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> How did it come to pass that they took an easy, integrated system and mangled it so badly? I think each of these things were part of gmail at different times

> How did it come to pass that they took an easy, integrated system and mangled it so badly? I think each of these things were part of gmail at different times. Google talk (their original chat that competed with Yahoo messenger) was and sorta still is there even though the talk product is something else now. Google voice was required for SMS. It sorta worked from gmail, for a while. Then they tried to merge all the things into hangouts and it was kind of really nice for a few months... Then they tried Duo, Allo, Hangouts, and Google Chat (which is a slack work-a-likiesh thing) and I quite keeping track :-)

davidw 5y ago
For a while, it worked really well. I lived in Italy and had a Google Voice number from Oregon, and I could just make US calls for free from within Gmail and it didn't just work ok, it was pretty good. I could also place video calls to people who were contacts right there in Gmail with one click, and it worked well too. It's not that their system has stagnated - they've actively made it much worse and more difficult to use.
jeffbee 5y ago
Google Voice was not required for SMS from gmail. You used to just be able to "chat" with any phone number from within the gmail web frontend. It cost a dime, but your dime was refunded if the other party responded, as an anti-spam measure. It was also formerly possible to make a voice call to any phone from the gmail web frontend, no Google Voice account required. Now you need Google Voice to do this (not Google Fi!).