Wow that very long series of pivots in the same messaging space is eye-opening and disheartening. It is hard to believe. Thank you for sharing that.

2021 was around the peak of this nonsense. Since then they've tried to clean it up. Well also have been whining about iMessage.

I did use Google Talk at some point back in the day, when I was heavily involved in XMPP-related development and therefore interested in using it too.