Everything was obviously DOA after it dies. I also thought it wouldn't last but it wouldn't be the first or last tech company initiative that lived on long after people thought it would die. Weird things happen. "Obviously" isn't a good filter.

Google+ had an exclusive club appeal at launch because it wasn't instantly globally accessible, but slowly opened up instead.

It became clear they where desperate about user numbers when thay forced the merge of Youtube accounts. Or something like that.

So is Gemini tbh. It's the only agent I've used that gets itself stuck in ridiculous loops repeating "ok. I'm done. I'm ready to commit the changes. There are no bugs. I'm done."

Google somehow manages to fumble the easiest layups. I think Anthropic et al have a real chance here.

I thought it was a far superior UI to facebook when it launched. I tried to use it but the gravity of the network effect was too strong on facebook's side.

In the end I'd rather if both had failed. Although one can argue that they actually did. But that's another story.