[m_t]

> It is very strange to see people turning this into a 'product cancellation' - Hangouts was deprecated _4 years ago_

So, let me get this straight. 6 years ago, Google made the Google Voice user move to hangout, and 2 years later it was deprecated?

It just seems worse.

[refulgentis]

6 years ago, you could turn on a feature that let you receive Google Voice calls and messages in Hangouts.

[antonvs]

There was a strong push to move from Voice to Hangouts. A couple of years ago the speculation was that Voice would be cancelled. See e.g. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3564825/google-voice.h... :

> But then, well, Google...Googled. It let Voice languish for years, without any attention or updates, then awkwardly half-merged it into Hangouts and had it rot away unattended for years. And we all know how the whole Hangouts saga ended (or is still in the process of ending, I guess we should say).

> A few years ago, though, something unexpected happened: Following years of neglect, Google suddenly brought Voice back to life.

You can find discussion of it on HN, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19022660 :

> Don't get me started. I think my Google Voice / Hangouts account will be deprecated soon, or has been, and will be eliminated, or maybe not. It's not clear. It never is.

> Google voice has been all but deprecated at this point. The form for buying credits has been broken for a year, and calls calls to my google voice number no longer get forwarded to my phone / google hangouts.

Perhaps if you didn't live through all this, you don't get why people find it annoying.