Some of this is consumer vs. enterprise tension, though. Emoji demo really well on an initial product tour; reliability is one of those key features that's really hard to get people excited about, but which people hate to find lacking.
I wouldn't go that far - there's something like 250k hangout meetings per day at Google[0] and that was before Covid.
[0] https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/how-google-went-all... (2017)
"Nearly a decade has passed since we built the first prototype. Face-to-face collaboration is ingrained in Google’s DNA now—more than 16,500 meetings rooms are VC-equipped at Google and our employees join Hangouts 240,000 times per day!"
Hangouts Chat, on the other hand...well okay, it seems reliable enough, doesn't have that problem that old Hangouts did. Comparing the UX to Discord just makes me sad though.