Re:US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
by mattmcknight on Friday August 16, 2019 @05:29PM
(#20719899)
Google's abandonment of Hangouts was phenomenally stupid, and it should itself really have just been an evolution of Google Talk. It's a symptom of something very wrong in the incentive structure and product portfolio management there where you have to roll out a new application to add a feature, and the various applications cannot interoperate. Perhaps the underlying issue is that none of these made money directly. For what it's worth, I still use Hangouts.
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It's even more stupid when you find out that Hangouts is still alive and well for Google Fi customers. I'm one and I haven't stopped using Hangouts, even though most of the people I know on GFi use something else because they read it was being turned off.
The fact is, Google doesn't yet have a replacement for something they stopped developing years ago. It is completely insane.
Google has a nasty habit of making solid features/apps available for everyone, then building an in house device/service that can use said feature, then making that feature exclusive to their new service in an attempt to drive consumers to it. In the end they just piss people off and whatever they were trying to do fails.
The latest update to chrome on Android in the last few days removed support for 90/120hz devices. Now everyone who was enjoying a nice smooth chrome experience on the OnePlus 7 pro, Razer phone, etc. has a nice jarring switch to 60hz when they open chrome.
This happened at the exact same time as they announced the new pixel 4 would be a 90hz phone, with exclusive 'smooth display'. Bleh.
Have you tried the android version of firefox? I really dig it, especially because the desktop plugins still work in it. :D
Re:US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
by soonoutoftime on Friday August 16, 2019 @10:27PM
(#20721582)
I still use hangouts with my friends (because of its OTR feature) and none of us are Google Fi customers.