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.

  • It’s not really new? The killed/rebranded hangouts for this awhile ago. I gave up and moved to signal. Google chat is their corporate offering and feels awkward to use for personal life, at least to me.