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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.
My requirements for messaging is that the service NOT scan my messages for ways to advertise to me. Beyond that, the requirement is that I be able to enter text and have it be seen by the person it is meant for. I'm sure Google can do the second requirement just fine, but it is the first requirement they have a lot of problems with.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
A huge problem google has is that they tend to release product quickly and then assume that any positive feedback is not random noise. I would bet that google has gone years believing it was collecting feedback on things when in fact it never was. And they also assume some kind of lock-in. Example: if you happen to use one google product at one time, they automatically assume that you have suddenly become a complete google customer. And they try to put your credit card on file, etc. It's the one company that doesn't respond to polite requests. And you have to practically serve them a cease and desist just to get them to stop send you ads or something. It is kind of silly, really and a huge waste.
We already have an open protocol: XMPP. Everyone, including Google, turned away from it for some reason.
The other open protocol that is specific to phones is SMS, which is still the most popular way of communicating in some countries (those where SMS is cheap and reliable).
WhatsApp, for example, is nothing more that stolen code from a open-source XMPP client, with a "encryption" wrapper around it, to deliberately make it incompatible with anything else. At first, the "encryption" was such a trivial joke, that that was really the only reason it was there. Nowadays it uses the same encryption as Signal, but there's no point, given that it’s Facebook code talking to Facebook servers through it.
Everyone, including Google, just copied that crime scheme.
They mostly "excuse" it with XMPP's inherent inability to function when the receiving device isn't constantly running and having have a listening port open. And them having to add a custom solution for it to work on mobile phones.
Except that Signal's Moxie Marlinspike* has solved that and made it both a standard and a built-in extension of current XMPP.
Yet you still don't see anyone caring one bit about interoperability. Typical business leeches.
Oh well, at least I run my own federating Signal server and fork for our company now...
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(* Maybe because Marlinspike really really isn't a nice fella to interact with. His social skills are sometimes unacceptable, not exactly like Linus’s, which at least were open and honest, but comparatively problematic. Which is unfortunate, given that he's quite a skilled programmer. I guess it comes with the job.)