tl;dr: after pushing rcs so hard for years, killing hangouts well after forgetting about it, & hiding it from gmail, google now wants you to use its (and google allo’s) successor, google chat.

  • Google’s promotion-pack culture strikes again. You don’t get promoted at Google for “maintaining a successful product and keeping people happy.” You do get promoted for launching a new product, even if it competes with another well-liked Google product.

    So if you want to be successful at Google, you launch a new chat service.