6 ms·

While the current incarnation of Google Chat has indeed been steadily improving, Google has a lot, and I mean a lot, to make up for: https://arstechnica.com/ga

While the current incarnation of Google Chat has indeed been steadily improving, Google has a lot, and I mean a lot, to make up for: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-... (2021, as the URL says) And it's not just messaging. Google has a decades-long history of abandoning apps that don't make them billions, which means no-one with memory trusts them. Especially in their current "AI-everything or bust!" incarnation.

echelon 8mo ago
I don't think we should cheer on one of the largest companies in the world to build a product to get them even more enterprise stranglehold. The praise for this monopoly is misdirected. Every single one of you, unless you're a significant GOOG shareholder, should be wanting for antitrust breakup of Google. They're putting pressure on your wages and other investments, and they're contributing to a ceiling for other startups and companies. Google engineers are brilliant, but the corporation itself needs to be horizontally dismantled into several Googles that all compete with one another. (Not simply a vertical breakup along product lines, but rather the old-school "Ma Bell" style breakup that creates companies that then have to compete on the same offerings.) A breakup would be good for GOOG investors too, because there's far more value locked up in the company and far too many opportunities left by the wayside.
- StopDisinfo910 8mo ago
  > I don't think we should cheer on one of the largest companies in the world to build a product to get them even more enterprise stranglehold. Depends of how you see it. At the moment, if you want a good productivity suit of tools, you have Microsoft or Microsoft because Google is hampered by their lackluster chat client. People would like some competition.
  - jen20 8mo ago
    On that basis, Microsoft are also hampered by a lackluster chat client - Teams is atrocious. Slack is pretty much the only game in town that isn't bad (and even that needs native clients, because the UI is poor and not system-integrated).
    - StopDisinfo910 8mo ago
      I think I have this discussion on HN everytime Teams comes up but it really is a great piece of software for a typical office worker. File sharing is incredible. You get a SharePoint and collaborative editing in a seamless way. Video conf is great and work great with Teams compatible room booking system and room video material. The chat part barely matters. People don't use Teams to chat. It's a collaboration hub. That's what Google is missing actually. Slack is very much developers software in comparison.
      - billyboy123 8mo ago
        File sharing using Scarepoint is incredible. Incredible bad, that is. Everything is stored in mssql server behind the scenes, in the most inefficient way you could imagine. Scarepoint is the opposite of seamless, number of wasted man-years on it must certainly be in the millions, if not billions. Its ”wiki” sucks. It’s bad software that not even ms themselves want to touch, that’s why many of their other server softwares have migrated away from using it.
        consuln 8mo ago
        Are you thinking of the AllUserData table? :) Yeah, it appears pretty abhorrent if you’re coming from a DBA background.
      - DangitBobby 8mo ago
        Meanwhile, last time I had a video call in Teams, when I went into the call settings to change my microphone, my computer slowed to a crawl and became inoperable until the person who called me ended it. We eventually settled on a phone call. When I try to share a file over a certain arbitrary size limit, Teams refuses to do so, indicating some undesired and complicated permissions interaction with Teams and SharePoint.
- meekaaku 8mo ago
  I dont get this idea of breaking big companies up is inherently a good thing. As a non-American, I think the breakup of AT&T/Bell Labs was a mistake. The world is yet to create a lab as innovative as Bell Labs. Current Google only comes even close with their far out projects(that dont directly make money) such as their quantum computing/deepmind/boston dynamics(when google had them) Besides, if one does break up google, you wouldnt have those divisions running. If there are far more opportunities left by the wayside, some one is going to out compete them, ie Slack and Teams
  - michaelt 8mo ago
    > As a non-American, I think the breakup of AT&T/Bell Labs was a mistake. With the benefit of hindsight, the break up was performed in the most ineffective way you could possibly imagine. Take a national monopoly, and convert it into seven regional monopolies, which don't compete on price or service? Then let those monopolies merge back into three companies? Countries that addressed national telecoms monopolies with local loop unbundling and similar policies seem to have ended up with much more competitive markets.
  - direwolf20 8mo ago
    The Bell breakup is the only reason we have communication technologies newer than $2/minute telephone calls or (for the same price) Telex. Bell had one good side, that was Bell Labs. How was it funded? By overcharging the whole country for communications, pocketing 90% of the profit, and using the last 10% to find ways to lower costs to provide the service — cost decreases that would not be passed onto customers. It was even worse than it is right now with the regional internet monopolies.
  - usefulcat 8mo ago
    > The world is yet to create a lab as innovative as Bell Labs. That was entirely accidental. There's absolutely no guarantee that any given monopoly will produce anything remotely like Bell Labs, and I don't believe that a monopoly was required to do what Bell Labs did.
    - xnx 8mo ago
codethief 8mo ago
> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-... (2021, as the URL says) This article never fails to crack me up! Arstechnica.com at its best.
- htrp 8mo ago
  i think google meet duo is finally being deprecated in favor of another solution https://support.google.com/meet/answer/15226472?hl=en https://support.google.com/meet/answer/15226472?hl=en Google Duo was upgraded and rebranded to Google Meet in 2022. However, the legacy calling experience (previously known as Duo) was still available. Now, these legacy calls are being upgraded to Meet calls, which contain expanded features like cloud encryption, live captions, in-call chat, stackable effects, and more. To use the new Meet calling experience, update your app to the latest version. As users move over to Meet calling, some of the legacy calling features will no longer be available. In addition, any reference to what was formerly known as Duo will now show “legacy.” From September 2025, legacy calling will be replaced with Meet calling.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
flopsamjetsam 8mo ago
Such a great article. I love a good postmortem. I also had no idea of the chequered history of Google's messaging apps. I'd heard some of the names before, but being an iMessage and WhatsApp user, I'd just stuck with those mostly.
- waffletower 8mo ago
  It seems that the Messages (iMessage) product manager(s) have never even seen Slack. So difficult to go from such a fun product at work to bland and awkward for the rest of my connected life. Seems completely backwards.

echelon 8mo ago

I don't think we should cheer on one of the largest companies in the world to build a product to get them even more enterprise stranglehold. The praise for this monopoly is misdirected. Every single one of you, unless you're a significant GOOG shareholder, should be wanting for antitrust breakup of Google. They're putting pressure on your wages and other investments, and they're contributing to a ceiling for other startups and companies. Google engineers are brilliant, but the corporation itself needs to be horizontally dismantled into several Googles that all compete with one another. (Not simply a vertical breakup along product lines, but rather the old-school "Ma Bell" style breakup that creates companies that then have to compete on the same offerings.) A breakup would be good for GOOG investors too, because there's far more value locked up in the company and far too many opportunities left by the wayside.

StopDisinfo910 8mo ago
> I don't think we should cheer on one of the largest companies in the world to build a product to get them even more enterprise stranglehold. Depends of how you see it. At the moment, if you want a good productivity suit of tools, you have Microsoft or Microsoft because Google is hampered by their lackluster chat client. People would like some competition.
- jen20 8mo ago
  On that basis, Microsoft are also hampered by a lackluster chat client - Teams is atrocious. Slack is pretty much the only game in town that isn't bad (and even that needs native clients, because the UI is poor and not system-integrated).
  - StopDisinfo910 8mo ago
    I think I have this discussion on HN everytime Teams comes up but it really is a great piece of software for a typical office worker. File sharing is incredible. You get a SharePoint and collaborative editing in a seamless way. Video conf is great and work great with Teams compatible room booking system and room video material. The chat part barely matters. People don't use Teams to chat. It's a collaboration hub. That's what Google is missing actually. Slack is very much developers software in comparison.
    - billyboy123 8mo ago
      File sharing using Scarepoint is incredible. Incredible bad, that is. Everything is stored in mssql server behind the scenes, in the most inefficient way you could imagine. Scarepoint is the opposite of seamless, number of wasted man-years on it must certainly be in the millions, if not billions. Its ”wiki” sucks. It’s bad software that not even ms themselves want to touch, that’s why many of their other server softwares have migrated away from using it.
      - consuln 8mo ago
        Are you thinking of the AllUserData table? :) Yeah, it appears pretty abhorrent if you’re coming from a DBA background.
    - DangitBobby 8mo ago
      Meanwhile, last time I had a video call in Teams, when I went into the call settings to change my microphone, my computer slowed to a crawl and became inoperable until the person who called me ended it. We eventually settled on a phone call. When I try to share a file over a certain arbitrary size limit, Teams refuses to do so, indicating some undesired and complicated permissions interaction with Teams and SharePoint.
meekaaku 8mo ago
I dont get this idea of breaking big companies up is inherently a good thing. As a non-American, I think the breakup of AT&T/Bell Labs was a mistake. The world is yet to create a lab as innovative as Bell Labs. Current Google only comes even close with their far out projects(that dont directly make money) such as their quantum computing/deepmind/boston dynamics(when google had them) Besides, if one does break up google, you wouldnt have those divisions running. If there are far more opportunities left by the wayside, some one is going to out compete them, ie Slack and Teams
- michaelt 8mo ago
  > As a non-American, I think the breakup of AT&T/Bell Labs was a mistake. With the benefit of hindsight, the break up was performed in the most ineffective way you could possibly imagine. Take a national monopoly, and convert it into seven regional monopolies, which don't compete on price or service? Then let those monopolies merge back into three companies? Countries that addressed national telecoms monopolies with local loop unbundling and similar policies seem to have ended up with much more competitive markets.
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  The Bell breakup is the only reason we have communication technologies newer than $2/minute telephone calls or (for the same price) Telex. Bell had one good side, that was Bell Labs. How was it funded? By overcharging the whole country for communications, pocketing 90% of the profit, and using the last 10% to find ways to lower costs to provide the service — cost decreases that would not be passed onto customers. It was even worse than it is right now with the regional internet monopolies.
- usefulcat 8mo ago
  > The world is yet to create a lab as innovative as Bell Labs. That was entirely accidental. There's absolutely no guarantee that any given monopoly will produce anything remotely like Bell Labs, and I don't believe that a monopoly was required to do what Bell Labs did.
  - xnx 8mo ago

codethief 8mo ago

> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-... (2021, as the URL says) This article never fails to crack me up! Arstechnica.com at its best.

htrp 8mo ago
i think google meet duo is finally being deprecated in favor of another solution https://support.google.com/meet/answer/15226472?hl=en https://support.google.com/meet/answer/15226472?hl=en Google Duo was upgraded and rebranded to Google Meet in 2022. However, the legacy calling experience (previously known as Duo) was still available. Now, these legacy calls are being upgraded to Meet calls, which contain expanded features like cloud encryption, live captions, in-call chat, stackable effects, and more. To use the new Meet calling experience, update your app to the latest version. As users move over to Meet calling, some of the legacy calling features will no longer be available. In addition, any reference to what was formerly known as Duo will now show “legacy.” From September 2025, legacy calling will be replaced with Meet calling.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

flopsamjetsam 8mo ago

Such a great article. I love a good postmortem. I also had no idea of the chequered history of Google's messaging apps. I'd heard some of the names before, but being an iMessage and WhatsApp user, I'd just stuck with those mostly.

waffletower 8mo ago
It seems that the Messages (iMessage) product manager(s) have never even seen Slack. So difficult to go from such a fun product at work to bland and awkward for the rest of my connected life. Seems completely backwards.