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Would anything get you to use Google Chat with friends?
(9to5google.com)
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No, because Google will just go and randomly cancel.
All my family and friends used to use Hangouts and it was perfect. I'd been with it since Google Talk but it was Hangouts SMS and functional video chat integration that won everyone over. Then SMS was removed, and later there was talk of it changing to Chats... and the stench of Allo and Duo was still in the air so we abandoned ship rather than bothering.
Now we're on a mix of WhatsApp and Messenger depending on the social group. Not really my preference but once bitten, twice shy so Google products get a hard pass.
Also, Chats is ugly. A horizontal bar in a sea of whitespace is a terrible separator for a conversation. And chat heads don't work in group messages like they did in Hangouts so it sucks for knowing if people in a group chat are up to speed.
That stretch of time when hangouts did SMS was beautiful.