Android Police' headline is spot on: "Report: Google killing Hangouts in 2020, probably launching 8 new messaging services in its place" [0]. Mayur Kamat was

Android Police' headline is spot on: "Report: Google killing Hangouts in 2020, probably launching 8 new messaging services in its place" [0]. Mayur Kamat was HO's product manager until 2015 and has posted a few updates on G+ until he left Google, probably because Hangouts was internally about to be abandoned. Thats when I realized Hangouts fate and started looking elsewhere. I vividly remember his remark around the time of the Hangouts 4.0 release [1]: "P.S. Unlike what the /r/Android subreddit says, the Hangouts team does come to work every morning trying to make it better :). Good stuff is coming.": Alas, it wasn't. Edit: Maybe adding that name was wrong, my intention was not to blame any single person. Fact is: I liked Google Talk (and Hangouts) a lot for its superior abilities back then: Federation with XMPP, cross device compatibility, superior synch, possibly reach anyone with a G account, simultaneous login from different devices, permanent cloud based history, working search. It seemed so easy to win at that time. [0] https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/11/30/report-google-killing-hangouts-in-2020-probably-will-launch-8-new-messaging-services-in-its-place/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/11/30/report-google-killi... [1] https://plus.google.com/+MayurKamat/posts/T1FNqgAWzgE https://plus.google.com/+MayurKamat/posts/T1FNqgAWzgE