They have so much leverage with google accounts, gmail and android … pushing a WhatsApp / Telegram clone that works would take over the world.
But they achieved to even cripple Google Meets, a product that works. Unbelievable.
There seems to be this perception that Google can defeat any competitor if they chose to, and that benefit of the doubt is never given to the competition. They can't, and fail almost every time time. Android is one exception (though Apple remains the more impressive company than Google, as far as 10Ks are concerned), and GCP is certainly successful despite having the Bronze medal in the cloud space, but it reeks of a "Lebron James could be the best boxer in the world or best NFL QB if he just trained for 3 months" kind of vibe.
I'm not sure if Google Talk/Hangouts/whatever ever offered privacy, I know Telegram's privacy model has flaws, and I'm not clear on WhatsApp's quality of security. At any rate, I do know people expect both WhatsApp and Telegram to be relatively private, which likely counts for something. On the other hand, I find people assume Google products are by default not private.
I'm not sure how decision making occurs, but I have a hard time envisioning a GoogleGram application getting adopted easily because it would be perceived as a commercial effort in an otherwise less commercial/more private space.
I could be totally wrong here, and I'm mostly curious what others think.
I think most consumers use the product the works for them and is free. Privacy is an aspect, but most, not all, people don’t care that much.
A working product beats a half working product that preserves privacy. If it works and preserves privacy … u have a winner.
True. It is frankly amazing how Google can't compete in that area
They lack the vision. They lack the top-down mandate. They lack the will to centralize and push the effort.
(see how most projects were experiments/things that "stuck"). I think one of the few times where Google successfully managed a global project to completion was Android? (and yet it was acquired)