Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers • Hacker News Board

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#121

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #20

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…

Is this a joke?

G+ has been a laughingstock in terms of actual usage numbers for years. Nobody is using it. The fact that it was still supported is amazing. Is Google supposed to support failing products until the end of time?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#122

Post by oculusthrift » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

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?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#123

Post by sf_rob » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

8ytecoder wrote: post #65

evgen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opportunitie…

This is a very cynical view of things. I'm not a product manager - but I can't imagine one sitting in a room thinking about all the evil ways to make the feed harder for people to find relevant posts. I can, however, perfectly imagine a PM who is "extremely numbers driven" to look a bad version of the algorithm that increases the time users spend shifting through shit and assume that the algorithm is a huge success b…

Agreed, pathogenic designs can come out of poor success metrics.

Some low level PM was tasked with optimizing time-on-site. They had some negative user feedback, but it didn't show up in their low sample UR and segmented rollout. Since they had good results in their primary success metrics and the secondary metrics did not tell a consistent story, they rolled it out to 100%. Any negative feedback from there was chalked up to change aversion among a small segment of users.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#124

Post by sys_64738 » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

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

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#125

Post by coldtea » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

cronz wrote: post #41

_uhtu wrote: post #6

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…

The idea of circles sounds fantastic on paper but it's simply too much work for the common user. For most of the posts users would make, users would probably spend more time thinking about which circles to enable than actually writing the post. It's a headache and it leads to a poor experience, it feels like a hurdle, something you must do; it makes posting less natural. Facebook on the other hand offers the same fun…

>For most of the posts users would make, users would probably spend more time thinking about which circles to enable than actually writing the post. It's a headache and it leads to a poor experience, it feels like a hurdle, something you must do; it makes posting less natural.

How low have we got, capacity wise, when this is even considered "a hurdle"?

At one time, people had to walk to the TV to change the channels...

And before that, they had to have candles and be good with finger shadows to entertain themselves...

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#126

Post by smolsky » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

jrrrr wrote: post #22

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

Was this announced on G+?

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#127

Post by kwillets » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

evgen wrote: post #45

_uhtu wrote: post #6

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…

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 opportunitie…

The milk is always at the back of the store.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#128

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#129

Post by cft » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #11

sys_64738 wrote: post #3

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.

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.

Shutting down Google reader was a political rather than a metric of feedback driven decision.

Re: Shutting Down Google+ for Consumers

#130

Post by skywhopper » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

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.