Freedom – that’s what’s being granted to the user. YouTube has (quietly) announced that you’ll no longer need a Google+ page to login and use YouTube’s features! If you’re someone like me who uses YouTube frequently then you’ll understand why this is so awesome. For those of you who don’t understand, let me explain why Google+ is slowly dying.
It’s Slowly Killed Itself
People hate being forced to do or use something. It strips away the ability of free will, which makes us a bit hateful and rebellious. I feel like this is exactly what Google did when they integrated G+ into YouTube, and forced their users to use it.
Now don’t get me wrong, Google+ is a great platform with a lot of potential. Force people into something though, and the inner stubbornness kicks in and will drive users away. Always make sure that you remember that!
People Don’t Want What They Already Have
Google+’s main competitors: Facebook & Twitter. They both already have all the features together (and more) that G+ had to offer, and people were familiar with the other two already. You don’t try to sell someone a 1980 Ford Mustang when they already have the same car in a 2015 model. It just doesn’t make sense.
Reportedly, Google+ has about 300 million active users per month (according to Statista.com), and this counts the people whose posts are actually YouTube comments that were shared to their page. according to other sources, it only has 4-6 million people who publically post monthly.
Comparatively, Twitter has 304 million monthly active users, and Facebook has 1.19 billion monthly active users. Both services are steadily growing in popularity. These numbers prove how had it would be for Google+ to compete with Twitter and Facebook alone, not to mention all the other popular social media services like Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Instagram, and so on.
Google+ Will Continue To Live On
You’re probably thinking – wait, I thought Google+ was dying? Well, in a way it is. G+ itself though is not going to go away.
It may not have been able to beat its competitors, but it did have success to a point, and that’s just too big to throw away. The hangouts portion of Google+ was a massive hit as it combined instant messaging, text messaging, phone calls over the web (similar to that of Skype), video messaging and group chats making it literally be like one big hangout.
Google+ also had a ton of success with their photo sharing. This sharing & storage platform had even allowed mobile users to backup their photos and videos onto the Google Drive. In fact, some call this service one of the best on the internet with its editing features and and massive amount of storage space that was offered.
For those of you who actively use Google+, don’t worry. You’ll still be able to actively post, as their newsfeed service will continue to live on through what will be known as “streams”.
So, who knows what will happen? Though it wasn’t the most well known thing, Google+ does have some very nice features. I don’t think it will ever completely die, Google just needs to figure out what direction they’re really going to take this social network.