market in that direction.)
(2) Google doesn't see “chat app” as a single coherent market that (at least in the short window) has a single solution, but several overlapping markets, and has multiple chat apps for the same reason GM has multiple automobiles.