Not so long ago, Google decided to shut down Google+ and it was closed down on the 2nd of April, before shutting down Google+ they also closed down a service called Google Inbox.
It’s not often you see big companies shutting down some of their services frequently, especially services that have been around for more than 5 years but Google did it and there must be some reasons why they did it, right?
How Did The Shutdown Happen?
Google+ wasn’t a complete failure nor fully a rip-off of Facebook. Of course, it wasn’t anywhere near as successful as Facebook, but Google+ still had some loyal following and there were communities established on Google’s social media platform, so the shutdown wasn’t clearly expected.
The shutdown happened steadily. It prepared Google+ users for the closure and gave them time to save and transfer their Google+ data since Google announced the shutdown a few months before it took place.
Also, a fun fact – even if you might’ve had Google+ data that row is deleted because back in the days it was so easy to register on Google+, and many people registered by accident and never knew that they had an account there.
But what were the reasons for the shutdown? That’s the big question – keep reading and you’ll find out what you missed.
Leakage of Personal and Private Information
This happened to over 500,000 accounts around March 2018 and if you can remember, it was the same time when Facebook was under deep inspection about the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
The ones who were guilty of the data breach of Google+ accounts were some developers.
Usually, when events like these occur, you expect the platform to do everything to stop the leakage of information as fast as possible, especially, from Google. But surprisingly in this situation, Google was really unprofessional (Google didn’t inform the public about the data breach that had occurred), which resulted in many profiles being vulnerable for numerous months.
In its defense, Google said: “there’s no evidence that any profile’s data was misused”.
That doesn’t sound too confident, eh?
Even though this is a pretty serious reason to shut down there are others as well, so let’s move to the next one.
Google+ Never Were Near The Level of Their Competitors
I’m pretty sure, that you don’t know many people who used Google+ as their main social media, people’s main social media when Google+ was launched in 2011 were Facebook and Twitter, and throughout these years it remained like that – only with Instagram stepping up.
For a social media platform, users are necessary and even more – active users, but Google+ just couldn’t beat its competition in attracting users and was left with very few active users.
But Google didn’t stop trying to gain users, actually, they tried methods to force people to register on Google+ by adding Google+ as a way to log in to already popular services offered by Google like Youtube and Gmail, but thank god they removed that feature eventually, and since then we no longer need to have a Google+ account to comment on a PewDiePie’s video.
However, in the last years before the shutdown of Google+, it had become known as a less-crowded platform but with a more engaged community – it looked like they had accepted the fact that they’re an alternative social media platform.
But they hadn’t.
Rest In Peace, Google+
When the giant company Google decided to launch its own social media platform, it was expected to be the main competitor to Facebook but how did that story end? Well… Not as expected. With all the hopes Google came into the social media world, it still got rejected and despite its efforts of forcing people to register on Google+, the decline of the user base was inevitable.
This was a sad story for Google. A huge company with other services such as Gmail and YouTube which are the most popular ones in the world never reached those heights with Google+ and couldn’t keep up with the competition.
Even though it managed to have an engaging community and several dedicated users, and it seemed like Google+ was fine with being an alternative social media platform – compared to the expectations and competition it wasn’t enough for Google. Also, the troubles with the data breaches ended the life of Google+ on a sad note.
If Google ever attempts to create another social media platform again – we can be sure it’s not going to happen soon. Google has to take its time.
