It’s been a long and twisting road for Google Hangouts. Launched in 2013, the service was an instant favorite with Android users and the SMS integration won over even more users. Nowadays, the Hangouts brand is split into a “Classic” version for consumers and the G Suite version was renamed to Google Chat.
There is some good news for fans of the classic Hangouts service. Soon, G Suite users will be able to see Hangouts conversations in Google Chat as they happen. In addition, Google Chat users will be able to send messages to people outside of their domain. This puts all of your conversations in one place.
Why does this matter for someone who doesn’t use G Suite? Google recently opened up Google Meet, the company’s Zoom competitor, to everyone – no G Suite account required. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Google to do the same with Google Chat. This could be the first step in transitioning users away from classic Hangouts. Google has never given an end date for the consumer version of Hangouts, but it’s set to retire for G Suite users in June.
The entire situation with Hangouts has been incredibly confusing. The recent renaming of Hangouts Chat and Meet to simply Google Chat and Meet helped clear up some of that confusion. The “Hangouts” brand is now back to being for consumers only, but it’s only a matter of time before the service is completely retired. Google is all in on RCS in its Messages app and Google Chat and Meet seem to be primed to take over for the remnants of Hangouts.
Source: Google