You don’t have to embrace Google Plus any longer if you don’t want to
Google+ is a sort of also-running social network associated to Gmail users accounts but has so far not grown anywhere near the popularity Facebook and Twitter. This has led to many Gmail users finding it completely of no use to them, while some see it as a nuisance with its notifications.
As early as 2012, Google insisted on new users signing up to its Google+ social network, when signing up for new accounts. The intention was to generate momentum for the popularity growth of Google+. Some described Google+ as Google’s way of killing Facebook’s popularity, but so far it has not come anywhere near achieving that goal.
The death of Google+ is seemed to have started early, with the departure of Google executive in charge of the social network, Vic Gundontra. It appears when he departed Google last spring, Google+ followed him.
Now, without any doubt, the writing is on the wall, that Google+ is on its death bed, and to add salt to the wounds, Facebook too has it posted on some wall somewhere.
According to Larry Kim’s blog, the requirement set previously by Google for new users to adopt Google+ has been dropped. Kim said this was quietly done early this month, but Google confirmed this last weekend. A representative from Google told THE INQUIRER, that the requirement when signing up for Gmail to also sign up for Google+ has been dropped.
The spokesperson said, “We update the sign up experience in early September. Users can now create a public profile during signup, or later, if and when they share public content for the first time (like a restaurant review, YouTube video or Google+ post).”
Related: How to remove Google+ Account from Google
However, Google+ is still alive and anybody that wishes to continue using it, can still be able to. When new users are signing up for Gmail, they will now be presented with a “No thanks” button which will enable them skip creating the Google+ account.