And they've tried once more, by making Meets free for individuals. I loved Hangouts (& still do!), esp the plugins. I don't get their drive towards fragmentation, honestly
I have a theory that plays into that, which is that Google wants new projects all the time, even if they are new projects, because they think it will keep them relevant and prevent them from being seen like the IBM of our day. Hangouts is a perfectly good product, but that's so 2013!
This fable sounds so old and dusty that probably the only people that didn't hear this parrot song are occupying a shout forum like twitter because they never listen.
I dare you to use the HN search function on comments and come up with a day nobody mentioned this internal career ladder inside Google.