Why does Google insist on making the Chat experience as fractured & painful as possible?

About five years ago, I had chats, texts (Voice), and "spaces" all in one list. They broke Hangouts out from chat, renamed it, killed it, reintegrated it but as a separate tab, then put it into the Gmail app, then made a new app but still with separate tabs for groups & spaces

Why can't we just have a list of the people we want to talk to all in one place? Why is that so difficult?

https://9to5google.com/2023/11/29/google-chat-app-redesign/

Google Chat rolling out a wild navigation redesign on Android, iOS

Following the web, Google Chat is getting a big navigation redesign on Android and iOS to accompany its new icon...

9to5Google