Yeah, I can't believe that to be non-obvious to anyone.

When Google+ was new, the joke was that it was like Facebook, only your parents weren't on it - the main reason to use it.

Why do you use Hacker News?

No, seriously.

I simply can't understand the logic of someone who says that they stopped using G+, BECAUSE all of their friends are on Facebook... when they SAY THAT on Reddit or Hacker News.

Hacker News and Reddit have lots of information and good discussions. People use them because of the quality of the content, not because they know the contributors.

People use Facebook because they know the people, and that's what makes the content significant to them but not to outsiders.

G+ simply doesn't have the ease of access or quality of content (links, discussions) that you get on HN or Reddit, and it doesn't have your friends. It fails at both.

You personally don't find the quality of content on G+. I personally do.

Or at least, it's rewarding enough to make it ANOTHER site that I visit. GMail, Facebook, Reddit, Hacker News, CNN, G+. I don't think G+ is going to replace GMail, Facebook, Reddit, Hacker News, or CNN for me. But I don't expect ANY of those sites, to replace any of the others. So it just boggles my mind when people - on Reddit or Hacker News - comment that G+ didn't replace Facebook, so therefore it is not valuable.

I think I've put a bit more effort into finding interesting people, Pages, Communities, and #topics than you have, and I've been rewarded for my efforts.

Google+ doesn't have a Front Page like Reddit and HN do, that's true. But it wasn't hard to get started finding stuff I care about.

Fair enough, but the whole idea of following people to find content just makes it harder to find content on G+. On Reddit, you pick the topics that interest you and the best content (in theory at least) gets upvoted.

Both Twitter and Reddit (and HN) pack a ton of info into small spaces so it's very quick to scroll through and pick up new stuff, which is a major problem with G+. The same info may be on G+ but, in my experience, it's a lot harder to find. (And if do I find it, it's already been tweeted to death.)

Incidentally, it wasn't me who thought G+ should replace other services! I do think it started as an attempt to replace Facebook, but as far as I can see, it isn't a good substitute for anything I already use. Worse, it doesn't have any unique attractions (unless you want Hangouts, which I don't).

You don't need to follow people to find content - you can follow Pages, Communities, and #topics. That makes it very similar to sub-Reddits.

I can scroll through my stream pretty quickly. j/k keys work great.

Reddit isn't a good substitute for anything I already use. It augments them. Google+ is the same, it augments the things I already use.

A unique attraction for me is that when I +1 something, and later Google Search, I can find my own +1'd things very, very quickly. That's a completely unique feature.

Try to find anything you ever saw on Facebook or Reddit, for comparison.

I've not found any Pages or Communities that were worth the effort. And however fast you page, you still end up viewing close to one item per page, which is ridiculous. I want to see at least 10, preferably 20 or more. (Worse, G+'s endless pages mean you never get very far down the stream even if you try.)

To catch up on tech and startup news and see (normally) useful insight from like-minded individuals.

Most of my friends and family would be useless here. Likewise, I haven't talked to anybody here that I'd like to show pictures of my brats.

I can't understand why you would conflate a social network and a forum.

I use Google+ to catch up on tech and startup news and see (normally) useful insight from like-minded individuals.

Most of my friends and family would be useless there.

Your argument makes me feel like I'm watching people argue about which is better, Reddit, or Digg.

> I can't understand why you would conflate a social network and a forum.

I care what my former co-workers think about tech and startup news, and I have very little interest in pictures of their kids, etc. I share with them, posts about tech and startup news. They do the same. And they can even see comments back and forth from each other, and decide to Follow each other - which makes it better than simple email exchanges.

They do a far, far better job of pointing out articles I would really passionately care about than Hacker News does. I get breadth from HN and Reddit, but they're specifically lacking the depth of discussion from people I know and trust.

I'm as likely to get trolled on Reddit, as have any kind of meaningful conversation. Not so on G+.

To answer your original question, I use Facebook for communication with my friends and low-level awareness of what old acquaintances are doing, and HN for tech news. HN won't help me meet up with my friends to watch a movie, and my Facebook feed rarely has good tech news. G+ has a bare handful of my friends, none of whom live in the same city now, and I haven't found sufficient interesting public content to make it worth my time (though I haven't seriously looked in about a year). Once a week when I call my parents (Hangouts are awesome for that, I can get my brother in at the same time), I'll scan through the half dozen posts in my feed for the previous week.

Also, I stopped checking G+ daily when they started putting up that annoying "find your friends" banner half the time you hit the site, which was way too much friction for the paucity of content in my G+ feed.

I think people decided that Social Network must be equivalent to "People I know, who know me," and Facebook is great for that. If you want to add in "people I used to work with," then LinkedIn is fine, too.

But there's this interesting layer, for me, of other people that are interesting to talk to:

People who are willing to identify themselves publicly with their real name, and who are interested in the same things I'm interested in.

https://plus.google.com/communities

By joining Communities of like-minded people, it's very similar to subscribing to a sub-reddit. Except I personally see way less spam and trolling.

And I can mix that in, with the streams of other interesting people who are on G+.

Facebook != Hacker News != Google+

They're different. The reasons why most people SAY they don't use Google+ is because it's not the same thing as Facebook. I think they're wrong to have even thought of it that way.

I took your recommendation and looked through Google+ for communities that interested me, and didn't see anything promising, but the idea does have some potential - I do follow Linus and a few authors, and would probably check Google+ more often if I could find more interesting content, but I haven't found a killer feed to make it part of my daily routine yet.

I suppose different people use these sites in different ways, though, and I might check back periodically, but for now Google+ is just a Skype replacement for me.

Because HN is not a social network. It's a feed you can comment on. But no need to be on HN to read HN. That's the magic of open standards that promote interop like RSS. All the closed social APIs are just here to lock you in the trunk. And when you decide to move on , well to bad , you lose everything ,because you need to be on the plateform to use it...

If i decide to stop going on HN i can still follow it. No need for Ycombinator to "review" the client i'm using or impose "rate limits" or whatever.

And i can then broadcast HN feed with my own feed to people who suscribe it , without them subscribing HN.

But hey , "RSS must die" people are saying ...

I'll respond to your individual points:

G+ is a feed I can comment on.

And you're not just reading HN (which RSS would let you do), you're commenting on it.

RSS does not allow you to comment back - it's not that magic.

Hacker News has convinced you to make an account, in order to comment.

And I can use Google+ in a browser. Any browser.

And lookie here:

https://plus.google.com/+Scobleizer/posts/ZLV9GdmkRzS

That's you, reading an article that was posted on Google+, without even logging in to Google+, which proves that Google+ can be used like any blogging software:

https://plus.google.com/+Scobleizer/posts

So, what exactly is your problem? Why the venom?

Because HN, reddit, et al. do not have a "real name" requirement, nor do they attempt to force you into making connections to others that you may not be willing to make.

Using HN and reddit as an analogy is flawed though, because they do not have an extended family of products and services. If G+ was only G+, then great, that's one thing. However, G+ is required if you want to make an app review in the Play store, among other things. Neither reddit nor HN have anything remotely close to this.

I agree. It's the real names requirement that put me off G+. I like having different personalities for my different online identities.