This is well known Google doesn’t flinch when it decides at the right time that a product or service has already reached the end of its useful life. Whether due to changes in strategy, performance below expectations, or evolution of the service ecosystem, it is better to put it aside and do something else. And even if there are cases that were not very well received by their communities, such as Google Reader or Picasa, the truth is that in the vast majority of cases there are compelling reasons behind this closure, which are constantly thickening the Google graveyard.

The most famous movement in recent times in this regard was without a doubt the feared, expected and finally confirmed closure of the Stadiaafter a journey of about three years, during which the service never took off the way the company expected for many reasons, both the hype and the plate with which it was announced, and the more than significant investment in its implementation with multiple data centers geographically distributed around the world, to ensure the best possible connectivity. It was not possible and the company decided to close the curtain again.

Today’s is a trifle in comparison, but also another example of search engine technology being indifferent (and doing it generally well) when its time has come. And it’s like that in a few hours The previously announced shutdown of Hangouts has been completedand it was known about him plans to remove the Street View appwhich provides direct access to a navigation service for streets, highways, etc., with a more than remarkable level of near-global coverage, as well as being one of the options users use to upload their own content to it.

As for the first, Google Hangouts, the company already announced a few months ago its final closure, effective yesterday, November 1, 2022. And there has been no pardon or extension, because as of yesterday, attempts to log in to Hangouts are redirected to Chat, which has better integration with Gmail. So, the plan that the company announced a few years ago, z migrate Hangouts to Chat. If you’ve been a Hangouts user and want to keep a copy of your history, you can download it using Google Data Export until January 1, 2023, because with the change of year, all that data will be permanently deleted.

Street View is a feature that is very popular, but is fully integrated with Google Maps, both in the web version and in the Android and iOS apps, and users who want to continue uploading content to it already have Street View Studio, a web tool designed specifically for this purpose. So we can understand that the exclusive Street View app no ​​longer makes sense for Google, and as it was found when analyzing version 2.0.0.484371618 of the Android app, it contains several warnings with the following text:

«Street View will be closed

The app will be discontinued and support will end on March 21, 2023.

To publish your own 360 video, switch to Street View Studio. Use Google Maps to view Street View and add spherical photos.»

As with Hangouts, Google is starting to set the stage for removing Street View with a few months to goso that users can migrate to new (in this case, not so new) alternatives to what will soon be gone.

With information from SlashGear and 9to5Google