What an epic debacle. Since hangouts has been phased out there isn't even a way to one click video call someone anymore in google chat, it is a hacky meet link. There was a time when I used hangouts for everything, video, SMS, and chat. I could even do all of that from my desktop PC. Google needs to get it together and offer a comparable solution to iMessage.
They lost my whole extended family as customers, this nonsense confused the heck out of my parents and we gave up trying to figure it out. I just told my folks to get iPhones and we use facetime
It's a valid point, but at the end of the day my family wanted something that "just works" and they look to me for guidance on hardware so when they were ready, iOS it is. I think Google misunderstood the critical importance of owning a high quality user experience for video calls on Android devices.
