Any person with experience in the world of dating will tell you that if you ever come to a point where you think a breakup is in order, the worst thing that you can do is draw this out. Sure, everything was running smoothly for a couple of months, but, for some reason that weird snort she does when laughing, which you used to think was super cute, is now unbearably annoying. To be honest, you’re not really sure what you ever saw in this person, but here you are, drawing out the break up, only making matters worse. The same logic applies to companies, specifically those in the tech sector, who plan on shutting down, I don’t know, perhaps their failed social media platform, but rather than ripping off the band-aid, they wait.
I’m speaking, of course, in relation to Google (GOOGL), the company responsible for providing the world with information in less time than it takes for a millennial to find a new issue to protest, who still hasn’t pulled the plug on Google +. For those of you who’ve never enjoyed the seamlessness and beautifully designed user interface of Google +, neither have the millions of users who tossed their hope into the well and were completely let down.
Technically, if you use Google’s (GOOGL) G Suite, i.e. Gmail, docs, forms, slides, etc…, you’re using Google +, but that, in it of itself makes absolutely no sense. From a purely fundamental perspective, Google was on the right track when they decided to take a stab at creating a social media platform. The company built out an entire department of content creators, back-end engineers, UX designers, and one guy names Sven to tell Scandinavian-based knock-knock jokes, all in a creative effort to build out what would eventually become Google +. Using your Gmail account as your login, Google + users could connect to one another and share photos stored in the cloud by adding them to a live stream photo album which updated every time a photo was uploaded. One journalist pointed out that the problem with Google (GOOGL) is “always that Google designs products for Googlers first and human beings second.”
Back in October, Google (GOOGL) announced plans, via their official website, to sunset the consumer version of Google + and its APIs because of the “significant challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations, as well as the platform’s low usage.” Sugarcoating it just a bit, the fact of the matter is that Google +, albeit aesthetically pleasing, was useless and failed to catch on. Not only that, the thousands of users who gave the site a chance had their personal data exposed and potentially hacked back in October. In an effort to patch the data breach, Google (GOOGL) released an update in November which, according to recent reports, also contained a bug affecting a Google + API.
On Monday, the company shared details on their current investigation into the recent bug from Google +’s faulty API:
“Our investigation into the impact of the bug is ongoing, but here is what we have learned so far…We have confirmed that the bug impacted approximately 52.5 million users in connection with a Google + API. With respect to this API, apps that requested permission to view profile information that a user added to their Google + profile — like their name, email address, occupation, age — were granted permission to view profile information about that user even when set to not-public.”
–Google Official Announcement Concerning Google + Data Breach
In light of yet another issue related to Google +, the company decided to expedite the shutdown of the app and its related APIs sooner than they originally planned. Per their announcement, Google (GOOGL) will “sunset all Google + APIs in the next 90 days, as well as accelerate sunsetting consumer Google +, bringing it forward from August 2019 to April 2019.” Google (GOOGL) added just a bit more sugar for taste by justifying the expedition of the Google + breakup as an opportunity for Google + users to transition off the platform.
You know what would’ve been much simpler, shutting down Google + when you realized that no one was using the platform.
