Ahh farewell to a love-hate relationship. G+ had a good thing going, but then they went and ruined it. G+ wasn't a really a Facebook alternative, it was an entirely different animal and a better one at that.
Facebook is quite possibly the worst (and most dangerous) website to exist. It creates toxic people and is one of the main reasons why society has degenerated into the cesspool it is. Look, if you want a profile, fine. Add some pictures, add your friends, keep in contact. That's really what it should be about.
That's just not the case. With great freedom comes great responsibility, and responsible most are not. We've got people adding thousands upon thousands of strangers and taking endless selfies in an insatiable thirst for attention. On FB, you're more inclined to post personal and sensitive info about your life and others'. The community is terribly toxic. Differing opinions are simply not allowed. All in all, you just might wanna close your account... or not participate in the communities...
G+ was radically different. This wasn't a social network in which to add close friends and family and add your family picnic photos for them to comment on. There was no drama of defriending or arguing about political issues. This was a whole new animal we were dealing with and it might be that people simply didn't know what to do with it. In the beginning, there were circles and hangouts. You could create a group of people in which to have live discussions with. But it was more than that, it was a full blown blog service! It brought out the inner creativity in people, whether they posted memes or actual articles (like I did), not for anything more than just having fun.
The blog featurs were pretty good. Obviously you have your main feed, a complete mishmash of random posts, but this was later complimented with a Collections feature. Collections let you sort out all "alike-posts" so that anyone visiting your profile didn't get lost in the long random blog feed. They could simply click a collections to find the posts that most interested them... something Steemit VERY BADLY NEEDS!!!!!!!!! YOU NEED TO PUT A COLLECTIONS FEATURE STEEMIT, LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS WITH HOW LONG YOU HAVEN'T UPDATED!!!!!!!!!!!
I liked G+ so much, I actually attached my personal .com domain to it. I had a bit of a following on there, it was easy to be heard because anyone with Gmail also had G+ attached.
And then censorship got out of hand. Unknown to me, some of my posts on G+ were never visible to the public. I found out by accident. I was logged into one of my other accounts, visited my page and found some of the posts were missing. I logged into my real account and found the posts were there, but then put 2 and 2 together. Google was censoring key words, which in turn, cencored entire posts. Not good... That's when I flew the coop and landed over here in Steemit.
It's probably for the best that G+ is shutting down, aside the real reason (leaked info), people might be better off using censor free services like Steemit... but G+ isn't the only thing shutting down....
Just between you and me.... >.> <.< >.> (shifty eyes)
Google's CEO is contemplating on removing the ability to upload videos to YouTube for normal users. This was hinted at in the last press conference. Nothing solid yet, but hinted enough. Here's the details:
After Google's CEO was roasted by the state for not being able to answer YES OR NO whether or not Android is able to track if a person walks from one side of the room to another, he later lead viewers to conclude that YouTube is going to have some major changes made to it. I'm certain this has to do with censorship.
Unless you are the MSM, a brand, or a well established channel, you're not going to be able to upload videos anymore. Like G+, you will be able to download and save all your content, but your channels will no longer host your videos. You can still use them as a hub for viewing your favorites lists and the like, but you can no longer create content unless you have partnered with YouTube and are making a certain amount of revenue.
This is not a rumor, this was what was exactly talked about in the press conference, you can go watch it on ABC's channel.
In conclusion, G+ was good in its functionality, especially for our type of people here on Steemit. It was a blog service, a good one too. But censorship killed it as well as a public that didn't really know how to use it. Again, it wasn't a social network in terms of profile and friends lists. It was its own glorious service. Farewell G+