I’m not certain who Google thinks they’re competing with, but the marketing decision to move from Hangouts to Chat was an impressively poor one. Generally one thinks of transitions from product offering A to product offering B as an “upgrade”. Just removing features and capabilities without offering outstanding improvements or a host of new features is both stupid and suicidal.
It feels as if some of the 2016 US Government administration has moved into Google product management, because the spin to address the overall lameness of the new platform is headsnapping.
Oh sure, lots of the big technews platforms have lauded the changes, which means they were paid to. But the proof in the pudding is when you type “Google Chat is” into Google’s own search bar. The results are telling.
The message is clear no? The masses have spoken and the message is pretty succinct.
As you might anticipate damage control has kicked in and the petty “mark issues as closed” in the forums has been enforced. Don’t complain about missing features (it was designed that way). Don’t point out that “new” is not actually “better” (again, it was designed that way.)
You can, of course, provide feedback using the (?) icon in chat. I recommend doing so if you too feel offended by the lack of inclusion of users in the decision to revamp their chat platform.
Sad, stupid, and shooting themselves in the foot. If Google wanted to give market share to other companies they certainly found a good way to do it.