Post by s|bPost by VanguardLHNo, as mentioned you get one Google account. It's your choice whether
or not to subscribe (join) the Google+ service feature.
I registered for Gmail and got the whole package, even Google+, which I
did not wanted. Anyway, that's how I remember it...
My Gmail account is many years old. That was back around 2009 when the
only way to get a Gmail account was to request an invite, wait for an
invite to show up (in your current e-mail account), and then use the
invite to create a Gmail account. As I recall, the invite-only process
lasted more than 3 years during which the product remained in beta
status.
Maybe they changed their policy since then and newer accounts got stuck
with a Google+ profile. I went to plus.google.com and it looks like I
have a profile but its some default template because I've never used it
or bothered to look at it.
Awhile back, Google was trying all sorts of ways to push their Gmail
users to use their G+ profiles. After acquistion of Youtube, you could
not post a review unless you agreed to activate your G+ profile. Google
has tried this ploy before, like with their Authorship feature where
Google threatened oblivion to authors that did not participate in adding
content to Google's search results. Their ploy failed and Google
stopped requiring using a G+ profile to post comments at Youtube back
around August 2015.
When I go to plus.google.com (after logging into Gmail), yes, I get a
web page there that looks like I activated my Google+ profile but why
is there a "Join Google+" link on the left if I'm already in? If I'm
already enlisted just by having a Gmail account, why am I asked to join?
Maybe I do have a Google+ profile (not yet filled out by me) and the
"join" option is so I could connect to some Google+ community. Google
makes it unclear if I have a Google+ profile or not and if I'm "joined"
to Google+. When I go to plus.google.com, all I see is a bunch of
"trending" blather pushed by Google.
Every Gmail account has an available Google+ profile but not all Gmail
users use their Google+ profile. That's why there are supposedly 2.5
billion Google+ users because there are that many Gmail accounts.
Facebook is estimated to have 1.5 billion users (Facebook's claim). The
Google+ population size is misleading because not all Gmail users use
their Google+ profile.
https://www.stonetemple.com/real-numbers-for-the-activity-on-google-plus/
That estimates 90% of Gmail users have not used their Google+ profile.
So instead of Google+ (using Gmail accounts as a gauge) being 1.7 times
larger than Facebook , the Google+ population (2.5B x 0.1 = 0.25B) is
about 6 times smaller (1.5B / 0.25B = 6) than for Facebook. Google+ is
the walking dead.
Google+ was Google envious reaction to Facebook. As with many things
Google, they treat it as an experiment. With Google, experiments come
and go. They may last several years but Google may decide to someday
discontinue the project. Several times Googles has rolled back their
resources to focus on their core business.
Google X (lasted only 1 day)
Google Catalog
Google Web Accelerator
Google Video Player
Google Answers (trying to compete with Yahoo Answers)
Google Wave
Google Wiki Search
Google Audio Ads
Google Dodgeball
Jaiku
Orkut
Google Authorship
Google Notebook
Google Page Creator
Google Buzz
Google Desktop
Google Gears
Google Health
Google One Pass
Knol (in trying to kill Wikipedia)
Google Videos (failed so they bought Youtube instead)
Google+ (a ghosttown waiting to blow away)
How can users trust a company that doesn't have a clue as to what
direction they want to take. You do know that Google is wandering off
into self-driving cars now called Waymo (waymo.com), right? When
diversification bloats beyond the resources of a company, they
consolidate. That means projects disappear.
Hangouts and Photos got spun out of Google+. Google is trying to figure
out how to salvage Google+. Facebook continues to poach Google
employees. Facebook and Twitter continue chipping away at Google's ad
revenue. Either Google+ will disappear along with other failed Google
experiments or it will [d]evolve into something else.
Probably the only reason why Gmail survives is as a deep data mining and
profiling resource for Google.