No, not really bringing us back where we were. Back then in the beginning it was a federated XMPP implementation and you could talk with G Chat accounts from ou

No, not really bringing us back where we were. Back then in the beginning it was a federated XMPP implementation and you could talk with G Chat accounts from outside the Google ecosystem and that's not changing. Also, there's another "Chat" in Google stables right now - Google's RCS messaging app. My guess would be Google is just doing its periodic itch thingie that it does with messengers and social networks.