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.
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 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.
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+.