I experienced a frustrating issue with Google Chat in Gmail today. It wouldn't log me in, telling me my system administrator had blocked me. I knew that wasn't true, so I started trouble shooting on my own.
It turns out I had enabled a feature in Google Labs, where Google tests things out before unleashing the enhancement upon the masses. I was enjoying Google Calendar in Gmail, but this apparently broke Google Chat today. Disabling the feature in Labs fixed things.
That's when I realized, Gmail is still beta. It's been 4.5 years since Gmail launched and it's still in beta.
Will Gmail be in beta forever and why exactly is that?