Will We Lose Google Hangouts in 2020?

Use Google Hangouts much? You may need to replace this IM system in 2020.

There's been some talk lately that Google is planning to can Hangouts in 2020. If you've noticed, it seems that the Google Hangouts service has evolved and morphed over the past few years. I thought with the new upgrades and launch in 2016 that Google Hangouts had found it's "happy place." Maybe not.

Hangouts will not be available for individual accounts after 2020. This is too bad. I was and avid Hangouts user although the constant changes were confusing at times. According to Extreme Tech, Hangouts is probably the closest Google gotten to having a unified messaging strategy. Enterprise users will continue to Hangouts Meet as a messaging platform (see the full article here).

However, Google has said Hangouts Chat & Hangouts Meet will open to consumers before ‘Hangouts classic’ shuts down. So I guess we shouldn't worry. Google doesn't plan to leave us "hanging" without Hangouts. (We hope.)

What is your experience with Google Hangouts? What do you think about this change? Do you have an alternative messaging platform preference?