Well, they did kill hangouts. They never said they were going to kill it and also leave their users without an easy migration path. If anything this is better. They reduced redundant apps. Hangouts did somethings better though

Messages is sms, MMS, RCS. I’m not sure what chat uses, but it’s a data protocol not tied to the cell network

They migrated hangouts to chat and opened chat up to unpaid users

This is so stupid. Of course they would buy it. Valve won’t sell, but let’s do the click baits!