Google have been tremendously coy about what their success metrics for G+ are, though they&#x27;ve played highly disengenuous all-but-utterly-fake numbers games in playing up &quot;engagement&quot; since the very beginning.<p>I&#x27;d argue that the issue <i>isn&#x27;t</i> numbers, but relevance. G+ is lousy in many ways but has a few small areas of success, notably its Notifications mechanic, a community which, for me, works fairly well, and a search which while pathetically under-featured is comprehensive and fast.<p>Winning the numbers game for social vs. Facebook <i>in its current incarnation</i> is a fool&#x27;s errand. Numerous people have pointed this out, including ex-Googlers pointing at the &quot;Interest Graph&quot; (though suggestions for following &#x2F; pursuing this date to the first few months of G+).<p>If Google <i>does</i> grab the Cosmo crowd, that&#x27;s fine, <i>so long as it doesn&#x27;t also chase off the Nature&#x2F;PLOS crowd in the process</i>. Unfortunately, Google&#x27;s proven more than happy to sling absolute snot (as in the G+ &quot;What Snot&quot; feature ... oh, no, that&#x27;s &quot;What&#x27;s Hot&quot;).<p>Power users learn how to disable that instantly.