Google wasn’t comfortable in letting it grow naturally over time. They tried really hard to push on people by combining it with other more popular google products when it didn’t really make sense (i.e. Youtube). Also, as a teen at the time google plus just felt nerdy and weird. It didn’t really feel like something they cool kids would use so no one used it.
I don’t really get what the hate was for Google+, it was better than the alternative/competitor at the time (Facebook)
It was definitely much better than Facebook at the time. Especially the concept of circles that they implemented.
Google wasn’t comfortable in letting it grow naturally over time. They tried really hard to push on people by combining it with other more popular google products when it didn’t really make sense (i.e. Youtube). Also, as a teen at the time google plus just felt nerdy and weird. It didn’t really feel like something they cool kids would use so no one used it.