YouTube Shutting Down Hangouts on Air August 1st

"The classic Hangouts On Air streaming experience is going away on August 1, 2019. For quick streaming, try YouTube.com/webcam"
[link to support.google.com (secure)]

Google's process of shutting down all products related to Google+ is continuing. Hangouts on Air is the latest product to be shut down and will come to an end this Thursday. YouTube offers direct webcam streaming as an alternative, but this does not allow the full functionality of Hangouts. Hangouts allowed groups of people to host group discussions on air, something the webcam or direct streaming features do not directly support.

The hangout system certainly has more than its share of bugs and problems, most notably its vulnerability to "stream sniping." The hangout system allows you to share your screen, a feature I personally used extensively back in the day to share live images from my telescope (I now use OBS to stream to YouTube directly and mitigate the threat of stream sniping). If the host accidentally shows the Hangout window on their computer and a sniper pauses it at that point, they can copy the url visible at the top of the window to break into the hangout and even kick the panelists off of their own hangout. Once kicked, that account cannot rejoin the hangout to take back control.
They can then continue to stream whatever they want, effectively hijacking the channel hosting the hangout (at least until the hangout would time out a couple minutes after the host had been kicked).

Many trolls have used this trick to deliberately stream pornography after first kicking the host out of the hangout so that they can't even stop it, then they report the video to YouTube in an attempt to get the host banned from YouTube. This vulnerability has been known about for years and Google has not lifted a finger to correct the issue.
[link to climateviewer.com (secure)]

Disturbingly, it should be noted that Google's official response to the bug reports at the time was that it was an "intended feature." So basically, they wanted the ability for trolls to hijack and stream porn on any channel if the owner accidentally showed the Hangout link. A handy way to discredit and ban any dissenting voices that prove too inconvenient. Now years later after most channels know to avoid showing the hangout link accidentally, the final solution from Google seems to be to shut down the feature altogether.

Later tonight I plan to have a Hangout on Air, a last hurrah to a once useful (and dangerous) feature of the platform. I plan to send out invitations to a few select conspiracy theorists who have made claims over the last few years that my footage is just CGI fakery. We'll see if they're willing to show up and back up their accusations live, on my last ever Google Hangout.