It's absurd that consumers are left guessing which of Google's services are around for the long-haul and which are doomed.

There was a time when success was the default outcome for a new Google product/service. Now it's the opposite, and the crazy thing is that Google did it to themselves.

Exactly. Where does this leave Allo? Is GVoice + Allo the intended product combination?

Nothing is certain. There is competition among internal Google teams to get the attention of the top execs but there is zero clear vision.

Google is a mess. I can't trust it.

The question is: what are these top execs thinking?

Google needs to focus on the products and services their customers love.

Google Reader is the best example of this. People LOVED it. It was even a successful social network!

Was that a move from adoption to profit as the metric for success. Now they 'have' to maximise profit and search for the maximal mode of doing so, previously they were content to create useful apps?

When was this "a time", and did it include more than Mail, Maps, and Docs?

Yes, it also included Android, Chrome, Analytics, News, Reader.

Ok: I explicitly considered Android and did not consider it a product (though this was probably wrong of me), and I feel like Reader is disqualified as Google decided it failed and killed it when they should have used it as a basis for other projects (the thing they always do :/), but thanks for reminding me of Analytics and Chrome! (Is News successful?!? I always tried to use it and it never really seemed to accomplish anything, and now they seem to be attaching its fate to AMP, which is either going to win so hard they end up taking control of the entire Internet, or is going to finally kill it...)

So is Hangouts the new Google Voice? The focus shifted from Google Voice to Hangouts (it receiving MMS, etc), and now it's shifted back to Voice? Why can't they just combine it all into a single app and be done with it.

As a Project Fi user, that makes heavy use of Hangouts, I sure hope not (as Voice and Fi are incompatible).

Who knows, maybe the Voice improvements over the coming months includes Fi compatibiltiy?