Hangouts may be a disaster but even so it is still in my eyes the best messaging solution in that it is truly cross platform, most people have accounts (even if

Hangouts may be a disaster but even so it is still in my eyes the best messaging solution in that it is truly cross platform, most people have accounts (even if they don't know it, via google accounts), it supports at least some open protocols (remnants of XMPP still works) and does all the essential things (voice, video, text chat, presence, etc). I honestly think that Google's best move still would be to drop everything else and go back to Hangouts / Talk as the single solution. The problem is that the whole space is a nightmare where none of the players actually has the best interests of the users at heart.