Google desperately needs a simple messaging strategy

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Google Voice just got its first major update in five years -- and now my head hurts.

Don't get me wrong: As an early adopter and long-time user of Google Voice, there's a part of me that's thrilled to see the abandoned-seeming service finally getting some fresh love. But then I step back and think about the bigger picture of Google's messaging situation -- and, well, I'm running out of Advil.

The best way to illustrate my exasperation, I think, is to try to explain the current state of Google's messaging services as I would to a relatively "normal" Android user. For the purposes of this little roleplay, I'm going to pretend I'm explaining it to my brother -- someone who is tech-savvy enough to get by but doesn't care about tech news, someone who's tried and used a lot of Google services but gets frustrated with things being overly complicated, and someone who's on the brink of ordering himself a new Pixel phone.

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