[lotso]

I still use Gchat over Hangouts because it's nice seeing my contacts list sorted by who is online, as opposed being ordered by recency of last communication.

So many of my Gchat conversations have started because of the online status. I've hit up friends that I haven't talked to in over a year and had really great, synchronous, conversations because of it.

[mtgx]

I remember there was a rather big outrage when Google first released Hangouts and it showed everyone as online all the time. Eventually, they made it so you only show-up as online if you've been in the window in the past 15 minutes. But they're still not ordering the contacts by online status. This is just one more of those "social" things that Google has never been able to grasp.

[TorKlingberg]

"online" as a concept has become a bit meaningless with mobile clients.

[cptskippy]

This is just the further erosion of manners, respect, and privacy that is so pervasive these days. No one is ever allowed any down time, we're always online and anytime is a good time to talk. To me this feels like a bad thing but I guess others don't see it that way.

People use to never call you after 9pm or during dinner time. If your phone rang during a meal you didn't answer it. If you didn't want to chat with people you didn't log into your IM client, if you wanted to chat with someone specifically there was a first class UI element for setting your status so you could tell others to leave you alone. Email and SMS were black holes where you only knew if your message was received via a response.

Now everyone is always online and it's never unacceptable to call, text, or IM someone. Read receipts are standard so you know if someone got your message. If someone's phone rings while you're eating, you're lucky if they apologize before answering, and you've won the lottery if they excuse themselves from the table.

It seems like we're all just sitting around waiting for an interruption to distract us from the life in front of us.

Idk... you damn kids need to get off my lawn.

[remir]

You are allowed down time. If people don't respect/understand that, it's their problem, no yours.

I don't answer the phone when I eat or after 10pm. Same thing with text messages/emails. "Do not disturb" mode is there for a reason.

[cptskippy]

"Do not disturb" is there because people do not respect each other anymore.

[losvedir]

> Now everyone is always online and it's never unacceptable to call, text, or IM someone

Eh, but you don't have to answer. I think the paradigm has shifted from a TCP-like approach where you're expected to respond in real time to a UDP-like approach where people fire off best-effort attempts to reach you and don't mind if they don't hear anything back.

At least, that's how it is among my peers. Reach out whenever, just don't expect a response.

[djrogers]

Is your phone's Do Not Disturb feature broken?

[cptskippy]

My phone is always on silent and usually in another room. I have a first generation Mi Fit band that is setup with unique vibrations, colors, and quiet hours so that I can keep abreast of communications without persistent flashing notifications or interrupting activities.

[vidyesh]

>This is just the further erosion of manners, respect, and privacy that is so pervasive these days. No one is ever allowed any down time, we're always online and anytime is a good time to talk. To me this feels like a bad thing but I guess others don't see it that way.

I agree 100%, one of the only reasons why I prefer using Gchat over Hangouts and now I don't know what. Just because my Gmail is open 24x7 doesn't mean I am available to chat all the time to everyone.

Maybe I am wrong but I think this comes for people like you and me for whom desktop/PC is the primary utility over smartphone.

[jrullman]

It sounds like that will continue to be possible — "Third-party XMPP clients will continue to work with Hangouts for 1-on-1 chats."