Technically it's shutting down all consumer functionality for Google+.

And from this day forth, Google+ will sit along with Google Reader as part of the pantheon of betrayals that HN commenters will bring up every single time Google announces a new product.

I doubt anybody cares about Google+, honestly. In fact I'm happy to see it die, after all the pain it's caused me (YouTube integration)

So, are you actually interested in seeing less hating on Google? Or just what?

I did consider replying to the buried the lede comment that "I guess I can stop occasionally wondering if I should get familiar with Google+." Then decided to tweet it instead because that's insubstantive, or could be interpreted as such.

I'm actually a fan of Google, but never got into Google+. I don't openly fangirl the company in part because it gets so much open hatred here.

This is a fair clarification per Google's followup: https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-s...

> At the same time, we have many enterprise customers who are finding great value in using Google+ within their companies. Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network. Enterprise customers can set common access rules, and use central controls, for their entire organization. We’ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses.

What's the point, then? Google will (or should) spend just about as much effort keeping it live for enterprise users as it would for the rest of us.

I don't use it often, but occasionally find useful communities there, especially concerning technical subjects. Now all of that is going to disappear.

It's annoying that Google apparently prizes the opinion of enterprise customers enough to half-abort the plan to shut down Google+, while for some reason maintaining a stubborn insistence on removing its access for the rest of us. Yes, this will be another point to add on the list of reasons to never become invested in a new Google product.

> 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.

If most people are visiting by accident and immediately leaving, it's probably actively causing usability problems and should be shut down.

I don't understand how that follows. Google doesn't need to fix its purported usability problems.

It can let the non-corporate users enjoy the fruit of their labors at keeping Google+ running for corporate users at almost no additional cost.

So, pivot to Slack-alike. I'm sure it'll last.

They could have cornered that market with Google Wave, but killed the project before it took off.

If it makes you feel any better, whether something is popular or not has never been a barrier to Google killing stuff.

What does "consumer" mean in that context?

Corporate/internal use of Google+ for G Suite customers will probably continue. Google uses G+ internally, so it's unsurprising they intend to hang onto the corporate side of it for now, at least.

If a social network falls in the woods and no one's there to log out, did it really go down?

What happens to all the content and communities on it??