Comment by mistermann
10 years ago
> because they didn't understand the users' needs
That's generous - users told them repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that they were extremely unhappy with numerous aspects of the platform. Google simply did not care if users liked the product. How they expected it to be a success with that attitude boggles the mind.
Alternately, perhaps Google cared more about making some of its internal divisions happy than about making customers happy, and that's what drove their definitions/metrics of "success".
For example, the "Real-name only" policy was never customer-focused at all, but an incestuous favor to the advertising/profiling panopticon.
Similarly, the "forced collapse of all credentials" into G+ (like Youtube identities) probably made some things easier for Google (especially pushing its adoption as an identity-provider) but did a lot of things existing users weren't happy with.
How does real names relate to advertising? G+ doesn't even have ads. Google already has your browsing history to know your shopping interests. G+ had real names because Facebook had real names.
A real name and DOB go a long way to cross-correlating with other information. I work at a market-research company, and we're doing some partnering to correlate with voter records...
Fairly simple - a belief that the users who were complaining did not represent the majority of the market.