GChat was great because it wasn't locking users into Google's ecosystem. People from other platforms could chat with you directly because it supported federatio

GChat was great because it wasn't locking users into Google's ecosystem. People from other platforms could chat with you directly because it supported federation. With Hangouts they dropped XMPP because supposedly it was preventing them to innovate and because Microsoft and Facebook weren't playing as nice. GChat was actually successful and I enjoyed it for a long time. I couldn't be happier that all of their other attempts are failing. The problem with Google is that they've lost what made them special back in the day. What made them great was openness. They were building on top of standards. And nobody complained that their web properties are optimized for their own browser. Nowadays they just want to lock people into their walled garden. Guess that's what happens when you're no longer the underdog.