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Comment by marbletiles | Hacker News Reader

I think when this hits GMail in earnest there's going to be another huge outcry.

Judging by my contact list and the lists of others I see, statuses and presence are a really big deal: people use red-dot to mean "I'm here but interrupt me only if it's crucial" and green-dot to say "fire at will!".

Hangouts supports none of this, only a very simplistic "I'm actively on a device". There's no way to append "... and I'm working, so please don't interrupt unless you have to". You can mute notifications, for a preset amount of time, but that's not the same either -- it's turning off your phone rather than setting it to silent.

I guess they see this as "advanced" functionality, but judging by the people I know it isn't. They may have just copied Facebook, but Facebook messenger isn't something people leave on all day, and it also allows you to selectively block groups of chatty people until you're ready for them.

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If you ask me, the Hangouts actually is a huge improvement over the old Google Talk.

I never sign into the old Talk on my gmail account because I find it very very distracting. The presumption of Talk (or other IM clients) is that if I am online, then I am willing to be interrupted to answer your message immediately. That's absolutely not the case --- if I'm working, I'll answer your message later.

The Hangouts (SMS-like) model is much more useful to me --- you can always feel free send me a message, but I will answer it when I see fit. Hangouts gives a hint as to whether I'm likely to read your message soon, but there's no promise of a synchronous response.

That's what away statuses are for! "I'm signed in, but I'm not willing to be interrupted". Hangouts takes away the very thing you say you need.

The SMS model is much less useful to IM users. If I was willing to wait for a reply at the other person's convenience, I wouldn't be IMing them, I'd email or SMS them.

IM is the online equivalent of a voice call: live and direct. That's going away with hangouts, and that's bad. I don't want to start having to make phone calls again /shudder.

The difference is that in traditional IM, the expectation is that if you're online, you'll be around shortly to return the instant message. Since Hangouts disposes of "online" or "away" or whatever, there is less management overhead needed to indicate status, and an immediate response is not necessarily implied because you can't tell if a person is "standing by" their computer or not, as is implied with a green-light IM status.

I never modulate my IM status manually because I don't like broadcasting that information and I don't like the overhead. I want the ability to ignore people and answer when I'm ready. All my IM clients are set to "always online" (without even automatic modulation) because I want people to expect that even if I am online, I may not be able to answer right away, and that they should expect asynchronous replies when attempting any communication with me that is not naturally synchronous (a natural, real-life conversation or a close emulation thereof (video/voice call)).

I think we agree. My complaint is that they're replacing an instant messaging service (which most people treat as synchronous) with an asynchronous service and pretending there's not a fundamental difference here.

Sure, some people treat it is as async, but the way it's been used in my experience is as mostly sync. Treating it as async gets perceived as rude, unless you're very explicit about it (or if people see you're always "available", then they get the message).

(Also note that Hangouts might make things worse for you too, as you'll only be green-dot when you're actually at your computer, so people will know when you're actually there and ignoring them)

What IM client are you using that doesn't allow you to set a status? Don't want to talk? Set to "Do Not Disturb".

And you can always just not respond...

I think they are trying to replace text messaging. When you text someone you have no concept of their availability. If they were to add statuses, then you would never send a message to someone that was offline/away.

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