You defended Hangouts elsewhere. Again I followed your links and don't find things that match your explanations.

The second link is just a screenshot and I see nothing concerning 'identities' there. It wants to replace SMS and you can accept or deny? Granted, one should click on that learn more button before accepting that - I don't know what hides behind that link.

Maybe it is the first link you posted? That .. doesn't seem to say a thing about identities either, unless you mean the single paragraph about being able to select among multiple accounts, should you be signed in to more than one?

I didn't watch the video, maybe that one offers more, but so far I don't think FUD is the right term here..

I know that from personal experience! I got that screen I link to, then another notice poped-up telling me what identity I'm currently using, I'm searching for a screen cap of that.

So your anecdote says you had one experience and hers says she had a different experience. Whose are we to believe as authoritative? Is it not possible that software has different results for different people based on a wide variety of settings, most of which are not visible to the end user?

This is the second time your novel account has stepped in here to post defense of Google which amounts to no actual support of the statements you're making.

The fact is that Google have made keeping personal data and private activities among various Google services all but impossible. I had my unrelated G+ and YouTube accounts outed and linked despite repeatedly rejecting the joining of them, in November 2013 (resulting in 3 simultaneous top-o-the-page HN stories at the time).

I'm calling shill or FUD here.

It's still not going onto my phone. Merging google+ into SMS is a bad idea, and dangerous to privacy no matter what options there are today that will likely disappear later. Google have consistently proven themselves hostile to privacy and user choice.

I think if there's anything I'm not buying into, it's a new account which seems to only exist to promote Hangouts / google+.

I'm curious (not necessarily in relation to you specifically) what people's thoughts have been in a similar vein about iMessage vs SMS.