Google+ almost certainly has more than 130 million users, however we see less than 10% of logins coming from Google+ in comparison to Facebook. This to me means that people are either more careful about what they share their G+ info with, or they simply don't care about Google+ at all (neither option is good for a social network). And let me tell you, I personally never login with G+ despite having a profile. Google+ accounts get created because the process is nearly automatic, not because people actually want to use Google+. Their user base growth is completely artificial in my opinion, so I would definitely call Google+ a failure.
Didn't Google also rename their social I/O presentations from "Google+" to "Google Identity Services"?, that might show you their confidence in the network. I'm still sour about the Youtube account merging though, so I'm biased.
I created an account under my real name (e.g., not Dr. Edward Morbius, an homage to 1950s SciFi), shortly after the public beta was opened. I closed it a few weeks later when the "Real Names" policy was starting to be enforced. I created a second account, as Edward Morbius, another few weeks later, to see how things would evolve.
I all but killed that with the YouTube Anschluss.
So, yes, there were people who created accounts, and a large number of those I interact with on G+ (a couple of dozen folks for the most part) who did similarly.
Which isn't to say I'm not still massively conflicted about the site.
I created one on purpose when they promised more privacy with the circles thing. I promptly stopped using it after their mass merger with other services ( the merge with YouTube particularly annoyed me)
I bailed on G+ for photo hosting. Imgur is vastly superior for my needs:
• There's the option of anonymous photo hosting.
• I can distinguish between uploading and sharing images. On G+ if you upload an image you must "share" it then and there, or it's forever private.
• Useful annotations and titles. Roughly comparable, but I prefer Imgur's tools.
• Better album options. In particular, I can figure out how to add images to specific albums in Imgur. G+ is fucking opaque on this. Yes, I'd prefer to be able to add an image to an album from the image rather than by navigating to the album first.
• Share an image to User Sub or another gallery and enjoy the fun. Or just build up a library of images associated with my subreddit and/or blog (my primary use of Imgur).
All the fancy-schmancy image editing tools G+ offers? I don't use 'em. I've got The GIMP, it's good enough for me.
In order to upload without sharing I suppose you can create a circle with nobody in it (I do that to bookmark posts I want to go back later: I reshare these to an empty "bookmark" circle) and "share" your pics only to it.
You can also just upload, and then not share the image (it's a separate flow after the upload that you can skip.) The default setting for an uploaded photo is "not shared".
• If true, it's a really fucked up UI/UX. Because the two actions have absolutely no need to be associated.
• If not true, it's a really fucked up UI/UX. Because in two years of using photos, I haven't sorted it out, and I routinely see people sharing individual photos to their streams (I occasionally ask "context") to find that they're assembling an album of some sort.
Again: the photo-sharing is pretty much useless on account of that, and Imgur shines by comparison.
If you want persistent storage you control, buy an S3 share or host your own. Frankly, broadband access is to the point the latter is viable for personal accounts. I'd like to see some sort of P2P distributed cache which shares load as well.
I'm not sure what you mean. If you don't share a photo when you upload it, you can share it any time later. (In particular, that's how auto-upload works.) If you share it, and then you delete the post where it's shared, it goes back to not-shared. That seems pretty straightforward.
It doesn't seem like a surprising UI to follow an upload with a share when you're sending photos to a social network. I'm not even sure Facebook gives you that choice. The two actions don't have to be associated, but they certainly need to be associated when you consider that folks usually upload photos to share them.
I don't think G+ Photos has been advertised as a "persistent store you control". It's a social network that has an auto-upload feature to make it easier to share images and backup shots taken on your phone. "Hosting your own" is not going to be a substitute for 95% of real-world users.
Honestly, the G+ photos UI is sufficiently fucked up that I've never been able to sort any of this out.
I see Google's offerings as suits my needs. And Photos hasn't offered that.
I disagree on HYO, because reasons. Persistent broadband, a $25 device, and 5 watts will get you a server. The software's free. Some form of distributed federated caching gets you redundancy and load balancing. Search is the tough nut, though there are a few projects which have been working at that (e.g., YaCy) for a while now.
Otherwise it's just protocols, autoconfiguration, and adoption.
Didn't Google also rename their social I/O presentations from "Google+" to "Google Identity Services"?, that might show you their confidence in the network. I'm still sour about the Youtube account merging though, so I'm biased.