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Comment by moksha256 | Hacker News Reader

Didn't Google have messaging figured out with Google Talk? Everyone was on Gmail all day (as many still are) and people actually used it.

Then they let it wither, came out with Hangouts, and it's been a downhill train wreck from there.

Google Talk had the potential of being one of the biggest messengers in the world...they own Gmail and Android (!!!!!). Are you kidding me? There's really no good reason for them NOT to be in a hugely dominant position here.

But instead they screwed it up & left a gaping hole in the marketplace.

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Google dominated non-SMS chat in the late 2000s/early 2010s. I don't think they realized how insanely valuable that was - they were basically sitting on the future of communication. All they had to do was sit back and let network effects build their monopoly (with some more tech build-out and straightforward marketing in international markets).

Instead, they myopically saw Facebook as a threat and started one of the most user-hostile rampages I've been victim to. They hobbled existing products and over-complicated new products to force people onto a platform no one asked for. Facebook (and others) used this opportunity to grab communication away from Google.

It's all an interesting business case study of missing the forest for the trees.

Sometimes doing nothing is the best strategy but it's hard to get promoted that way.

Totally agree. This is something a lot of people miss.

IT culture in general and Google especially puts too much pressure on engineers to re-invent the wheel to get better visibility and promotions.

When the primary thing you're evaluated for is "impact", it's a wonder that Googlers bother to maintain any existing products at all.

(Plenty do out of love for the product/customers/etc, but man it's soul crushing to not be recognized for it)

it's a wonder that Googlers bother to maintain any existing products at all.

My understanding is that not everybody there knows where the corporate ladders are. If you don't (yet) know the terms of promotion at the GOOG, you'll be happy to knock out bugs and tweaks day in and day out. You're a Googler!

The ladders and breakdown of what is required at each position are well known and talked about frequently, especially around performance review time. If you're a googler and don't know what's on your ladder you aren't paying attention

I don't have any Google experience, but from what I've gathered over the years, there are always unwritten rules. Not everyone follows the spec. Often times, the spec even seems intentionally incomplete in retrospect.

There are almost always unwritten rules; everywhere.

For example everyone says value "work life balance is balanced here and encouraged". But irrespective of whether they actually do it or not - if the two people output around the same ballpark but one is visible as more serious/responsible and seems more invested usually by virtue of more hours at work that becomes more "visible" than the "casual" 7-8 hr person with the same output.

So everybody onboards with the knowledge that launching new stuff is the only way to get promoted? Because that's Google's engineering reputation out here on the street.

Google dominated non-SMS chat in the late 2000s/early 2010s

My social group was dominated by BBM & Skype until iMessage & Facebook Messenger took over. I've always assumed Google's efforts around messaging were because they had a niche product inside Gmail that they wanted to make more consumer friendly, hence the constant attempts to rebrand it.

In India WhatsApp, now, is not a gold standard of online communication but it is pretty much the only mode of communication largely. I don't about other places, but at least here - people are not going to Google new "Chat" or Hangout anytime soon. Even Facebook chat is slowly losing out to WhatsApp and I don't think Facebook minds it. In fact they saw it coming and bought the app for that record price.

The reason I jumped out of Google ecosystem is, as you have mentioned, they forced me into closed ecosystems and I remained there for sometime but then the tools offered to me in the form of app, UI, and interfaces were beyond pathetic so I was out. So were my friends, family, relatives, and other acquaintances.

Orkut > Buzz > Wave > Chat > etc they did it one after another and they are still doing it. I mean you would think they would learn at some point.

Dont worry, its the Americans who live in a bubble.

I live in one of the wealthiest and advanced countries in the world. Ask a 12 year old girl what SMS is and she will not know. She will know WhatsApp.

Interesting! I never looked at it that way...

Google messaging must have some of the worst project managers in the industry. Not only did they let their lead disappear, when they decided to start competing with Facebook and WhatsApp they released Allo! A crappy MVP in a crowded market hugely dependent on the network effect.

And now they've decided to involve the carriers, using a technology that's not made to be cross platform but instead be dependent on phones. I can see RCS being a good solution for companies to send out rich boarding passes and similarly, but nobody around here uses SMS or MMS for person to person contact. Chat shouldn't be locked to or even routed through phones, and using a telephone number as an ID is impractical.

Using a telephone number is impractical? That's our identity in the third world. I think they are focused on the developing world in this.

Some of the people here are in a bubble. There are billions of people in the 3rd world countries who are now coming online and they will never have a GMail account in their life. But they will have a Facebook account and they will have Whatsapp. So many of my relatives started using internet after Jio made it so cheap and none of them use Hangouts, Allo, GMail to communicate. But everyone is on Whatsapp and everyone has a Facebook profile.

Disc: Googler, but this knowledge is my own as I grew up in India.

None of that disproves his point. Google Talk could have been WhatsApp, very easily. They were in a position to make it happen before WhatsApp had even started development - Google Talk had enjoyed a meteoric rise and dominance over the messaging market for 4 years before WhatsApp came out, and it took WhatsApp quite a bit of time past 2009 to gain the steam it did.

The fact that they failed to capitalize on it is what has allowed WhatsApp and others to become as big as they have. If Google hadn't messed it up, everyone would be using Google Talk, even in the 3rd world.

Exactly. GMail did not have to be the only way to access Talk. It could have allowed parallel identity schemes easily for phone-number based login.

You live in a bubble, but your bubble is different from their bubble. Thank you for being kind enough to share what you leaned growing up. It helps us all see past our own bubbles.

I am from a rural part of India and everybody has a Jio phone and everybody is on WhatsApp and Facebook. Most of them don't even know what is email and I don't know anyone who uses email or any other chat service other maybe Hike in rare cases. I was surprised since they already have Facebook and it would have required an email.

I often get disapproving looks when they realise I am not on Facebook :)

Users can sign up on Facebook with phone number only. Most users in rural parts are signing up on Facebook through phone no. only.

What if the user is on a WiFi-only tablet, or laptop, or desktop PC? What if the user is at an Internet cafe? What if the phone user has no cellular signal but has WiFi access?

Clearly it would be a mistake to limit this to just phone users.

I'm from China where WeChat dominates everything and SMS are nothing but to receive verification codes. Almost everyone here use WeChat as their contact and Contacts.app is merely opened no more than once a month. This phenomenon is common from giant cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, which are at least as developed as NYC or SF, to small cities in the rest part of the vast country, which are absolutely 3rd or even 4th world.

I agree with your point that in some countries people don't use Email and that's the face in China as well. But people use phone numbers just for register other services, as the online identity. We don't use SMS, and we prefer WeChat Audio over phone calls when it's available.

I think you really need to check how people use Internet in India, Indonesia and other Asian/African countries. I doubt anyone uses laptop or desktop PC unless it's needed for work. And Internet cafe is a thing of the past.

Having wifi but no cellular signal is such a rare usecase.

What I'm saying is that telephone number as ID is fine, but non-telephone number as ID should be supported, too.

They should be trying to include everyone, telephone and non-telephone users alike.

I am from the same place and what what_ever is trying to say, I think, is that in these places mobile number is pretty much the identity and username and emails are largely irrelevant for the majority and when I say that majority that's like overwhelming majority and they are coming online for the first and they really don't have time or any interest to learn about email and messaging protocols.

For example, we recently launched UPI payments - that's like a banking address sort of thing (you can send from it and request too) and you usually get your UPI address like this "9876543210@upi". The number part is simply the 10 digit mobile number and that's it.

But those things don't sell here. Maybe businesses and professionals buy it but not regular folk. All of them are buying smartphones in millions and going online everyday. Cellular signal is the norm all over the country and we have around 80% of it as villages. So I'm pretty sure all of those use cases come at a distant second. Please read about the impact of Jio in India.

> Please read about the impact of Jio in India.

I read this piece [1] which centers on Jios impact on the telecom industry. It states that the rate of digitalization has been boosted, but doesn't really detail the societal impact. Do you recommend any particular article?

[1]: https://www.ft.com/content/3f1fe4d6-e4e0-11e7-a685-5634466a6...

I don't live in the third world, and I don't think any new messaging service should focus on that limited use case. I'm pretty sure Google focused on India with Allo, but what's the point of focusing on one market when you're a global internet giant? I mainly use Hangouts for messaging, because I use the "desktop client" (Chrome extension) more than the mobile app.

It would be possible to let people use both phone number and e-mail, that way I can log in on computers or my phone with a temporary SIM card while I'm traveling, and people in the developing world doesn't need to get an e-mail account.

Please understand that the size of the population which uses this limited use case in my country is greater than multiple western countries' populations combined. I've been a developer for nearly 7 years and make a good amount of money in my country. Yet I've never touched an airplane. I'm telling this to point out the difference in living styles between the two zones of earth. All tech companies are rushing to capture market in the developing countries because we are poor now but in 20 years we may well be up there along with you all.

Wow. That's surprising. I am from north India - based in Bangalore - and I fly almost every other month.

Are you from a remote/small town or like tier 2-3 city? Freelancing maybe? As for the questions - it just got me curious.

250kms from Bangalore. Road is like 4 hrs journey and I live in HSR. So considering the journey to airport and everything road is cheaper and takes almost the same time.

Also flights are cheaper only nowadays. It used to be unreasonable.

Aah.. makes sense. And indeed flights were ridiculously unreasonable even 1.5 yrs ago or so.

Because GSM is everywhere whereas IP connectivity is spotty?

To be fair, Allo only came after Google had killed several other chat implementations because for some reason they couldn’t tolerate the idea that GChat was successful.

> but nobody around here uses SMS or MMS for person to person contact

Where are you located?

Mac/iOS Messages and/or SMS is my primary way of talking with friends and family. That seems pretty normal for my age range 25-45 and location (Seattle).

I think it depends a lot on the country you are in. In many European countries, the SMS is practically dead: in Germany or Switzerland it's all WhatsApp these days, with a bit of Telegram or Signal mixed in. Given this, I was surprised to discover how many people are still sending SMS here in Canada.

I think it has a lot do with mobile carrier pricing: here in Canada, mobile fees are enormously expensive, but SMS are almost always included for free. In Germany/Switzerland, many people use prepaid cards where SMS are (still) charged per message.

In Portugal all carriers have had free sms between all carriera for a few years now on almost all plans. I believe people still reasonably use it. Mobile data cannot be assumed to be always on as it is too expensive most of the time and never forget that having mobile data on drains battery too fast. If anyone wants to be sure to that someone replies to something in urgent matter better use standard sms/phone calls. I havr no idea in what kind of bubbles people are mostly nowadays. Anyway, almost everyone has whatsup or telgram too and most people also use those as a main way to communicate and mostly to be in chat groups. I'm the weird one using only sms and signal and very little of facebook messenger.

Head on over to Europe, and:

> Ik steur je wel even een appje

(I'll send you an message on WhatsApp)

is the norm in The Netherlands. My entire family, extended family, and everyone around them is all on WhatsApp. While I communicate with iMessage/SMS with friends in the US, that's not the case outside of the US. Everyone seems to have WhatsApp, most people don't use Google hangouts or other services alongside that, let alone SMS.

i am curious, where does it say "whatsapp" in dutch? you don't use international names?

"appje" is the diminuitive form of "app", which is a shortened form of "whatsapp" (referring to a whatsapp message).

In English, you would never shorten the phrase "I'll send you a whatsapp" to "I'll send you an app" because the word "app" would be confused with a mobile app.

The Dutch still use the word "app" to mean a mobile app; "appje" means a whatsapp. So the diminuitive form allows them to disambiguate.

The -je suffix in Dutch is commonly used and means 'small'. 'app' is used here as an alias for WhatsApp.

I'm also Dutch but I think 'app' is more like an alias for any chat service. WhatsApp is indeed huge though. Texting is basically dead in Europe afaict.

WhatsApp is huge in Brazil, even businesses now offer a WhatsApp number for contact. Maybe that's a by-product of Apple devices being too expensive here.

SMS is mainly used for bank alerts, confirmation codes, advertisement and scammers. I personally haven't used SMS for conversation in years.

Yep - what's weird is gtalk used to work pretty well even in business context. Then they went the crazy forced google+ route (I actually liked google+, but they just kept jamming it everywhere - even youtube seemed to want to force a linked google+ profile - it was unusable) and started blowing up how chat worked over and over. Where these things linked? Google talk / hangouts seems to have started going down with the whole crazy google+ mess.

Over to slack we go (which works fine).

I like imessage etc - little to no spam. I'll be curious how this carrier controlled approach will handle spammers.

I wonder how often they get internal suggestions to kill google+ which get vetoed out of brand pride.

You can’t kill that which is already dead.

" Thou canst not kill that which doth not live. But you can blast it into chunky kibbles. " -- Quake Manual, describing Zombies.

One of the best features of using Google Fi as my cell provider is that I can still use Google Talk. Still works amazingly well and I can send text messages directly from Gmail or from my android phone. I love it.

Also on Fi - I use hangouts for everything. On desktop hangouts has my SMS and Fi phone number available for voice calls. On the run, hangouts is on my phone for SMS, and I can use my phone as normal for calling people. It's far and away the best experience I've had with a Google product outside of search/gmail. They really need to look at what the Fi folks are doing, because it is truly excellent.

I can do this and I don’t have project fi. I’ve got a google voice number from a long time ago, and I can text from that number via Hangouts in gmail or on mobile.

Yeah, same. Hell, as a kid, I'd use GVoice really often just to send texts when I had wifi but no cell signal, or had a device without cell service (like a tablet). Saved me a couple times when I was younger and, say, ran out of toilet paper.

I was a Fi user for about a year, but had major issues getting the phone to switch back to the cell network when I left my house. We live in a little valley with poor reception, so the phone seemed to "give up" on cell service, and then I'd have to reboot it after I left my house to get it to reconnect (wifi calling worked fine while I was home).

pushbullet (plus a few other apps) also recreate this functionality. Buggy and it's $5/month but I really use the hell out of it.

> Everyone was on Gmail all day

Not everyone is on Gmail. There a untold millions of users who aren't interested in creating a Gmail account. Those users will never be reached with any "just use your Gmail account" strategy.

>downhill train wreck

The downhill train wreck is not isolated to their messaging services. Google, as a whole, is a fragmented mess that has manifested with Android OS. Not only is Android OS crippled by Google's ADD-fueled incompetence, it's crippled by their inability to remove carrier-influence from their devices. Now, Google wants to double down on their boneheaded decision by doing the same with messaging. Google Messaging needs to be carrier independant, have SMS fallback, integrate with all Google services, and be bundled with Google Services on Android. I have lost /ALL/ faith in Google.

It's a pretty simple explanation. Google talk was XMPP which is just not a good mobile protocol.

Could not they just replace the XMPP protocol with whatever better protocol, while keeping the GTalk alive.

They kinda did exactly that. GTalk became Hangouts which is no longer quite XMPP.

Well, not only did they change the protocol, they ruined the UI too.

It's kinda sad how they ruined a superb product and replaced with something some par!

X in XMPP stands for eXtensible. They could simply augment XMPP to match their needs better - and guess what, it's exactly what happened in last years. Now XMPP is a good, modern, battery- and UX-friendly IM protocol, with some clients even E2E encrypted by default.

I had Google Talk on my phone for ages, I'm not getting what you mean by this. I had no issues. It was fast, to the point, and worked.

What makes you say it's not a good mobile protocol? It had some problems in the early 2000s on mobile, but these days it has stream management similar to TCPs and XML compresses very well. As I mentioned in another comment, there are people running it over very low bandwidth HF radio, if it works well there it works well over phones, but I'd be curious to see why people still think otherwise. (Google Talk, naturally, never did implement any of the parts that make it good on mobile, just lilke they refused to do TLS on server to server connections, so note that I'm not arguing that Google Talk was good on mobile, just that if they'd worked on it a bit it could have been)

What service is using it at scale these days? I can't really think of a popular user. After a certain point it just becomes a headache.

When I was working with ejabberd clusters servicing mobile clients it worked but I've had a lot less pain just using a custom protocol over websockets. My personal experience also seems to be mirrored throughout the industry as all the big players eventually move away from xmpp.

Most ironically, Google is using it for their Cloud Messaging solution (https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/ccs and https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/server#choo... for the replacement) to allow applications to talk with a backend.. The advantages over HTTP are multiple: better battery life, bidirectional communication, asynchronicity.

Riot Games is also using it for the messaging part of League of Legends (https://engineering.riotgames.com/news/chat-service-architec...)

XMPP is also used by military organisations such as NATO (https://www.isode.com/solutions/military-xmpp.html)

The sad truth about XMPP is that it just works, but it has a very bad publicity because there's just no marketing around it, and it's never used directly by users. So it suffers from that wrong image that is just completely outdated.

You'll notice that the google links mention that the xmpp api is deprecated. I'm not sure what Riot uses these days but the xmpp connection is no longer available to third parties.

That sad truth is that people who actually use it end up dropping it. Its not some conspiracy. It just wasn't cutting it.

It's not XMPP that's deprecated, it's the whole CCS (first link) that's being replaced with Firebase (second link). The XMPP api is still present in the replacement.

While not fully consistent the XMPP api is referred to as legacy on much of FCM documentation. https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/server

You also misunderstand what this api is referring to. These are APIs for your server to connect to Google's. This is not a direct http and xmpp connection to mobile devices. That's all abstracted away from this.

All big players who have an interest in building a walled garden - yes, that sums up "all big players".

GTalk was awesome while it was federated.

I don't think lack of technical expertise to fix whatever needs to be fixed is what caused Google's demise in the messaging domain.

By "not a good" you mean an open protocol not controlled by Google?

No, by "not a good" he probably means that it's not well suited for low battery consumption expected from a mobile device.

Don't push your words on other people :(

The battery argument is just misinformed. The real reason Google dropped XMPP was not a technical one. Yes, Google claimed it was not "cloud ready" at that GoogleIO. The same one where they announced Google Cloud Messaging, based on, wait for it, XMPP.

IIRC WeChat started from the ground up with a custom protocol designed for compatibility/efficiency with low bandwidth mobile networks for maximum reach, IMHO a great example of thinking outside the box of "let's use XMPP since it works".

Just curious, who else is using that protocol?

Don't think anyone is, I thought there was a hacker news story on it but I could not find it with search, sorry.

Maybe it wasn't in 2006, but it wasn't that hard to make it a good mobile protocol and now it certainly is.

i'd take gtalk back right away - the best message solution there ever was.

Google talk was brilliant and it was a sad day when they shuttered it.

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