There is a running joke within Google that the best way to get promoted is to create another chat or video conferencing app.

Is it really a joke at this point, though?

Googler engineering leaders and teams engaging in the replacement of good chat tech with worse happens every year or two. All to demonstrate "cross-org impact" and climb the promo ladder. This is in fact the driving force behind many of the complaints mentioned in the article.

A sad and systemic failure, indeed.