Is this a rhetorical question? 😂

  • FauxPseudo
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    646 months ago

    If I needed a message system that I knew would make messages unavailable after a few years because it was shut down by a company that never supports side projects this would be a valuable service.

  • @[email protected]
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    526 months ago

    Back in 2010 my friend group and I tried. Google kept changing their chat programs and we’d keep having to migrate or change what we did. Eventually we went to discord and it was at least stable.

    We tried, Google. We tried. I won’t go back.

  • 𝚝𝚛𝚔
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    6 months ago

    No, because Google will just go and randomly cancel.

    All my family and friends used to use Hangouts and it was perfect. I’d been with it since Google Talk but it was Hangouts SMS and functional video chat integration that won everyone over. Then SMS was removed, and later there was talk of it changing to Chats… and the stench of Allo and Duo was still in the air so we abandoned ship rather than bothering.

    Now we’re on a mix of WhatsApp and Messenger depending on the social group. Not really my preference but once bitten, twice shy so Google products get a hard pass.

    Also, Chats is ugly. A horizontal bar in a sea of whitespace is a terrible separator for a conversation. And chat heads don’t work in group messages like they did in Hangouts so it sucks for knowing if people in a group chat are up to speed.

  • @[email protected]
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    6 months ago

    I’d trust Plankton with the krabby patty secret formula more than I’d trust Google with another chat app

    • @[email protected]
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      26 months ago

      I’d trust 18th-20th century French populous that they have an appropriate form of government more than I’d trust Google it has a chat app it’ll commit to.

  • @[email protected]
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    206 months ago

    They have released and killed about a dozen chat services. What makes this one different?

      • @[email protected]
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        46 months ago

        There actually was a Google Chat before. It used XMPP. They’re even recycling names, cause they’re starting to run out of names from all the past services they killed.

  • @[email protected]
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    196 months ago

    Maybe if they reintroduced hangouts and let me:

    • make phone calls
    • make phone phone calls with Google voice
    • make voice chats
    • send sms messages
    • send sms messages with Google voice
    • send chat messages
    • make video calls
    • permit all those options (except native sms) from Gmail, the desktop app, and the dedicated webpage
    • collate my conversation with people among all the communications methods listed

    I’d be tempted to use them again. It amazes me that they made an app that encompassed basically every modern form of individual communication laid out in a clear understandable manner and they just thought it would be better if every feature they offered were it’s own app. Now I have to remember which medium I used to talk with somebody and use an app with fewer features.

    I miss hangouts.

    • @AnActOfCreationOP
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      46 months ago

      Hangouts was peak Google messaging. It was iMessage before iMessage. I don’t know if it necessarily came first, but all my friends who have iPhones and use iMessage now used to use Hangouts on Android. I think Google has a huge opportunity to be the popular brand and lost it.

    • @eluvatar
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      16 months ago

      Man those were the days. I still use Voice and have years of messages in there, I dread the day they cancel it and I need to find something else.

  • Lettuce eat lettuce
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    156 months ago

    If somebody broke into my house, stuck a gun to my head and told me to use it or they would blast me, I would probably use it then.

  • @[email protected]
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    136 months ago

    If it becomes an open-source, decentralized service with bridges and more users than Matrix, I’d consider it.

  • @[email protected]
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    136 months ago

    If google had just built on top of Hangouts starting in like 2013, they’d have a great product. It was built into gmail. That’s a huge install base. It was just there and they just… didn’t do it. Too many middle managers and asshole resume padding engineers, not enough adult supervision.

  • @[email protected]
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    96 months ago

    Why would I use a chat app tailored to businesses to chat with my friends ?

    Why not using Slack while we’re at it ?

    • @[email protected]
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      36 months ago

      Google chat is just Google hangouts and was one of the first messengers out there I believe. My family still uses it to have chats between Android and iPhone users.

      • @[email protected]
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        56 months ago

        Not even remotely. But at the time it seemed the better option. Migrating everyone from the walled gardens of AOL instant messenger and MSN messenger. To something a bit more open and at the time we wrongly thought more stable. The original G+ chat was their own xmpp server. And for a while was fully interoperable with other xmpp servers. But easier to convince people to go to "Google” than some other weird domain name. Then Google closed it off. Which sucked, but as long as they would be less restrictive about what platform and how you interfaced with it. Everything would still be okay. Right, right? Then they shut down Google Plus. And the roller coaster started. It got rolled out his chat. Then became Hangouts for the first time. At some point it became allo. And eventually went back to Hangouts again before they killed it off yet again.

        The only way anyone could or should use it again. Is if they implement just a straight up XMPP server tied in to Gmail. And leave it interoperable with all other XMPP servers. As part of Gmail, it might actually stand some permanence. So long as we all don’t remember inbox.

        • @[email protected]
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          26 months ago

          Was AOL and MSN available on phones? I guess it was the first mainstream phone messaging app that I recall. They haven’t killed it off and allo was a seperate app. Hangouts is just called chats now. It is also available in Gmail. I’ve used it nonstop since it came out and it hasn’t changed all that much.

  • @[email protected]
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    76 months ago

    What was that thing called in 2009? Google wave I think? It was amazing. Got us through grad school. So of course they killed it.

  • SaltySalamander
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    76 months ago

    I currently use it with friends, and have been using it since it was called Google Talk.