
Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers - Nemant
https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/
======
coltonv
Google+ had terrible marketing and release, but it had some decent ideas that
I wish other networks had carried over.

The idea of "circles", where you had a circle for "acquaintances" "friends",
"family" would be great on, say, Facebook, as it would allow me to filter down
my feed to just the people I really care about but still have a connection to
more distance acquaintances.

Currently on Facebook the news feed is automatically generated, and the only
control you have over it is to subscribe/unsubscribe from particular friends.
Given hundreds of acquaintances, this is a pain, and made me give up on
Facebook altogether. I wish social networks would trust me to decide what I
want to see rather than just let an AI attempt to understand it, which in the
end just ended up spamming my feed with clickbait and baby pictures from
people I barely know.

~~~
evgen
There is no way Facebook would ever implement something like this. The whole
point of the Facebook feed tinkering is to force you to wade through a river
of shit to find the nuggets you are interested in. The feed algorithm is all
about making that river just slightly short of unbearable, because the river
is where they stuff all the ads. If they provided you with useful filters it
would make the revenue opportunities more visible.

~~~
adrianmonk
I'd like to think that's not true, but it wouldn't be the first time such a
technique has been used, apparently successfully. Witness the local TV news
which is always teasing that some story is coming up next, only to put it at
the very end of the broadcast so that you have to watch the whole 30 minute
program (including commercials) to hear the 1 minute you care about.

~~~
Yhippa
Just like grocery stores putting milk and bread way in the back so you have to
walk by all those high margin items.

~~~
rapind
There's a practical reason for this. Temperature and where they unload (and
the perishable nature). Not saying there couldn't be a manipulative reason
too, but I wouldn't assume so by default.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Everything in business happens to increase sales. For retail, there’s even a
name and occupation for it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram)

You always want dairy and fruits/vegetables on opposite sides of the store
since they’re perishable, hence they get purchased the most often, and you
want people to walk past all the other aisles every time.

~~~
perl4ever
It seems to me that a sensible person buying a lot of groceries gets
refrigerated and frozen items last so they have the least amount of
melting/warming up on the way home. So the positioning of them after
everything else is in the interest of the customer.

~~~
mgkimsal
the perishables could be closer together, vs having people traipse across a
store to get the basics (conveniently seeing hundreds of other opportunities
to load up their cart along the way). "interest of the customer" (saving
money) doesn't align with "interest of the business" (maximizing rev/profit)

------
mindgam3
RIP. Like so many of Google’s high profile efforts (anyone remember Wave?
Glass, etc), a bunch of good ideas and great tech brought down by an utter
failure to understand the human element/social psychology angle.

Google+ was dead in the water from day one. You don’t beat Facebook at social
by building a slightly different product with some cool ideas like Circles.
Going for feature parity was a mistake. Instead they should have tried to
identify a niche where Facebook was failing (say, intimate private sharing, or
the antithesis of the narcissist fest) and build up a loyal core of rabidly
passionate users, then slowly expanded from there. Kind of like how Facebook
started out as a platform for elite universities, then high schools, then
workplaces, then the world.

This approach would have been hard to sell internally at Google given the
pressure to release a “Facebook killer.” But people always forget that the way
to build a platform is to start by nailing a niche use case and then
expanding. Even the Apple App Store only came to dominate because it was based
on a hit product, the original iPhone.

Anyway, kudos to Google for finally admitting defeat. Hopefully management
learned something and they hire some people who understand humans so that
their brilliant engineering capacity doesn’t get wasted again.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Why do you need to beat Facebook at social at all? Just focus on what you’re
good at, it’s not like Facebook is going to suddenly dominate search.

~~~
mindgam3
Because social is/was such a fundamental aspect of the human experience. As
proven by facebook’s continued explosive growth in the years since Google
tried to compete. Not to mention FB’s ability to affect markets, attitudes,
and politics at global scale.

It would have been better if they had competitors to keep them honest.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Disagree strongly. Lots of categories are a fundamental part of the human
experience. No one company can or should try and compete in all of them.

I really admire Apple here a lot more than Google. They seem to have a
stronger sense of who they are and who they are not.

~~~
mindgam3
Sure. But I never said Google should try to compete in all of them. Just
social, given that it is up there as a fundamental human need, hardwired into
our brains like the need for food or sex. Google’s mission is “to organize the
world’s information and make it accessible and useful.” You really can’t fault
them for trying to organize the world’s social information when it became
clear to everyone that social was powerful enough to become one of the
dominant computing paradigms.

My take is, they were justified in going for it, but it’s simply not in their
DNA. Social information is different from the non-human information where
Google dominates (eg search, maps, etc).

I do share your admiration for Apple vs Google. But I wonder how long they
will be able to keep it up without a Jobsian product visionary to define their
identity. Tim Cook is doing a good job so far but there is only so long they
can coast on iPhone dominance and strong operations. Apple’s identity revolves
around defining the future, and I’m not sure they still have that ability.

------
cletus
This is Vic Gundotra's legacy and perhaps the first major strategic decision
Larry Page made in the post-Eric Schmidt era and it was the design and launch
of Google+ and (IMHO) it marked a turning point in the company's culture.

Internal resistance to aspects of G+ was enormous. People outside the company
get this idea that Google acts as some kind of singleminded (possibly
nefarious) entity when "herding cats" is so often much closer to the truth. In
G+'s case, the rank-and-file was largely against things like the Real Names
policy yet leadership went ahead with it anyway (Vic often quipped that you
didn't want everyone named "Dog fart", which was a pretty ridiculous
argument).

And while it may have been Vic driving this, Larry backed him so has to bear
shared responsibility.

Probably the worst decision made in this whole mess was (again, IMHO) trying
to unify the account model. Youtube accounts have different permission models
to Gmail accounts, etc. It would've been sufficient to simply link them (and
not require they be linked) rather than jamming single-sign-on down everyone's
throats, which really gained nothing except a lot of user backlash.

The worst part of this was that the for the longest time some policy violation
(like your name not being "real") could lock you out of your entire account.
Whoever made this decision needed to be fired. Deciding someone's name wasn't
real enough should NEVER lock you out of your Gmail (or Youtube or any other
service).

I was reminded of this in a thread yesterday about the disaster that was the
Snapchat redesign. Leadership ignoring user feedback as people start to
attribute luck to skill and vision (people have a tendency to socialize losses
and privatize wins). Is this merely hubris? Because it's very reminiscent of
the dismissal of internal feedback that is now routine (at Google).

It's unfortunate how much Google-hate is on HN these days because I think it's
largely unjustified. There are definitely some bad (IMHO) leadership decisions
but the rank-and-file are still culture carriers for a lot of the things that
made Google great.

Still, as the Chinese say, the fish rots from the head.

Disclaimer: Xoogler. All opinions are entirely personal and I don't speak for
this or any other company.

EDIT: TIL the origin of "a fish rots from the head" is disputed and possibly
Turkish not Chinese: [https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-
head-d...](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-head-
down.html)

~~~
justicezyx
Not relevant, but "the fish rots from the head" is relevant to Chinese? I
cannot find any explanation of that connection. Just curious.

~~~
gojomo
When I search Google for [fish rots from head], the top 3 results each mention
some Chinese connection – one calls it a "Chinese proverb", others say it's
been variously attributed to many traditions, often Turkish, Greek, or
Chinese.

(So: maybe that's an origin. Or perhaps there's something vaguely similar in
some Chinese traditions. Or perhaps it's just a common mal-attribution, as
there's a tendency in the west to ascribe various highly-figurative or riddle-
like pearls of wisdom to "the Chinese", or "the Arabs", or "the Buddhists",
etc.)

~~~
monomyth
[https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-
head-d...](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-head-
down.html)

------
buserror
I used G+ a lot a few years back, and I did dozens of posts of logs of
projects and so on... and then one day I wanted to refer to one of them to
someone and discovered you can't _search you own posts_.

That immediately stopped me posted anything. It's almost write-once, read
never sort of medium. It's too bad, there were a few good ideas and so on, and
I had a bit of traction of a few good 'circles' but I'm pretty sure that like
me, everyone else stopped.

Now, I have to figure out a way of re-importing all that content to something
else, probably homebrewed this time.

 _IN FACT_ I've just checked, and G+ seems to have forgotten _every single
post I 've made, but one_.
[https://plus.google.com/+MichelPollet](https://plus.google.com/+MichelPollet)

EDIT: Now the posts are back. I must have been archived on CDs or something
;-)

~~~
ssijak
Try google takeout for g+ and see if your posts are there

~~~
ReverseCold
This works very well. My download was huge (~50something GB I think), but it
recovered all the emails that Gmail couldn't find anymore. Now I just use
repgrip to search my old emails.

------
ChuckMcM
packets to packets, bits to bits.

I am not surprised they are killing the service, and I'm reminded of all the
damage it did to the company both inside and out[1]. If there is one thing I
could say I miss about not working at Google it is seeing how the organization
internalizes what they did and why. These sorts of things can teach a lot of
really good lessons to an organization if the retrospective is done well.

I was also thinking about the recent love letter to Google that came across
here about Google Cloud. In it was the admission that Google tried to hard to
"copy" or "follow" AWS in the early years.

Allo, Inbox, Gchat, Reader, Wave, Etc. It feels like they are trying to hard
to be "amazing" and missing out on just being good at what they do. Meanwhile
the beat of the jungle drums, "More ads, more ads, more ads..." continues on
relentlessly.

[1] Inside there were good projects that got killed because they either
conflicted with or competed with G+, outside the company it seemed Google was
deathly afraid of Facebook and Twitter and had no credible answer, their real
names fiasco, their forcing of people to use G+ if they used other services,
all of it damaged the Google brand and user trust.

~~~
cpeterso
It seems like Google could have successfully built a "shadow social network"
by incrementally integrating their popular services like Gmail, Inbox, Reader,
YouTube, Hangouts, and chat into one portal. OTOH, Buzz tried to inject social
sharing into Gmail and there was a big user backlash.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Absolutely - always thought this. I fail to see why Google+ was a discreet
product at all.

~~~
Latteland
I think this is exactly right. It would have been a lot better to organically
build a social network across all their products that people actually like to
use and comment on. Instead we force them to do things they didn't want to do
like real names, but also constantly having to make decisions about what was
public or not. It was doomed to failure. I even worked on a project that was a
tiny part of Google Plus.

------
ilovecaching
What's really striking about this to me is that Google didn't disclose the
security vulnerability. Google is trying to cover it up by moving the ball
from 'there was a breach' to 'we're shutting down G+'. This is why I'm super
hesitant to be a Google fanboy. Facebook may have my social media info, but
Google has my emails, all of my mobile data, access to a bunch of my assets
through Google Domains, GCE etc. Scary stuff.

~~~
oculusthrift
Sadly the strategy is working. not seeing much mention of breach on HN

~~~
staticassertion
When did "there was a vulnerability" become "there was a breach" ?

I don't understand why it's being reported as a breach.

~~~
dangerface
Because breaches come from public vulnerabilities, unless you can prove there
was no breach, you should treat it as a breach. This is common information
security practice.

Google are unable to prove there was no breach because they didn't keep
sufficient logs, which is also not acceptable in modern security practice.

~~~
staticassertion
> This is common information security practice.

No it isn't.

If every vulnerability in every product turned into a "We've been breached"
disclosure the industry would be a disaster.

Yeah, they didn't keep sufficient logs and they fucked up really badly there.
Still silly to call it a breach.

~~~
dangerface
The industry is a disaster because companies don't disclose potential
breaches.

------
mindcrime
LOL, one more example of why one should never depend on anything from Google.

 _developer adoption_

Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because they never released a usable write API and
were basically just a little less developer-hostile than Twitter?

G+ had a lot of potential, had Google chosen to truly embrace Open Standards,
federation, and usable API's. As it is, they shot themselves in the foot by
creating JAWG (Just Another Walled Garden).

Anyway, maybe this will just help prod more people to join the Fediverse.

~~~
jonknee
> never depend on anything from Google

They're shutting it down precisely because no one was depending on it. How
would anyone depend on a social network without any users?

~~~
mindcrime
_They 're shutting it down precisely because no one was depending on it. How
would anyone depend on a social network without any users?_

It _did_ have users. I have no idea the exact number, and clearly it wasn't as
many as Facebook, but it wasn't the ghost town people always made it out to
be. Some of the Communities were actually quite active.

~~~
Apocryphon
Where are these Communities, exactly?

~~~
FeloniousHam
In my case, many old school RPG communities are active on Google+. I think its
anti-social nature is a feature not a bug.

------
jrrrr
G+ didn't even get its own sunset announcement post; it was mentioned in
passing from a post about _something else_.

Poor G+.

~~~
ben174
I think that was by design. Trying to sweep it under the covers to avoid
outrage. I share that article with friends and they're likely to read the
first half of the headline and not bother reading it.

~~~
pc86
Serious question, is _anybody_ going to be outraged by sunsetting G+?

~~~
reitanqild
Not outraged. I'm not that kind of guy.

But I'm gonna miss it. I haven't been too active the last few months so I
guess I might be to blame too (but then again I've not been active anywhere
else either lately except here).

Where else do you go to meet people who share interests in a more general
sense? HN doesn't care about photography. Twitter doesn't allow me to chose to
see someones photos but not their crazy posts about politics. Facebook...
well, don't even mention it. It's less than a week since last time they let
hackers access theirs users accounts, and even if they had a perfect security
record wrt hacking, it seems they just can't stand the temptation to abuse
data: change settings, do experiments on users to make them depressed, abuse
2-fator phone numbers for spamming, ask people to upload nudes - many of us
couldn't make this up even if we tried..!

~~~
tonfa
Would instagram work? (I have some photographer friends and they seem fairly
active there).

~~~
reitanqild
For photography maybe.

But it is too limited (Google+ lets you write and cite text posts etc.)

Also while I originally liked it I think it is too heavily tied into Facebook
now.

------
tinkerteller
Number of project failures and cuts under Larry Page is just amazing. Normally
you would expect that founder CEO insist on long term vision and loves to go
after big bets. Under Larry Page, X had been cut. Boston Dynamics was lost.
Robotics effort was shutdown. And now G+. After all these time _no one_ at
Google's highly paid smartest on Earth visionaries were able to experiment,
try something new and continue fight for social. This is at the time FB is
bleeding heavily, is losing trust and people are willing to try something new.
Google is one case where it looks like outside traditional CEO Eric Schmidt
did much much better not only in operational excellence but also long term big
bets including maps, gmail, YouTube, Android etc. Larry Page has nothing
comparable to show for in his 7 years of leadership. This might be one reason:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-13/larry-
pag...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-13/larry-page-is-a-no-
show-with-google-under-a-harsh-spotlight?srnd=technology-vp)

~~~
Cthulhu_
After all these time no one at Google's highly paid smartest on Earth
visionaries were able to experiment, try something new and continue fight for
social.

What? They spent a decade on G+, launched it with much fanfare, annnd it just
didn't pan out. Sure, they didn't drive it down Google users' throats as
aggressively as they could have (via e.g. Search, Chrome or Gmail) but that
really wouldn't have helped them - Facebook didn't grow like that either.
Social networks need to grow via organic growth, via word of mouth.

Anyway they're cutting their losses finally instead of indulging in the sunk
cost fallacy, I say good riddance. You also mention Maps, Gmail, YouTube and
Android but these are all highly popular - and profitable - services and have
been since the start.

~~~
tinkerteller
No, they left it to rott. No innovations, no new strategy, no new leadership,
no new bold moves. Nothing. If G+ was startup outside Google we would have
ripped it off for not even pretending to compete.

Social is absolutely the most important space for Google, even more so than
cloud. FB is eating up large chunk of their ad money and putting biggest chunk
of content out of their reach. For a company out to organize world's
information, this is unthinkable. And this is a company with $100B in bank,
accumulation of largest talent pool, ability to attract the best. And it's not
that FB is perfect and strongest at this point.

There is no "cutting losses" in tech when product category is this important.
It takes years of struggle, experimentation, patience and competition to win.
They gave up within an year after G+ release, left it on "maintenance mode"
and now finally kissing good bye.

To me, Google has lost its charm as company that makes big bets and goes all-
in until they win. Now they are company which does half-assed product and if
they don't see traction right away, they cut off the oxygen and then just kill
it. There is little or no reflections, learning and applying it to do course
corrections.

After Larry Page arrived at the scene and flew out to his Caribbean island on
extra-extended vacations, the company has failed to produce any big new
product category. Eric Schmidt was able to start new product category
virtually every year and become undisputed leader in it. That wasn't
coincidence or luck but sheer drive to win. For example, in maps they had to
invest huge amount of money with multi-year milestones and constant
innovations to displace existing players.

------
sctb
Related discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169027](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18169027).

Edit: here are some other articles providing coverage:

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/8/17951914/google-plus-
data...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/8/17951914/google-plus-data-breach-
exposed-user-profile-information-privacy-not-disclosed)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/08/google-reportedly-exposed-
pr...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/08/google-reportedly-exposed-private-data-
of-at-least-hundreds-of-thousands-of-plus-users.html)

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/google-plus-
hack/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/google-plus-hack/)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45792349](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45792349)

[https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/google-plus-shut-
down-...](https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/google-plus-shut-
down-1202972233/)

[https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-says-it-
found-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-says-it-found-
security-flaw-march-chose-not-tell-n917846)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/google-shutters-google-
socia...](https://www.businessinsider.com/google-shutters-google-social-
network-after-wsj-reports-a-huge-security-lapse-2018-10)

~~~
p49k
This is not a news article, though - it's a one-sided PR piece that greatly
minimizes important points about the story and completely ignores other points
(e.g. the regulation angle). You should have let another news story take its
spot; there are plenty others that are not paywalled.

~~~
ma2rten
In my opinion the entire privacy breach is a non-issue. Here is what I think
happened:

Some engineer at Google found a bug in Google Plus that could be used to
access private data. The issue was investigated by the security team. They
find that no harm was done. Incidents like this happen somewhat regularly at
any tech company. Normally nobody thinks twice about it or even thinks about
disclosing it to the public.

However, Google wanted to shut down Google Plus and wanted to avoid a
backslash like with Google Reader. They used this bug as a pretext. Before
Google releases this blog post, the post gets leaked the WSJ. The WSJ then
puts a spin on it that Google didn't expect, because the narrative fits well
into the current news cycle.

~~~
p49k
By Google's own admission, there is no way for them to know if the issue was
abused because they only keep two weeks of log data. If there was a way for
them to have found that "no harm was done", they would be emphatically making
that point, not the opposite.

------
kirykl
Do we get the + operator back in search ?

~~~
jiveturkey
came here to say just that. the gall of google, claiming at the release of g+,
that '+' was never an official qualifier and quotes were always the standard.

------
0xmohit
> Google is shutting down its long-neglected Facebook competitor Google+
> following the disclosure of a vulnerability that could have resulted in
> third-party developers accessing private data from around 500,000 users, the
> company announced Monday.

Source: [https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/google-plus-shut-
down-...](https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/google-plus-shut-
down-1202972233/)

~~~
colonelxc
That is in this post.

------
whoisjuan
Funny how they low-key slip through, the fact that they had an open security
vulnerability for 3 years. Like "Hey, we are shutting down Google+ ... Btw,
your data may have or may have not been exposed..."

~~~
aabraham
I think that's the bigger issue here. For 3 years there was a vulnerability.
And when they did find out about it, they chose not to disclose the
information. Why? B/c there wasn't that many people using it. And so because
of that, let's shut down G+, rather than be scrutinized about how they chose
not to let it be know, that users information were available through this
vulnerability.

~~~
oculusthrift
this is the same company that threatens other companies that if they don’t
patch a vulnerability fast enough, the time will release it to the public.
class act

~~~
srtjstjsj
They patched the vuln as soon as they discovered it.

------
mcv
This sucks. The vibrant RPG community on Google+ is in uproar about this and
looking for a suitable alternative. (MeWe looks like the most likely candidate
at the moment.)

Google+ started out as the best social network. Unfortunately Google has taken
every opportunity to ruin it, remove popular features, force ill-considered
integration, remove that integration once people are used to it. Lately the
spam filtering has been utterly broken, alternating between leaving painfully
obvious spam, and marking and hiding comments from people you were following.
It seemed like it was an experimental testbed for them where they didn't care
if people were using it.

Despite all of that, we hung on because of the great communities, the people
we got to know, and because frankly there's no good alternative.

It really seems to me it shouldn't be too hard at this point to design a sane
social network. Google+ had all the elements, but refused to apply them
correctly.

Facebook is a horrible mess of privacy violations with no control over your
feed (though G+'s control often doesn't work as intended either), and besides,
there's family and co-workers there. Twitter seems designed for screaming into
the void. Tumbler and Instagram don't seem to be my thing.

~~~
stevenwoo
Meet in real life to RPG or online somehow? How about a private subreddit?

~~~
mcv
Real life is a very different use case. Better, but also a lot harder. I've
never actually tried reddit, but my impression is that it's more of a
traditional forum, but lots of them.

At the moment, G+ers seem to be gravitating towards MeWe.

~~~
stevenwoo
One can have a private, invite only subreddit and one can choose all the
moderators of the subreddit. I think that if you use reddit's native mobile or
web page css they push ads on you so I don't use either of those.

------
bearcobra
The reports of Google avoiding making a security disclosure about the
potential data breach out of concern for negative PR and regulatory response
are very concerning and should be getting more attention

~~~
joethebro
It's just ridiculous that they had it open for 3 years, didn't have proper
metrics so don't know exactly how many were breached, but there estimate was
500,000 and they didn't disclose???

C'mon Google, why'd you have to try and hide this...

------
TimTheTinker
Google+ was a top-down, scrambling response to Facebook's meteoric rise. I
think it ultimately failed because it didn't naturally mesh with or arise from
Google's natural strengths.

Google has always had amazing scientists and engineers working for them, but
building a new social network requires less math/science and more of a human
focus. (Of course, Facebook's data centers and ops are now the 6th wonder of
the tech world, but that came later.)

~~~
HillaryBriss
> _...Facebook 's data centers and ops are now the 6th wonder of the tech
> world ..._

At the risk of not being taken seriously, er, what are the first 5 wonders of
the tech world?

Is AWS #1? Is Google's huge swarm of web search indexing machines #1? What
makes it onto that list?

~~~
TimTheTinker
I didn't mean that particular ordinal literally... personally, I'm impressed
by how they're able to achieve such a high level of uptime, data integrity,
and near-realtime communication.

------
skywhopper
Lots of people here talking about the good bits of Google+ or how they could
have made it succeed. But from my POV it was just the wrong idea from the
start. From what I saw Google panicked about the growth of Facebook and
Twitter and tried to build a competitor. But no one wanted more social
networks. And Google didn’t have a compelling story about how they were
better. Instead it was just a bunch of user hostile changes—forced linking of
accounts, elimination of stuff like Reader—and Google seemed to be forcing
itself into parts of your digital life where it wasn’t welcome. I’m glad
they’re able to admit it’s a failure now even though it took several years too
long and this silly excuse about a privacy review.

~~~
dannyw
Now imagine if Google acquired Instagram...

------
unsignedint
Google+ sunsetting is sad news, as I've actually used it fairly actively. (and
I have a few dozens of people I interact regularly who I wouldn't have known
if not from G+!)

It somewhat acted like a better version of Twitter for me, where I can write a
lot more on the post, and actually engage a meaningful discussion with people.

I don't know, even with relaxed character counts on Twitter that it will
accommodate same use cases, and I don't like to use Facebook for this purpose
as I really don't want introduce a total stranger as my friend...

~~~
lucb1e
Exactly the same here. I _made_ friends there (not like on most other networks
where you 99% add people you already know anyway) and used it for a while, and
it indeed feels like a better Twitter.

I'm fine with it shutting down, though. At least I no longer have to feel like
I'm missing out on anything for not using a Google product (for various
reasons, one of them being that it might be cancelled any minute).

------
trynewideas
It's going to be very interesting to see where all the tabletop gaming people
land. G+ got a lot of pickup in that hobby because the early API blended
tools, like Hangouts with overlays and easily segmented discussion groups,
that worked well with online tabletop gaming. Roll20 integrated well with G+
(at least until Google killed the Hangouts API in April 2017).

The early adopters reached enough of a critical mass that others used it
solely because of who was already there, making it an actual social network
for at least that purpose.

Much like when Reader folded, G+'s critical mass is going to spread out to a
half-dozen other places and refragment. And like Reader's exit, there's a
vacuum right now for someone to jump in with something better and charge a
nominal amount for it.

------
Twirrim
From my perspective, the one thing Google got _really_ wrong with G+ was their
APIs. When G+ was launched, tools like TweetDeck were heavily used for
interacting with Twitter, Facebook and the like. All of a sudden along came a
service that had no APIs by which you could post to it. Something you needed
to specifically go and open a separate application for.

If they'd made public read & write APIs from the start, they could have picked
up a massive initial user base as people used the tools they were already
actively using. You've got to either:

1) Offer an amazingly compelling product with features that provide
_significant_ reasons for people to compel people to use you

2) Go to where people are, and bring them to you.

G+ failed on both scores. It had good features, but they weren't _that_
compelling.

~~~
zmmmmm
Yep, people keep rewriting the history, but I remember it exactly: there was
enormous enthusiasm and hype around G+. Developers, tech enthusiasts
everywhere were "queuing around the block" to get on board with it and to
stick it to Facebook. Then Google did two things:

\- announced no API access \- real names policy debacle

Between those two things they completely destroyed all good will and within
months it was essentially dead. I actually think it was a larger turning point
that made developers significantly more cynical about Google overall.

~~~
Twirrim
They could have survived the real names policy debate, if the API had been
there. But that was one hell of a double-whammy.

~~~
Macha
I especially found it interesting how supporters portrayed it as an issue that
people would get over, but in the end G+ never took off and YouTube users
nearly revolted over it and they also found it did nothing to improve
discourse on YouTube even when many users relented.

------
ronilan
The best thing to ever come out of Google+ is this:
[https://youtu.be/LTq8TrA3hb4](https://youtu.be/LTq8TrA3hb4)

------
Latteland
The post says they don't have evidence of anyone using the api that leaked all
that personal info - let's not ignore that: name, picture, birthdate, email
was just open to the world for a friend lookup! Second, they don't clarify if
this is "evidence of absence" of a leak. Do they not monitor that api call but
they don't have any reason to expect a problem? Or is it that they monitor it
and no one used it in the "bad way"? I'm afraid it must be the first - if they
had evidence no one ever use the api, they'd be explicit about it.

~~~
joethebro
They mentioned the reason they weren't able to know was because they only kept
the logs for a short amount of time.

------
pasbesoin
_People are finally becoming dis-enchanted with Facebook. Quick, kill
Google+!_

As opposed to trying to take advantage of the opportunity and improve it --
fixing the bork-headed management design shoved onto it prior to external
launch.

Facebook has shown how it's failing its users. Google has the opportunity to
make a big show and potentially market share gain by doing the opposite. But,
nope.

Instead, 'our market share is corporate'.

Which is fine. But, it tells you a lot about where Google has been going.

(And, if I were corporate Worldmerica, I'd be hesitant about investing too
much good will in and dependence upon +.)

As an individual Google user, unfortunately I have little hope that this
unwinding will also back out other changes co-morbid with the + deployment,
such as the account "unification" that allows a single "mistake" to lock you
out of everything. And a single Google "mistake" in execution to haunt you
across all their properties.

I'm in the process of exiting Facebook, except for a mostly placeholder
presence. A lot of my friends don't have the wherewithal to set up and
maintain privately implemented social presences. But, we won't be switching to
+, I guess.

Maybe an old-fashioned bulletin board -- with otherwise unlinked pseudonyms --
will do. Back to the Future...

As I think about this, maybe there is a strongly implied message in this.
Assuming parts of Google still emit good will. Namely, that, these days, _NO_
commercial network can escape the pressures -- governmental as well as
commercial -- to compromise their users.

 _We aren 't making it, because we can no longer do so honestly and securely._

An interesting alternative perspective.

 _(And, we 're even less inclined than Mark and Co., to try to ride herd on
all the nut jobs out there.)_

------
zelon88
Google is wrapping a breach disclosure in a press release for new services and
you're all glossing right over the breach. Just sayin'...

------
_emacsomancer_
What exactly does "sunsetting consumer Google+" mean? The blog post wasn't
particularly enlightening. Are they shutting down Google+ as a social network?

~~~
coltonv
From the article: "Action 1: We are shutting down Google+ for consumers."

They will keep it active as an internal network, but regular old joes won't be
able to use Google+ anymore.

~~~
leephillips
So, nothing's changing?

~~~
slater
Ha!

------
4d66ba06
I like that there are also some privacy improvements in Android permissions
mentioned in this post: "We are limiting apps’ ability to receive Call Log and
SMS permissions on Android devices, and are no longer making contact
interaction data available via the Android Contacts API."

------
rlv-dan
"it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption"

I bet G+ has more active users than your average indie developer could ever
dream about. But Google is not that kind of company. It's all or nothing.
World domination or shut it down and try again (or buy a company that
succeeded).

~~~
arkitaip
G+ only had 500k users and 90 percent of the user sessions lasted less than
five seconds. [https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/google-plus-
hack/](https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/08/google-plus-hack/)

~~~
jsnell
I'm not sure that article is saying there were 500k users. It reads more like
there 500k users had granted access to an app that had these permissions. It
seems hard to imagine that a bug like this would be affected by whether a user
is currently active or not.

------
phyller
Shutting down consumer Google+ is the least important part of this post.
Hardly anyone used that. The privacy changes they are making for everything
else are much more important. More granular control of app permissions is a
big deal.

Overall I'm not sure how to feel because I didn't realize how bad it was. How
many apps have required access to my contacts for legitimate reasons, and I
wasn't aware I was providing access to our interaction data?

> Finding 4: When users grant SMS, Contacts and Phone permissions to Android
> apps, they do so with certain use cases in mind.

> Action 4: We are limiting apps’ ability to receive Call Log and SMS
> permissions on Android devices, and are no longer making contact interaction
> data available via the Android Contacts API.

------
badloginagain
I wonder what G+ could have done to pivot after its terrible release. They had
some good ideas, and usually Google takes those good ideas of a failed product
and rolls it into successful products. Remember Google Wave, where you could
work on a document _at the same time_?

Something like the automatic generation of circles in Google Mail, and
integrate some kind of generalized wall posts for Google Mail users.

~~~
acdha
Put a UX team on it with firing authority up to the management level. I
deleted my account due to the “<rando on one gmail message> is following you”
push & web notification spam which could not be disabled for the first year or
so – I heard so many people complaining about that. They had similar problems
with sharing where a popular story would be all you saw as it was one entry
per person sharing it.

------
vincentmarle
Google+ always reminds me of my favorite management quote: "The single biggest
failure of leadership is to treat adaptive challenges like technical
problems." [1]

[1]
[https://www.sgaumc.org/files/files_library/technical_vs_adap...](https://www.sgaumc.org/files/files_library/technical_vs_adaptive_challenges.pdf)

------
drewfrank
A Google+ private community allows social, collaborative photo sharing photos
with friends _with login required_. This is not supported in Google Photos!
With Photos shared albums you can select people with whom to share, but those
people just get an email with a secret token embedded in a URL -- aside from
trusting your non-technical friends not to accidentally leak this URL, there
is no way to know who is viewing the photos or remove access from specific
individuals. I really hope the Photos team upgrades their shared album
permission model now that the alternative in Google+ has been sunsetted.

------
MisterOctober
I didn't see this sentiment expressed elsewhere in this comment section, so
I'll express it : G+ was overrun by vapid, spam-crazy self-promoters and for
me, it quickly got too annoying to use [say, in 2012 or so]. Every time I
logged in, I had to winnow them out of the list of connection requests, which
was a time-eater especially if I'd been to a large gathering or something
lately. "Lessee... Dave Stevens... did I meet him at that thing last week or
something?... no, just another 'rock star' to delete..."

------
est
The legendary Facebook killer, by the name of G+, here's a list of products it
successfully killed:

\- Google Reader

\- Google Buzz

\- iGoogle

\- Picasa Web Albums

\- Google Talk

\- Google Latitude

\- Google Wave

Now the latest victim was added to the list:

\- Google+

------
MikusR
Where will Linus Torvalds blog now?

~~~
fdej
Here's hoping that he follows up Linux and git by going and making a better
social network!

~~~
jraph
Amazing, now we know why he has temporarily retired from kernel leadership and
what he is really up to.

------
PerryCox
Good, the only time I end up there is by mistake when trying to do something
else.

~~~
gaius
FTA:

 _90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds._

Their own stats seem to back this: people arrive by mistake and immediately go
somewhere else

~~~
orcdork
It's like following a search result to experts exchange on the age of stack
overflow.

~~~
kenhwang
The more infuriating part is that it doesn't even work on mobile FF. So the
few times I accidentally click on a G+ link from my Google assistant feed, I
don't even get the benefit of seeing a post with just a link to the real
content.

------
peterwwillis
....did Google just admit to patching a security hole and not announcing it
for months? Isn't this what they continuously harangue other organizations for
on Google's Project Zero blog?

Yep: [https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-says-it-
found-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/google-says-it-found-
security-flaw-march-chose-not-tell-n917846)

"As many as 438 applications might have used the API. Google maintains that it
didn’t uncover evidence developers were aware of or abused the security flaw,
or that profile data was misused. However, _it acknowledged that it has no way
of knowing for sure because it doesn’t have “audit rights” over its developers
and because it keeps a limited set of activity logs._ "
([https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/08/google-security-
breach/](https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/08/google-security-breach/))

Google wrote: “Our Privacy & Data Protection Office reviewed this issue,
looking at the type of data involved, _whether we could accurately identify
the users to inform_ , _whether there was any evidence of misuse_ , and
_whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response_.
None of these thresholds were met in this instance.”

\--

From 2016: _" The search engine company publicised a critical Windows bug 10
days after informing the software firm about it"_
([https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/01/google-
mi...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/01/google-microsoft-
bug))

From February: _" Microsoft misses Google's 90-day deadline, so Google has
published details of an exploit mitigation bypass"_
([https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-security-google-
exp...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-security-google-exposes-how-
malicious-sites-can-exploit-microsoft-edge/))

And then: _" For the second time in a week, Google reveals another unpatched
Windows 10 vulnerability"_ ([https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-bug-
google-again-re...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-bug-google-again-
reveals-code-for-important-unpatched-flaw/))

In August: _" Google discloses vulnerability in Fortnite launcher that allowed
possible malware installation"_
([https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-08-27-google-
dis...](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-08-27-google-discloses-
vulnerability-in-fortnite-launcher-that-allowed-possible-malware-
installation))

Again in August, reporting Samsung bugs:
([https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-project-zero-heres-
the-...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-project-zero-heres-the-secret-
to-flagging-up-bugs-before-hackers-find-them/)):

 _" Two terms irked her and simply clashed with Project Zero's practices. "You
MUST hold off disclosing the vulnerability in reasonable time, and you MUST
get Samsung's consent or inform Samsung about the date before disclosing the
vulnerability," said Samsung. "In some cases, Samsung may request not to
disclose the vulnerability at all." Again, this clashes with Project Zero's
insistence on disclosure." _

~~~
SyneRyder
It's more than that - the Wall Street Journal article says Pichai signed off
on not disclosing it to the public. It feels a bit like Google only published
this blog post today because they knew WSJ was about to go public:

 _A memo reviewed by the Journal prepared by Google’s legal and policy staff
and shared with senior executives warned that disclosing the incident would
likely trigger “immediate regulatory interest” and invite comparisons to
Facebook’s leak of user information to data firm Cambridge Analytica._

 _Chief Executive Sundar Pichai was briefed on the plan not to notify users
after an internal committee had reached that decision, the people said._

 _.... The document shows Google officials knew that disclosure could have
serious ramifications. Revealing the incident would likely result “in us
coming into the spotlight alongside or even instead of Facebook despite having
stayed under the radar throughout the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” the memo
said. It “almost guarantees Sundar will testify before Congress.”_

[https://t.co/DExCeKTGHX](https://t.co/DExCeKTGHX) (seems to link directly to
the WSJ article):

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-exposed-user-data-
feared...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-exposed-user-data-feared-
repercussions-of-disclosing-to-public-1539017194)

------
CPLX
The use of the word "sunset" as a verb in posts like this is fucking
infuriating. Yes, software types know what it means, but this is a consumer
product with tens of millions of users, who have no familiarity with that
term.

It's a weasel word. The way to say this is in plain English. We're closing,
shutting down, turning off, discontinuing, or something.

~~~
zdragnar
What? Sunsetting something is used outside of software. Hell, it's even used
to describe temporary laws ("sunset law"). It's also used for brands and
business policies.

And, sure, it might not make the top list of 1000 words you might hear on the
street on any given day, but it's also very easy to search for. That doesn't
make it a weasel word.

~~~
huebomont
It's absolutely a weasel word, because there are plenty of common and clear
ways to say this. The only reason it exists is so companies don't have to use
words that connote a lack of success.

~~~
drewfrank
I think it exists because it's a concise way to communicate "this is ending,
and will end in a predetermined amount of time, but it has not yet ended" in
the same manner that sunset indicates that a day is ending but has not ended
yet.

~~~
lucb1e
I'm a non-native speaker and sunsetting is not clear to me. I guessed what it
means because I know Google and how popular Google+ is (in relative terms, I'm
sure there's still hundreds of thousands of people who will lose contacts over
this), but if someone had said Cloudflare is sunsetting, I'd just not have
known what it meant.

And even knowing what it means, as I do now, I wouldn't say that sunsetting is
any clearer in communicating that it's "going to" end than "shutting down" or
"stopping" Google+. It's not as if the proposal said "ended" or "shut down"
Google+, the "are" in something like "We're shutting down Google+" signals
continuation to me.

~~~
ncocacola
There you have it, you've learned a new word!

------
azhenley
I recently started getting friend requests on Youtube (I didn't know it had
such a feature!).

Does this mean they are just shifting the social network features over to
other products?

~~~
TimothyBJacobs
YouTube has had friend requests and private messaging for a long time. At
least 2008, maybe earlier.

~~~
azhenley
Even now, I can't figure out how to send someone a friend request. All I see
is a Subscribe button when I visit someone's profile.

~~~
daledavies
I just spent 20 mins searching for this and on the Android app at least I
can't figure it out either!

~~~
y4mi
never used it myself, but its the third icon on the top-right corner (its a
speech bubble with an arrow on it)

after that you can click on [friends] and youll get a [friend me] url

~~~
daledavies
It's just not there though.

------
hysan
I wonder if we'll get the + operator back in search now. Google broke a lot of
things across their ecosystem with the release of Google+. I feel that the
effect on search kickstarted the trend of taking away search control from the
user and isolating us in bubbles (circles).

------
askvictor
So it's remaining as a product for enterprise customers. Does this mean every
enterprise instance will have it's own instance of g+, or will they be able to
interact with other enterprises? And will I be able to move my profile from
domain to domain if I move companies?

------
ben_w
A curiously soft end given all of the (IMO valid) outrage about “real names”
when it was first announced.

~~~
pessimizer
We gave up the idea of pseudonymity on social networks just so Google could
lose money on a product that it aggressively attempted to force the
pseudonymous users of its other products to use. Actually pretty sad.

------
redler
Perhaps this means someday required search terms can work +this +way +again.

------
CM30
Google + was one of those ideas that probably would have done significantly
better had Google not been so forceful at getting people to use it. Yes, I get
that it's hard to overcome the network effect thing and that fighting
Facebook/Twitter/whatever head on would have been tough, but giving people the
option to sign in/link accounts probably would have done a lot more for
adoption and caused less of a backlash than Google's actual methods did.

'Use this service/product because you now have to in order to access something
you like' is not a good way to endear your company/service/product to users,
and usually has the exact opposite effect to whatever you were intending.

~~~
giancarlostoro
If it wasn't for this I think they could of had a healthier community, and
maybe if they had named it better. Google Plus is such a terrible name, I
can't help but think to whoever named YouTube Red (which is now Premium, could
of been Plus...) but I guess Google as a whole is fragmented just like
Microsoft and their Windows team are. It's a pain to manage so many diverse
teams with differing directions. I loved the idea of Google Plus, but it died
when they were trying to normalize all my data into one giant blob of cash.

~~~
CM30
Yeah, the name probably didn't help much either. Google reminds me of Nintendo
in how bad they are at coming up with catchy names for things.

------
magicalhippo
Until recently Google+ suffered from being a virtual black hole of information
due to a lackluster search interface (oh the irony). In addition it had poor
anti-spam and limited moderation controls, leading to almost daily NSFW images
in my stream.

Then recently they tried to make it better by redesigning it, and apparently
gave some graphic designers free reign. This lead to a _significantly_ worse
user experience, so much so that I and many others who were still clinging on
stopped using it almost entirely.

That said it had some good ideas, and the signal-to-noise ratio was much
better than on Facebook. I'm guessing the active communities I visited will
migrate to Facebook or similar, but it won't be quite the same.

------
sys_64738
They did this with Google Reader 5 years ago. I don't think you can trust the
longevity of Google services beyond GMail and Google Search.

~~~
rocqua
This is rather different from Google Reader. Reader was a popular service that
was going strong, the discontinuation really was a hassle to a lot of people.
Google+ was essentially not used at all, so this should affect very few
people.

~~~
V-eHGsd_
Ironically, google reader was discontinued because they wanted people to use
g+ exclusively for "sharing", and reader's ability to share/surface articles
to friends was seen as unnecessary competition.

~~~
artursapek
Reader died in vain

------
Ajedi32
I wonder if Project Strobe is also behind Google's recent effort to limit the
permissions of Chrome extensions. So far I'm really liking the direction
they're taking with this; making permissions optional and more fine-grained.

------
Animats
So many "social" systems have gone down the same path to collapse:

\- Create a way to communicate with your friends.

\- Try to monetize it by adding feeds of ads and irrelevant junk.

\- Users get annoyed.

\- Double down on the ads.

\- More users get annoyed and leave.

\- Usage shrinks.

This used to be called "pulling a Myspace". Since then, Twitter, Google+,
WeChat in India, and Facebook have followed Myspace's lead.

It works out OK for the founders if they cash out around step 3.

------
Ricardus
I still don't understand why G+ never caught on. For me FB is wayyyy too busy
with panes and club, and groups, and businesses, and news, and election
interference, and the bird site at 140, and now at 280 was just not enough. I
always found G+ to be the perfect balance between the two. It really does
boggle my mind that no one likes it. The only thing I can think, is Google
didn't find a way to appeal to peoples' egos enough, since that's what social
media seems to be about for most people.

------
bliblah
As much as I hate the Facebook hegemony; I can only say "Good Riddance". Me
and my circle of friends tried it out on release and to this day it still a UX
nightmare in how it presents/displays posts.

It's a classic case of google dipping their toes in a service and if they
don't reach critical mass in 3 months just ignore it until it becomes a
liability and shut it down quietly. I would love to hear if they ever pushed
updates for it or just had some intern maintaining the code up until now.

------
sundvor
I knew G+ was dead when hardcore porn was spammed to software groups and there
was just no care factor.

Google can filter this perfectly on image searches, but not on their social
networks?

It's a shame, I really liked the concept of circles. Where am I going to get
my Buzz now?

------
ravenstine
To me, the worst part about Google+ has been the fact that Google services
started forcing you to use it. Like I'd click on some sort of account settings
tab on YouTube, and suddenly I'd be redirected to a different website and my
first reaction is always "what the hell is this crap?" Worse yet, there was
always an irritatingly huge delay between changes I made to my Google+ "shadow
profile" and my profile on YouTube.

Hopefully this will put an end to that nonsense?

------
dredmorbius
I've been a long-time critic of G+.

But it's because I've also been a long-time user of the service, signing on in
July of 2011, and continuing to use it, often through gritted teeth, and
desperately hoping something better would come along, and yet ... nothing
really has, at least not that I've been aware.

There's a long litany of mistakes and errors (and many successes) in the
service, and I might eventually sit down and write my own post mortem of what
I thought went right and wrong -- I've written a few, most of which still
stand, though the cooption of media, social and otherwise, for propaganda and
disinformation purposes could be expanded on.

There are several groups formed to look at exodus options, presuming people
want to go to any one platform (something I'd actually somewhat discourage).
It may be that the age of centralised social networks is over, though self-
hosting and federation also have considerable challenges. Or, maybe, we go
back to other models. Hacker News is an exemplar I've referenced more than a
few times. It's not a personal network the way G+, FB, Twitter, or a personal
blog are, but it has a (usually) high level of discussion of an interesting
array of topics. Thanks in large part to active moderation and flying slightly
under the radar.

If you're on G+ and want to discuss next steps, stop by Google+ Mass
Migration:

[https://plus.google.com/communities/112164273001338979772/](https://plus.google.com/communities/112164273001338979772/)

------
bunsenhoneydew
I’m already starting to sunset my google usage.

------
ajb1
Not that this will (or should) surprise anyone at all, but I noticed (perhaps
more so than normal) that many of the top headlines about this more than
subtly imply that the shutdown was a result of the potential data exposure,
rather than the lack of popularity.

[https://news.google.com/search?q=google%2B&hl=en-
US&gl=US&ce...](https://news.google.com/search?q=google%2B&hl=en-
US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen)

------
newscracker
I consider myself lucky to know enough to avoid putting personal information
with Google and its properties. But Google is the main platform for many
people for many things of a personal nature, and they also end up giving it a
lot of information through Android. So any breach has a huge damage surface.

Google+, with all its missteps, was one of those products that even a company
with Google's money, resources and people (like Luke Wroblewski) that couldn't
get better at all. I liked the concept of "circles" as opposed to the concept
of "lists" on Facebook that most people don't know about or use. The only
mistake that Google+ did was not copying Facebook on its features. That
increased the barriers to adoption and made the product almost worthless. Even
something as useful as creating an event was buried in a classic G+ interface,
and in the new interface it's buried under profile. Treating vanity URLs as
very scarce commodities and letting people live with long unspeakable links,
not implementing a groups like functionality well (called "Communities"), and
many other things could've been handled if they just copied what Facebook did
and took the good lessons from those.

It's sad that Google+ would be gone soon, though it could've been a viable
competitor for Facebook as far as centralized, ad supported platforms are
concerned. But it's good that an abandoned product gets a quicker death, and
that's exactly what Google+ was — an abandoned zombie product trying to figure
out whether it was alive or dead.

I'd take this as one less commercial social network to worry about, and await
the adoption of a decentralized social network.

------
O_H_E
> Instead of seeing all requested permissions in a single screen, apps will
> have to show you each requested permission, one at a time, within its own
> dialog box....you will be able to choose to share one but not the other.

I really felt the need for Android like permission model for my Google
account, where you can reject a permission request and still use the app.

Much appreciated change, that allows more refined control over account
privacy.

------
garfieldnate
I didn't use the social aspect much, but the ability to +1 a URL was awesome.
With the browser plugin installed, I could immediately tell what kind of
traction a site was getting and, in the case of technical information, if the
contents were considered valid and useful by a large number of developers.
They silently killed this feature about a year ago, and it showed [1] in the
reviews for the Chrome plugin. I went a little crazy when the feature went
away because I didn't realize how much I had relied on it. Not having it has
made the web less useful for me.

[1]
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-%201-button...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-%201-button/jgoepmocgafhnchmokaimcmlojpnlkhp?hl=en)

------
oh-kumudo
The only surprise is that it takes them such long time to shut it down. It is
clearly failed project; it is an internet ghost town; very very few care about
it. It almost felt like the only reason it last to date is to protect some
high profile executives' self-esteem, while being the living relics of
Google's strategic mistake tapping into the social land.

------
kriro
I want to applaud Google's general philosophy of "try stuff, shut it down if
it doesn't work" but I do wonder if this isn't bad for the brand. They've been
pretty "ruthless" when it comes to shutting down things that some people still
use (or at least that's the image).

I think in the back of their minds, possibly subconsciously, people like me
probably make decisions against other technology they provide even if it is in
a completely different category and pretty much never going to shut down.

For example, I'm not sure I haven't decided against their cloud services
because my subconscious remembered the reader being shut down and thought
"they better not shut down some part of the infrastructure I rely on".

------
lucb1e
I liked Google+, but this is one of the reasons why I stopped using it. I
think it was around the time they cancelled Google Reader. By randomly
cancelling products that are still used by lots of people, they're dooming
other products before they even launched.

------
bad_user
I see a lot of rationalization here about why Google+ didn't take off, related
to feature set, Facebook, etc.

Let me throw wood on fire ... the reason Google+ is a failure has nothing to
do with any of its features:

1\. they killed Google Reader for it, which was more successful than Google+
ever hoped to be, forever tarnishing Google's reputation

2\. they had the Real Name Policy ... by the time they reversed and apologized
for it, the damage was already done

3\. they shoved Google+ down on everybody's throats, like YouTube users,
exposing their real identities in the process

There are no other reasons that matter. Google+ could have been at least at
Twitter's scale. Twitter still understands their audience, but Google never
did.

------
chiefalchemist
If only Google had integrated Wave into YouTube, they would have ruled the
world.

In YT they already had a massive user-based; (for a time, not sure if it's
still true) the second most searched search engine in the world.

In Wave they had threaded conversations. That is a communications UX that was
closer (than Slack et al) to natural / traditional human conversations.

Toss in some of the better G+ features (e.g., Circles) and they likely could
have been a contender. The problem (I suspect) was they saw FB as
"competition" instead of stepping over and beyond FB, as FB had done to
MySpace and Friendster.

Further proof that Google isn't a product company, but an algorithm company
(per Thiel, trying to hide from regulators)?

------
hacknat
I don't know that I am going to trust google's consumer product offerings
anymore. Inbox became central to my life, now this. I am now going to operate
under the presupposition that a google product is not a reliable product.

------
mixedbit
'We believe it occurred after launch as a result of the API’s interaction with
a subsequent Google+ code change.'

It is very hard to believe that they can't track when exactly the bug was
introduced. All code changes are tracked in the source control.

------
wakkaflokka
I posted this on the other discussion related to this, but would love to get
feedback here.

\----------------- I can understand this position, but I'd be curious what
your thoughts are on how to best (I realize there is no perfect) keep your
data private from snooping employees, hackers, or law enforcement.

I've thought about this over and over, and it's hard to come to a solid
conclusion about keeping personal data safe (in this context I mean emails and
files you may store in the cloud, not browsing history, social media posts,
etc.). There are so many options with downfalls for each, and I'm not a
security expert. So every time I get excited about trying a new service geared
towards privacy, or setting up my own instances, inevitably somebody points
out the terrible pitfall in it and I get discouraged.

1\. Don't use the internet or internet services, period. <\- Not tenable for
most of us.

2\. Use services who market themselves as geared towards privacy. <\- Can't
actually trust those services, even with E2E encryption because they could be
running different code from what you think they're running.

3\. Use regular cloud options, but stack stuff on top - VeraCrypt volumes or
Cryptomator with Google drive, GPG for email, etc. <\- Really difficult to
setup and have a nice reliable way of accessing data on mobile/desktop/etc. No
security audits on a lot of the open source software.

4\. Host your own services - i.e. a Nextcloud 14 instance on EC2 with an S3
backend, then use client-side E2E <\- Difficult to make sure you set the
service up in a safe way, and not even a fraction of as much resources in
auditing code as, say, a giant corporation.

5\. Spread what you do out over multiple services - FastMail for email,
DropBox for cloud storage, Standard Notes for notes, etc. <\- A real pain.

I know there will never be a consensus on this, but I'd love to hear what your
thoughts are on the best way to keep my personal files and notes personal to
me. Let's assume I'm not a target of any spy agencies or whatnot, but I want
to make it very, very difficult for anyone to read my person notes and files
but me.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
Encryption, to be done right, always has to ultimately be the end user's
responsibility. So there is one solid conclusion but it requires work and
discipline and is therefore unpopular.

Encrypt before you send/upload, decrypt after you receive/download. If you
transmit or receive unencrypted data you are placing trust in someone else and
there is no way to really avoid that unless you created and control the chain
end-to-end.

So you can use Google Drive, etc., just encrypt your data before uploading if
it needs to be secured. A 7-zip file protected with AES256 is decently
convenient (from a PC) and secure.

------
bitL
So, does it mean they will bring "+" back to search to make it usable again?

------
kabacha
Makes you wonder - if not the first comer advantage would have google made a
name for itself? Every product google puts out is an arguable failure and
their search engine and email client aren't particularily amazing either -
just they were there first.

Maybe they should start getting back to the roots - try to secure that first
comer advantage by launching experimental products. Oh wait google glass,
inbox...

For a company that is praised for biggest software talent they sure fail to
deliver anything of value to the medium time and time again.

~~~
daveguy
They weren't first in email or search. There had been decades of email clients
and at least 5 years of web search engines.

~~~
kabacha
They kinda were first decent ones and the competition wasn't really there.
Gmail offered hundreds of megabytes of space when other providers offered 5.

------
hateful
IMHO Google+ failed for one reason. At least it's the reason it failed for me.
There was no way to post something on someone else's feed. When I used
Facebook, this may have been the #1 thing that I used it for (and events).

If I saw something I thought a friend would enjoy or made me think of them,
I'd post it on their wall. This is drastically different than sending a
message or e-mailing in that my friend's friends will also see it.

In Google+ (at least when I tried it), there was no way to perform this
action. So I never used it again.

------
DavidCanHelp
The timing is too amazing. I can't help but wonder if my experience somehow
contributed to management's decision: [https://medium.com/@david.liedle/is-
machine-learning-at-goog...](https://medium.com/@david.liedle/is-machine-
learning-at-google-falling-apart-googles-system-doesn-t-believe-i-m-a-
person-88c92159c979)

------
billconan
I'm surprised that google keeps blogger.com for this long. it doesn't appear
to be a commercial success and its features fall behind newer platforms like
medium.

------
amelius
Why can't they just let the software run on a spare set of servers with
minimal maintenance for those who still want to use it _or_ publish it as open
source?

~~~
FartyMcFarter
Open-sourcing may not be viable if its code depends on a lot of internal tech.

"Minimal maintenance" is often harder than it sounds, especially when privacy
and security is involved.

------
joering2
Serious question: you build your own social network based on what people
really want it too work like, and won’t track them or allow advertising,
instead you invite just a handful of “promoters” every year to show same ad to
everyone (to pay your bills) and build in tools that will accept facebook
export format - how do you crank-start such network to beat an obvious
chicken-and-egg problem?

~~~
wccrawford
Google doesn't need to crank-start anything. They just release a new product
with invite codes and people go nuts trying to get them.

If the product is good, people will use it. If it's not, they won't, in the
end. G+ wasn't good.

~~~
hakfoo
The problem with Google+ was the same problem as Facebook and Twitter have,
except they were late to the party and didn't get a lot of free press and
novelty-related attraction to help them gain traction.

They built a platform designed with no sharper focus than "for everyone",
because that's what will supposedly generate the DAUs. But you have to try to
bolt community on top of it and that's what generates the actual stickiness.

There are a galaxy of far stronger communities out there-- ones that were
there long before Google+ and will be there long after. It's because they're
clearly focused, themed communities-- newsgroups and forums.

If you provide some thread to bind the membership-- whether it's "People who
Maintain Vintage Sansui Stereo Equipment", "People Who Really Liked The
Animated Series 'Gargoyles'" or "Class of 1977 at Francisco Franco High
School", it means people will generate content compelling to future users, and
come onboard with attainable expectations.

These communities solved a lot of the problems that stymie many hypothetical
Facebook killers:

* Selling new users. Just post the archives-- you can sell what you have, rather than promising "if we get aggressive enough and steer people into inviting enough loose acquaintances, somehow magic will happen and real community appears."

* Since they're more-or-less decentralized, you get very nice data partition models. On the outgoing side, you know that your messages are clearly restricted to one circle of potential viewers by default. On the incoming side, you're either viewing one community at a time, or aggregating yourself via RSS or the like under rules you know and understand. You're not going to be worried about a NSFW moment if you pop open "N-Scale Model Railway Enthusiasts Forum".

* The psychographic mix. You started with a clear message of value for participation, a give and take. In contrast, the classic social media feed appeals, by default, to a very specific type of self-promoter/narcissist type who just wants to bellow into the void "Look at me eating a burrito by the Eiffel Tower" and wait for validation. Think of all the people who never got on FB/Twitter/etc. because they saw no value in this type of interaction, or joined but have just a vacant profile after realizing it wasn't offering anything for them.

What the "community first" model doesn't do is scale to infinity. There are
only so many people with any given interest. I think this is why Reddit is a
success-- it's got a feel like a constellation of independent forums, that
happen to use the same tech backend and SSO.

------
tomjen3
My family is using Google+ to coordinate and share internal news (because do
you really want to friend your parents on Facebook?).

Given that they are going to close this down for us as consumers, what is our
best alternative? I would rather not have to have the headache of running and
maintaining software myself, but what options do you recommend?

Or do we just have to bite the bullet and set up the Shaftoe e-mail list?

~~~
qznc
You can pick any of the open source clones and probably find managed hosting
for that.

Your family Twitter? [https://masto.host/](https://masto.host/)

Your family Facebook? [https://www.oxwall.com](https://www.oxwall.com)

~~~
jpindar
Do you recommend any of those clones in particular? I might have a good use
for that.

------
shbm
Google+ was not at all a bad product. It had some functionality that other
networks didn't have at the time. I used to browse through Google+ because of
Linus Torvalds and the Linux community. I think that if Google had decoupled
it from the Google platform and developed G+ as an independent entity within
the umbrella, things would have been different.

------
javchz
I wonder what this will affect SEO practices. I remember one of the things
google had made as a small factor for search, it's the integration of Google
Plus in your website. Like using the plus button.

Like what happens if I remove all google plus code related from my sites right
now? My guess it's that in the short term will have some kind of negative
impact, but I don't know.

~~~
HereBeBeasties
When did you last see a plus button?

------
robmiller
> consumer Google+

What is our relationship to Google? Are we really consumers of Google? Content
creators? Ad targetees? Impressionees? Folks? Lemmings?

~~~
anticensor
All of them.

------
coding123
I survived the 4 years they blasted Google+ signups at me without signing up
once with my account. Luckily that dissipated after a while and things got
less annoying every time I signed in. I imagine most people clicked "I agree"
and created their public page. But it was really awful for the rest of us that
didn't want that.

------
sys_64738
Some high profile users like Linus were active on G+. I can't imagine those
people using FB so what's the alternative?

~~~
ggggtez
Who on HN is supposed to answer that? Just go ask Linus yourself.

------
exikyut
Let me guess - everyone's old posts will disappear?

I can imagine Google doing it that way. "The majority never used our platform,
so we'll abuse the few that did (and really liked it) by only giving them X
amount of time to notice and save their data."

If Google+ becomes archived my jaw will hit the floor - and I'll be very
appreciative.

------
grizzles
No other platform had as much clickspam / clickfraud stuff as G+. Every time I
looked at my feed there were 10+ pictures of fake hot girl videos that clicked
off to random sites. That G+ itself was such a player in click fraud, I'm
surprised there wasn't more hay made about this before.

------
simonebrunozzi
Another one bites the dust... I can easily imagine that in 100 years Alphabet
would have been rebranded as Google, and only one single service will be
generating ~100% of revenues.

There will also be a software graveyard with the 1,000+ dead projects that
google launched and then shut down years later.

------
learnstats2
Perhaps one of the reasons that it was difficult to engage with Google+ is
because of this outcome: that Google/tech corporations are known to kill
products that are not completely successful, even if there are engaged users
who will be affected by this shutdown.

------
Chunkyated
oh no. My family have used G+ to share stuff. I don't want to have my mother-
in-law on facebook, what else can we use? I really like the idea of circles,
some stuff I would share only with my close family, other stuff would be
shared with wider family and friends, etc.

~~~
Ajedi32
Facebook has that feature now too, it's called "friend lists". Unfortunately
it's a much less prominent feature and harder to use.

~~~
0xCMP
And it's also being removed soon.

~~~
Ajedi32
No, they're removing the ability to filter your news feed by friend list, not
removing friend lists entirely.

------
bovermyer
Several of the communities I belong to are moving to MeWe as a replacement.
Several of us had never heard of it before, but the privacy controls and
business model surprised the hell out of me. I'm impressed so far.

------
51Cards
This does make me sad as I am one of the few that still uses G+ fairly
regularly. There are still a lot of quality feeds and I've enjoyed seeing that
content without all the crap Facebook wraps its content in.

------
Ajedi32
> Users can grant access to their Profile data, and the public Profile
> information of their friends, to Google+ apps, via the API.

Interesting, wasn't this basically the same problem that Facebook had with
Cambridge Analytica?

------
revel
Phew, hopefully all the developers working on Google+ enjoy their new project
working on a currently unnamed chat program. We haven't had a new one of those
in _checks calendar_ 172 days.

------
reading-at-work
"90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds."

Oof. Good on them for finally admitting it, but who knew the data would be
even harsher than G+'s most vocal critics.

------
dep_b
They killed it when they decided it would be a good idea to inflate user
numbers with YouTube and Gmail users. It's better to have less but active
users than a ghost town.

------
allthecybers
So glad my Google+ was deleted long ago and subsequently deleted all my Google
products. Not sure why people give these crappy ad companies (Google, FB, etc)
all their data.

------
AJRF
Is there any way for EU citizens to hammer Google with GDPR over this?

Isn't one of the stipulations of GDPR that a company must disclose privacy
violations of this nature?

------
koolba
How (if at all) does this impact "Login with your Gmail" and those APIs? They
started off separate but were subsequently combined into one common package.

------
probe
"90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds".

I'd say let's have a moment of silence for Google+, but that is clearly too
generous

------
diogenescynic
I kind of think they wanted to shut Google+ down anyways and the data breach
just gives them a convenient excuse. I doubt Google+ was growing at all.

------
eel
This is the big surprise to me:

> Finding 2: People want fine-grained controls over the data they share with
> apps.

While I personally 100% agree, I would have guessed that the vast majority of
Google users (i.e., non-HN crowd) wouldn't care about fine-grained controls. I
wonder if they found that some people passionately care and most didn't care
one way or another. In other words, perhaps the people that click/tap through
permissions prompts are going to continue clicking through, but the change
could win back some privacy conscious consumers.

------
alias_neo
The main thing I want to see come out of this is the reinstatement of + as the
inclusive operator in a Google search.

------
a-dub
...but but without Google+, how are Google employees going to publicly
announce their intentions to leave Google?!?!?

------
yason
To me, it seems that they just found a good reason to kill a product born to
fail without losing their face.

------
carapace
What happens to the old content?

(Also, small thin sans-serif grey body font means you hate your readers'
eyes.)

------
Kostchei
So my joke about "I put it on Google+ so it's basically a secret" is coming
true.

------
nikolay
No wonder! Google with their notorious interviews false to test one
fundamental software engineer trait - common sense! Most of their products are
short-sighted and much neglected. I won't ever invest a second looking into
another Google offering! Keep off! They have zero respect for your time
invested in their toy products!

------
spunker540
"...the Profiles of up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected.
Our analysis showed that up to 438 applications may have used this API"

"This data is limited to static, optional Google+ Profile fields including
name, email address, occupation, gender and age."

It is also including a lot more than what they said above:

The json per profile is as follows:

{ "kind": "plus#person", "etag": etag, "nickname": string, "occupation":
string, "skills": string, "birthday": string, "gender": string, "emails": [ {
"value": string, "type": string } ], "urls": [ { "value": string, "type":
string, "label": string } ], "objectType": string, "id": string,
"displayName": string, "name": { "formatted": string, "familyName": string,
"givenName": string, "middleName": string, "honorificPrefix": string,
"honorificSuffix": string }, "tagline": string, "braggingRights": string,
"aboutMe": string, "relationshipStatus": string, "url": string, "image": {
"url": string,

    
    
      },
      "organizations": [
        {
          "name": string,
          "department": string,
          "title": string,
          "type": string,
          "startDate": string,
          "endDate": string,
          "location": string,
          "description": string,
          "primary": boolean
        }
      ],
      "placesLived": [
        {
          "value": string,
          "primary": boolean
        }
      ],
      "isPlusUser": boolean,
      "language": string,
      "ageRange": {
        "min": integer,
        "max": integer
      },
      "plusOneCount": integer,
      "circledByCount": integer,
      "verified": boolean,
      "cover": {
        "layout": string,
        "coverPhoto": {
          "url": string,
          "height": integer,
          "width": integer
        },
        "coverInfo": {
          "topImageOffset": integer,
          "leftImageOffset": integer
        }
      },
      "domain": string

}

(from
[https://developers.google.com/+/web/api/rest/latest/people](https://developers.google.com/+/web/api/rest/latest/people))

------
oculusthrift
People are burying the lede. They massively covered up a data breach. The same
company that forces other companies to release info about their breaches or
else releases the vulnerabilities themselves. Google deserves the same
backlash as fb but maybe too many google employees here?

------
osxrand
I wonder if we get to use the + modifier in Google Search again.

------
stuartd
I hear up to a dozen people may have been affected by this.

------
p_b_r
Any indication if they'd be willing to open source it?

------
misiti3780
does anyone have a clue how much money they spent building g+ and how many
developers have to find new jobs (presumably within google) because of this?

------
xivzgrev
Dear god google is going to make me accept each permission individually? That
sounds awful as a user. I think it's a dark UX pattern to get developers to
ask for less shit.

~~~
ggggtez
It sounds to me like it'll be more like what they did on Android. The dark
pattern is _not_ giving the option to deny a permission: "Accept everything,
or you can't use it". This is the opposite of a dark pattern.

------
p_b_r
Any indication if they'll open source it?

------
elvirs
as a Facebook addict who used it for 10 years straight im surprised i don't
miss it at all, going 10 months strong.

------
kolderman
Can I search for +hotdogs again now?

------
OptionX
Thank god. I remember when google+ first came out, in what being shove down
our throats at every google service.

------
PaulHoule
Yippie!

------
fiatjaf
Bring back Orkut!

------
knodi
Good riddance

------
RandomGuyDTB
F

------
Angostura
Personally, I think the headline "Google hid major Google+ security flaw that
exposed users’ personal information" is probably the better one.

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/8/17951914/google-plus-
data...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/8/17951914/google-plus-data-breach-
exposed-user-profile-information-privacy-not-disclosed)

~~~
Ajedi32
The blog post explains that, and gives their reasoning:

> Our Privacy & Data Protection Office reviewed this issue, looking at the
> type of data involved, whether we could accurately identify the users to
> inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any
> actions a developer or user could take in response. None of these thresholds
> were met in this instance.

So basically, they decided that because:

1\. The data exposed wasn't very sensitive (name, email address, occupation,
gender, age, etc) 2\. They couldn't identify any specific users whose data was
leaked 3\. They couldn't find any evidence that the bug was actually exploited
4\. There were no actions you could take to remedy the problem (no software to
update, no passwords to change, no CC numbers to revoke)

that they weren't going to notify users about the bug.

Still, I would have appreciated at least a blog post or something so if I
started suddenly getting more spam emails or something I could at least
identify the source.

------
0x54D5
I am so done with Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

I deleted my Facebook and Instagram three weeks ago and haven't looked back. I
removed Chrome and Chromium from all my computers. No, I don't want to sync
using your servers. If you let me host the sync servers myself like Mozilla
does I'd consider it.

If my friends want to talk to me they can make an account on my privately
hosted Matrix.org chat server and use the open-source Riot.im client.

It works flawlessly and I don't have to worry about being spied on.

Next is Gmail. I find the new UI atrocious. I'm keeping my eye on Maps
alternatives as well.

The faster I can get rid of all this crap the better off I will be.

------
vocatus_gate
I'm going to get downvoted for this, but you don't have to state "IMHO" or any
variation of that in your posts. You are the one posting it; we know it's your
opinion. It just adds grammatical clutter and noise to an otherwise well
thought-out post.

IMHO

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
In many cultures, voicing equivocation, doubt, or similar provisos is a social
norm when expressing your opinion. It certainly is in British English, for
example. Don’t assume everyone on HN has US social norms.

~~~
srtjstjsj
"IMHO" is an American Internet English term, and using it is a US social norm.

------
karpodiem
What a poorly managed company.

~~~
glenrivard
Poorly managed? They have now grown over 20% the last ten quarters and now
over 26% the last two. Since the beginning never declined for a quarter YoY.
Even though the great recession.

That is pretty hard to do.

~~~
notfromhere
I mean you really can't argue that Google's attempts to move away from relying
on ad revenue for most of its earnings have been successful

~~~
glenrivard
Yes but not following how that relates to "poorly managed"?

I mean they are in all of history the fastest to a $100B market cap and since
started in 1998 it was right at the .com bust. Then the fastest to $200B.

Does that not take good management?

~~~
someguydave
Managing not to screw up their de facto monopoly on search/ad placement is not
the same as managing to do something else highly profitably

~~~
glenrivard
YouTube has over a billion hours consumed a day. That is not search. Actually
it is now the #2 most popular web site.

So they have both the #1 and #2 most popular sites now.

Heck they are rolling out the first robot taxi service in Arizona later this
year.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites)

------
halayli
why don't they say it as it is, it failed miserably... instead of using
security as an excuse to shutdown the service ?

~~~
anticensor
Because it is tough to admit failure.

------
imhelpingu
The damage control we're seeing is almost as blatantly immoral as a quasi-
government monopoly appointing itself as the internet police and then
neglecting to disclose its own breeches to the public.

Google is evil.

