It seems like Google has completely lost it's sense of direction and purpose. They appear to be throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Youtube Go should have just be integrated into the normal youtube app, same with youtube music. They should have improved upon hangouts instead of building Allo and Duo. And now they have killed off chromeOS and are building andromeda which sounds like pretty much another android honeycomb. They desperately need leadership and vision.
I agree that google lacks direction and purpose, but I don't believe that this is anything new. Evident it products like Wave and Dodgeball, google has a history of simply trying things out and seeing if it sticks. However, while this is annoying to us as consumers, it does seem to work in that it allows them to occasionally release useful products that, otherwise, would never have seen the light of day.
I think the article makes (even) more sense, when you read it together with the YouTube Go announcement [1]. The announcement specifically talks about bringing the YouTube experience to users in India.
Replace Allo/Duo/Google with WhatsApp and the article still holds true, but WhatsApp wasn't an India centric product.
Lest we forget that iMessage and facetime only worked with your phone number at launch. Not to mention WhatsApp, which only recently started working in the browser and doesn't work on a tablet.
