Google is not going to change, unless it becomes a negative in the pres or if they start losing users. The second is unlikely given how users behave and Google’s advertising. The most immediate reason for G+ is that they have reached the max from milking
search but Wall Street is not happy, they own a part of a $200+billion
business so the earning need to be huge and growing.

Google is speeding everything up knowing that any investigation,
fake-negotiations to settle, depositions, pre-trial, trial, appeals etc
take a good 2-5 years. Google will only change if they lose more by
doing what they’re doing. They have stopped giving a rat’s *ss for
anyone and now have openly discarded the “best for the user” defense.
Arrogance ? Who knows. They can spend billions to buy search or new
search technologies /small competitors so they are unlikely to lose much
share, unless their search is shown as fake, as rigged. Right now on every search I tried G+ profiles outrank FB, Twitter and everything. I’m talking about empty Google+ profiles (I suspect pulled from Youtube too) vs very active FB ones.

The difference between FB and Google is how they started and how is
Google doing the bait and switch. People go to Google to find stuff and
leave, Google is little by little keeping more and more and more, while
claiming to be fair and unbiased. To FB’s credit, they never gained
their market share by claiming to send you to the best /most relevant
site for your search term, and then try to keep you within their system.

Google knows what’s happening, what people are saying and they are
trying to delay. They did this with any major update (ironically they
were after Google’s needed more money for Wall Street) : Say we updated, users are loving it, but keep quiet on what /where /how. A few month later give some false hope to get people
scrambling. Make sure a few recover months latyer to get some more false hope.
Eventually people forget while Google profits and moves to the next
update.

I am an independent web guy that has seen this for a while.

However, I think the long term vision of Google is to use Google+ to direct traffic back to Google products in some cases (see Mike Elgan’s article about his interpretation of Google+ as something other than a social network). In that way, their practices are resembling Facebook’s attempt to be the absorption node for web traffic (e.g.  differential pricing for advertisements that lead users to exit Facebook), money (Facebook credits have an exit fee and that will lead to money staying within the Facebook system in the same way that gift cards work), communication (any closed communication system will ensure that communication doesn’t leave the network), etc…I suspect that Google’s reporting of their numbers does mean that they do not want to speak about engagement within the social network which is mostly likely very variable (see AKB48 for lots of engagement that contrasts with many people’s experiences). However, I suspect that it also means that they building a defensive network topology to protect itself from Facebook’s and others’s design.

If we want a better web, we shouldn’t just aim our criticism at Google. But just as much at all of those companies that are creating successful business models based upon closed ecosystems.