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12 years ago. Wonder what Lemmy will look like in 12 years? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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[–] 133 points 3 years ago (28 children)

I don't really get what the hate was for Google+, it was better than the alternative/competitor at the time (Facebook)

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  • [–] 60 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    Google+ forced itself on people. I didn't want it so I stopped using my Gmail entirely. I imagine word of mouth caused people to avoid it.

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  • [+] 52 points 3 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    It's kind of funny, isn't this exactly what Meta is doing to everyone with an Instagram account? You have a shadow profile on Threads regardless if you signed up or not.

    I wonder why the reaction is so different, maybe because they both are social media? Or maybe just good timing with the whole Twitter debaucle.

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  • [+] 5 points 3 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Yes, there has for shure been a shift in the culture. Privacy doesn't seem to be that big of a concern for most.

    I'm not so sure it's just the zoomers that are to blame, plenty of older people don't seem to care either. But I do feel for the younger generation, having never known the freedom and joys of the pre-corporate internet. Then again, maybe ignorance is bliss after all.

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  • [–] 41 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Google wasn’t comfortable in letting it grow naturally over time. They tried really hard to push on people by combining it with other more popular google products when it didn’t really make sense (i.e. Youtube). Also, as a teen at the time google plus just felt nerdy and weird. It didn’t really feel like something they cool kids would use so no one used it.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Yeah that's how I felt too. I remember being excited about g+, then I also remember aggressively turning off any association to g+ because no one was on it and it kept pushing it in my face. Come to think of it gmail was similar, invite only and that, but it wasn't forced even at release and they made it look a lot nicer than what yahoo and hotmail had going on at the time.

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  • [–] 32 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    and from what i remember, staying true to typical google fashion, they fucked it up by not opening up the "beta" when they had a critical mass forming behind it. then only to force everyone into having a profile a year or whatever later. lol, too late. i think most of us understood that anything associated with google is assumed to be a never-ending "beta", so no idea what they were thinking or waiting for.

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  • [–] 15 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    I think it was definitely the super long beta period where you needed an invite killed it. I knew a ton of people who were interested that gave up

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  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    That's easy to say now, but Orkut (another Google social network, mostly used in Brazil) also had a beta invite system... And that helped it grow tremendously. The secrecy and "status" of getting invited made people go wild - they would even sell invites.

    The strategy can work. It's just very timing sensitive.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    It was good but it didn’t really add enough or solve an actual problem. At the time, there wasn’t as much negative sentiment around Facebook. The circles were a neat concept but too much work to use for the average user.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    It's strange to note that if Google had just casually worked on the feature, started gradually integrating it with YouTube etc, they might have beat insta to the punch and also really capitalized on Facebook hate. Instead they made one massive marketing blunder after another.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago

    I agree, and the level of user on G+ was of a techy IT variety of person. It was great and you could have good conversations. Lemmy really has that feel now. Enjoy it till either the general public gets hold of it and it turns into a cesspool or it slowly dies a death.

    Personally I hope to face neither of those scenarios, but history is not on our side.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    The concept of who you chose to share your status was cumbersome. It at least not auntie or uncle friendly

    I don't remember what it was called? Spaces?

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  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    I don’t remember what it was called? Spaces?

    Circles. It was a killer feature at the time, the idea of different feeds for different groups, all in one profile. Too bad there weren't enough groups to make it useful.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    Being able to share certain posts with everyone (including your parents/grandparents) vs just your friends vs your work colleagues was a brilliant feature that seems to have just been substituted with private group chats instead. Seriously when I was a teenager the amount of stuff I thought about posting but didn't because it would appear for everyone...

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