You could make the same argument about Tumblr or Posterous, really. Fact of the matter is, there are huge benefits to meshing community and long-form commenting

You could make the same argument about Tumblr or Posterous, really. Fact of the matter is, there are huge benefits to meshing community and long-form commenting. Commenting systems like Disqus just aren't all the way there in terms of fluidity. If you don't have a platform of a certain size, your comment threads can look awful bare with the wrong kind of audience. G+ encourages commenting — and really intelligent commenting, too. In fact, it works almost like a hivemind at times, allowing users to build relationships in new ways. Look at the issue less as one of ownership and more as one of friction. The reason why platforms like G+ are desirable is because they take away a lot of the friction that a thousand non-centralized platforms create. If someone figured out how to efficiently remove the friction from decentralized blogs, I'd eat my hat because that's how impressed I'd be. I look at G+ as a supplement to blogging rather than a main outlet, however. I actually think it's better for longer thoughts, while I prefer shorter comments on my Tumblr site.