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Hangouts has been noticeably dropping off in my life. I realized I was talking to fewer and fewer people on it once one person responded that she missed my Hang

Hangouts has been noticeably dropping off in my life. I realized I was talking to fewer and fewer people on it once one person responded that she missed my Hangouts messages because she didn't even have the app installed anymore. On the flip side, I'm seeing a lot of non-technical people start to use Signal.

soylentcola 8y ago
I wonder how much of the Hangouts drop-off is a result the increased focus on smartphones over desktop/laptop for a lot of users. In the mid-late 2000s it was super common for me to chat with everyone this way. It was great on my phones back when SMS were often still limited and expensive and I could continue in the Gmail tab that was perpetually open on my PC when at home or at work. Practically everyone I knew had a Gmail address so we could keep a running set of conversations going even at work or other places where we might not have been able to install something like AIM in earlier years. With the shift to mobile-only (or at least mobile-mostly) for a lot of people, it wasn't a given that you would have GChat or, later, Hangouts. iPhone people might not bother to install it. Android people might gravitate toward Facebook since everyone was on it already. Google's tendency to make good services but fail to pitch them or stick to a focused strategy can't help either. Even though I tend to like their products, I can't honestly claim to appreciate the way they seemed to be finally integrating Voice, SMS, and IP-based chat into Hangouts...before then splitting them all off into multiple similar-but-different products. Now I still chat with plenty of people on Hangouts and have multiple years-spanning group chats still active. But I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the service or optimistic about its future. It could've been the cross-platform iMessage/Facetime competitor I wanted but now it feels like another wasted opportunity.

soylentcola 8y ago

I wonder how much of the Hangouts drop-off is a result the increased focus on smartphones over desktop/laptop for a lot of users. In the mid-late 2000s it was super common for me to chat with everyone this way. It was great on my phones back when SMS were often still limited and expensive and I could continue in the Gmail tab that was perpetually open on my PC when at home or at work. Practically everyone I knew had a Gmail address so we could keep a running set of conversations going even at work or other places where we might not have been able to install something like AIM in earlier years. With the shift to mobile-only (or at least mobile-mostly) for a lot of people, it wasn't a given that you would have GChat or, later, Hangouts. iPhone people might not bother to install it. Android people might gravitate toward Facebook since everyone was on it already. Google's tendency to make good services but fail to pitch them or stick to a focused strategy can't help either. Even though I tend to like their products, I can't honestly claim to appreciate the way they seemed to be finally integrating Voice, SMS, and IP-based chat into Hangouts...before then splitting them all off into multiple similar-but-different products. Now I still chat with plenty of people on Hangouts and have multiple years-spanning group chats still active. But I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the service or optimistic about its future. It could've been the cross-platform iMessage/Facetime competitor I wanted but now it feels like another wasted opportunity.