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Google Just Can't Get the Message (phandroid.com)
It's been a rough week or so to be invested in a Google messaging service, hell it's been a rough decade to be invested in a Google messaging service. Phandroid: The latest victims are Allo, which will be going away in March of 2019, and "Hangouts Classic" which has a more nebulous end of life forecast. These products join the host of other Google messaging casualties over the years, Google Wave, Google+ Huddles, Google+ Hangouts, Google Spaces, to name a few. Now if this left us with an entirely clear picture of Google's messaging strategy going forward that would be something, but the reality is that the company still has 5 such apps with at least some overlapping functionality.
The 5 survivors are Duo (Video), Messages (Text), Hangouts Chat (Enterprise Text), Hangouts Meet (Enterprise Video), and Google Voice (Voice and Text). Why am I including two enterprise-focused products in a discussion about consumer messaging? Because the head of those products, Scott Johnston, indicated that "Hangouts (Classic) users will be migrated to Chat and Meet." This was corroborated by an official blog post from Google's VP of Consumer Communications Products, Matt Klainer, who similarly put no definite timeline on this migration.
This is a problem that Google themselves seemed ready to settle once and for all almost exactly 2 and a half years ago when they announced Allo and Duo at Google I/O 2016, this was going to be the two-pronged answer to messaging on Android. But it became clear reasonably quickly that Allo wasn't going to hold up its end of the bargain, it saw limited adoption and within two years of launch, Google has now admitted that it shifted resources away from Allo and instead was focused on bringing the relevant features into Messages.
The 5 survivors are Duo (Video), Messages (Text), Hangouts Chat (Enterprise Text), Hangouts Meet (Enterprise Video), and Google Voice (Voice and Text). Why am I including two enterprise-focused products in a discussion about consumer messaging? Because the head of those products, Scott Johnston, indicated that "Hangouts (Classic) users will be migrated to Chat and Meet." This was corroborated by an official blog post from Google's VP of Consumer Communications Products, Matt Klainer, who similarly put no definite timeline on this migration.
This is a problem that Google themselves seemed ready to settle once and for all almost exactly 2 and a half years ago when they announced Allo and Duo at Google I/O 2016, this was going to be the two-pronged answer to messaging on Android. But it became clear reasonably quickly that Allo wasn't going to hold up its end of the bargain, it saw limited adoption and within two years of launch, Google has now admitted that it shifted resources away from Allo and instead was focused on bringing the relevant features into Messages.
They are too busy building airships and stuff. Scumbags.
The reason was, other people were using it, and if the communication is standard then nobody will accept advertisements.
Breaking inter-operation is the only way to force people to use a walled app, and a walled app is the only way to push advertisements.
That's why they convinced people to stop using email, and then they convinced people to use an app instead of TXT. Even though the app only works on a phone.
I don't know about a mole sabotaging Google. They have been so mind boggling bad in their execution that deliberate sabotage honestly sounds like a reasonable explanation. One would think even sheer incompetence would manage to get something right over the years.
However, I have a large number of friends who all went to work for Google back when they were hiring like mad. They all say the ideological lunatics have completely overrun the company. And that inside the company it feels like a bizarre cult. A weird mix of people either virtue signalling in hopes it will keep the ideological crazies from coming after them and another group of people who no longer give a shit and just sit and pick up their paycheck and never do or say anything to bring attention to themselves.
My friends have told me that so far the cancer hasn't really spread to the main search group other than fucking around with left wing/right wing search results. But if the crazies manage to infiltrate the core search team that Google will crash and burn faster than any large tech company in history. The cost to switch search engines is zero and all this tremendous growth and value Google has generate has largely been due to a small core team of incredibly talented people doing what other companies like Microsoft and all their billions have been unable to match.
Anyone with a Google account had gchat, allow non Google customers to have some kind of access to it through sign ups.
With work, it could have done all we wanted, considering the age of gchat and Google's original talent pool, it could have been as good as what's app, iMessage, Skype, or practically anything you can think of, combined.
They had the market at one point. Practically everyone I knew and know, used gchat, long before it was even common to be available on a chat service all day (what's app, Facebook Messenger)
I'm sure we've all posted this, we've all seen others whine about it.
I still am surprised EVERY time a new Google article comes up about messaging.
With the resources, the user base and the ability to "force us" on to a product as Google account holders,
I don't think I've ever heard of a company drop the ball this badly. Over and over and over and over again.
I'm normally averse to firing people for mistakes, since they've now learnt a lesson, so they (should) improve. In this case though, several people should be entirely fired, very very much and potentially never let near such roles again.
Clusterf....
Lack of competition? Google Maps is also going to shit. They have all these pop-up panels that block the map itself, and no "X" in the corner or equivalent to close them. It's often not even spam panels, it's just shit in your way, like somebody at Google is being paid by panel quantity and graded on their hard-to-close-ness. I've been turning to Bing Maps, gulp.
Table-ized A.I.
I can't understand why Google is spamming us with all these permutations of what should be a simple concept: messaging with integrated voice and video chat. Hangouts does that just fine right now. Why get rid of it?
I looked at Allo and Duo and was thoroughly underwhelmed. There's nothing they do that Hangouts doesn't already do. What possible incentive would I have to switch to some other messaging app that requires everyone I chat with to switch to the same app?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Google could possibly still win the messaging wars by bringing back Google Talk. This was the perfect messaging application - for users. It was simple, lightweight, native clients, supported simple chat, voice, etc (even video but maybe with a plugin?). Almost everyone I knew used it, even my low-tech family members, because it was simple and everyone had it.
Hangouts started the exodus; I found it annoying, confusing and bloated and I assume all my family and friends did too, because they dropped it almost immediately. We moved to Whatsapp which is nice and simple and really awesome to use, if you can get past the Facebook connection - which is hard :(
I think Google can still win here by at least /trying/ to not lose, which is the opposite of what they're doing at the moment. Hangouts, Allo, etc - they've just made a huge mess of everything. Even if they can't figure out how to monetise a nice, simple, E2E-encrypted messaging application with ads, they can claw back important marketshare from competition. But I can't see it happening.
Google Hangouts:
1. It works on the phone and all of my computers.
2. Doesn't need a phone number.
3. I can voice/video chat, if I want to.
4. I can share screens.
What other chat tool does all of these?