It's not even the same. It's worse. I used to be able to use XMPP.

Why invest all this labor, only to announce shutdown of Hangouts a few months later?

I think Google is at a place where it feels they have too many cooks. Just focus on the core things like Apple.

I've seen the inside of these corporations - most of the stuff people work on is way below their pay grade (even if it still technically needs to get done) yet they still have a ridiculously rigorous interview process and somehow manage to hire like crazy with salaries and benefits way better than a startup can offer. It just doesn't make sense unless the goal is to deprive potential up and coming competitors of talent.

Google has enough very good products which shows what Google is doing.

Yes they have some issues with wave, talk, hangout and duo but also have gmail, search, drive, etc.

Apple not always gets it right and Google also.

Apparently they'll be migrated to Hangouts Chat.

My Project Fi calling/texting from computer features are in limbo, though.

Interestingly, before 2017, very few (no?) public news of them employees walking out or protesting publicly @ Google. It's almost like Sergey going to the airport to protest opened the floodgates[6]. The Times They Are a-Changin' (or no good deed goes unpunished...).

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/27/read-google-employees-open-l... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/01/google-em... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employe... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-... [4] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/google-employees-protest-tru... [5] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/07/542020041... [6] https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/28/14428262/google-sergey-br... [7] https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/google-employees-s... [8] https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/sopa-blackou... [..] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/10/12/whoops-g...

The post implies a causal link, but there isn't even a correlational one; Google has been shuttering its own projects only a couple of years after launch for years, long before the current round of employee protests.

I have to agree with you it must be internal politics. Otherwise why would they keep inflincting harm on themselves? But maybe they have some data that suggests this is a good idea...

Google is unfortunately a really solidly built ship sitting on a ton of cash and a really valuable resource whose proceeds are currently going to the parasites clinging to it's shell. The thing that made them great - Search - is still solid, and is large enough and ahead enough that it can sit still, even go backwards, and people will continue to use them for many years to come. Their money faucet, ads, went from being unobtrusive and helpful to obnoxious and exploitative to cover for the lack of forward movement of the giant it stands upon.

All that said - Google still has some great people, a great mission, and amazing tech that's still years ahead of the rest of the world. It's stock will continue to go up with Wall Street. It just isn't the place it used to be - Though, like all nostalgia, I wonder if it ever was.

Why is this unfortunate? Isn't this a byproduct of their success they've had over the years? Sure, they haven't had many blowout successes in recent time, but still.

Well then who the hell cares, besides you?

They're showing off a lot of Assistant features. Duplex is launching soon.

They're pushing a lot of ChromeOS features by adding Android App support.

Did streaming TV on Youtube come out this year?

They have a beta of their game streaming service that came out a month or two ago.

That's off the top of my head. There's a ton of smaller apps they throw at the wall all the time too.

I'm not too hip on Google products, so there's probably more that I'm missing.

New gmail (even with hover actions turned off) is an absolute performance mess. Even just scrolling down the list of emails is choppy.

Never had a problem until now. I have no idea what Google is doing, but whatever it is there's a good chance they'll keep screwing it up

* Duo is linked via phones, not Google accounts * Duo is strictly peer-to-peer, not for groups * Duo is video/audio only, no chat/text

So, it could be a Duo-like replacement for Hangouts, maybe. But not a complete replacement. A merger of Allo + Duo (does anyone here know what Allo is?) could check some of these boxes. But one of the primary appeals of Duo is E2E encryption, and that is not in Google's interests in the long run.

But yeah, I guesss Google's culture leads to a lot of dick waving competitions...

https://technex.us/2018/11/google_chat_is_the_worst_desktop_...

In name only. Even non-technical people know what huge pile of crap "Skype" is nowadays.

Why does it keep archiving all the conversations? Sometimes I want to continue a conversation, but it really doesn't want you to.

Except when it is Lync

Lync is an abomination that only exists to dilute the brand

Wait. You're right, I guess Zoom IS the new Skype...

The call quality of video and screen sharing is significantly better than Skype and hangouts.

And though I don't use it with friends (FaceTime mostly fills that role) I work remotely and do use Zoom several times a week for video meetings and screen sharing.

Most of their product releases are one step forward and one step back. For example, the new Gmail is a little nicer looking, but it's a huge resource hog compared to the previous one without any striking features (though there autocomplete thing is nice). Google Meet just seems to have a few fewer features than Hangouts, and I'm not really sure what it adds.

I honestly haven't seen a new product from them that is noticeably better than whatever it replaced for quite a while. Most things seem to be change for the sake of change.

The new gmail is ok I guess. It’s not substantially different from Mac inbox for me to care. Either way I’ll spent some time scanning subject lines and senders. I might be an outlier though.

I'm looking elsewhere.

I finally switched to telegram and I could not be more happy.

Google is now a promotions-first culture. You get promoted for launching new stuff, not for doing the work to make someone else's vision better.

I reckon the problem is that very few services actually make money, everything else is so low-stakes in monetary terms that they can afford to be super-casual about it.

Hangouts chat is supposed to be the replacement: https://gsuite.google.com/products/chat/

It might be made available to (non-gsuite) consumers at some point.

Kinda stupid, but like - that's Google's chat strategy in a nutshell.

While Google is terrible at this, I believe there is one other major difference: IIRC, Talk did not have cloud sessions. You could not switch from desktop to mobile and continue a conversation right where you left off. (The closet you could get was look at archived messages in Gmail.)

Hangouts, like virtually any modern chat system, does have this. So they did add at least one feature that's pretty useful for people even when not using voice and video.

Ah, yes, ye olde "Google Apps for Domains" (boy, there's a catchy product name ...).

I've got three of them still running: two I rarely use, but the other is the family account and it's got a lot of history in the mailbox.

I'm gonna be effed if/when they pull the plug on us greybeards still rolling on that old free tier.

/Acey

p.s. The new Gmail theme sucks rocks. Anyone have a 411 how to make it look as near to the old style as possible. (tbh, I haven't hunted for an answer, but tacked this on in case anyone reading knows a good blog for that.)

One being a family account also is even more problematic, they expect Gmail quality web interface and I can't really give that to them.

I've never tried to make a call to a single person with Hangouts because Snap, FaceTime, and others are better. They also had another app that competes with Snap and FaceTime; I don't recall the name.

So, seems like their shutting down something that's already been replaced by their own tech.