GTalk was easy to install, no need to create an account (most already had Gmail), had incompatible features (like making a voice call), later was integrated into the Gmail web interface, so you could use it anywhere. So many Jabber users did switch to it.

Then somehow "broke" in a way that messages from GTalk were coming through, but anything coming from Jabber wasn't arriving. Since most Jabber users had Gmail account many switches to continue talking to their peers. Stubborn people, like me, were left with rooster full of people online that none responded to you.

At that time Google was seemed like a white knight, fixing things and making them better.

Facebook today is known for being extremely shitty and destroying any competition, and there are still so many naive people.

Can you share the secrets to somehow even being a 1/4 as optimistic as you are?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

-- George Santayana

It's not a strawman. It's an actual man that existed and did the thing. It's history.