Given that this is Google, my money is on them either abandoning it, or making a new version every 2-3 years (for no discernable reason) making no actual progress as a result.
I would LOVE to be proven wrong, but Google's track record with bringing products to market, and actually keeping them for longer than a media boost, is downright depressing.
At some point it feels like every Google side project is just a media buy for their real business: hiring engineers to drive more ad revenue, engineers who are enticed by shiny projects like these.
It’s not depressing, it’s wonderful. Google’s abject failure in almost every area is great. They have nearly unlimited resources and a fantastic (though but as great as they think) engineering pool. It would suck if they managed to successfully attack adjacencies.
I have a hard time calling immense wastes of resources "wonderful". Think of how many man-hours of at least better-than-average engineers have been wasted developing something like 5 separate chat apps... it's absurd.
