And yet after years of speculation about its imminent shutdown, Hangouts still works to this day.
In response to the most recent reports of its demise Google explicitly denied the rumored shutdown date and committed to supporting classic Hangouts until all users transition to Hangouts Chat: https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/12/03/hangouts-executive-...
Just the other day I was using the adb trick I learned on hn to uninstall the normally unremovable Plus app from my phone..