> From an admittedly perhaps poorly informed outside > perspective, there still seems to be fear and uncertainty > (FUD?) around the deactivation of access

> From an admittedly perhaps poorly informed outside > perspective, there still seems to be fear and uncertainty > (FUD?) around the deactivation of access to Google > services and whether and what the side-effects may be. > [...] > Without being able to fully evaluate why, there seems to be > more arguing going on now, amongst those factions. Perhaps that > is really, at core, what is going wrong. (To extent there is > something wrong; I mean, Google's not exactly hurting for > business.) http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html I believe that the story "signing up for Google+ endangers your account" is spread online and in the media by companies (one, in particular) whose profits are endangered by Google+ . Prior to 2011, Google's core businesses were in markets with no large, unethical competitors. That's why there was never a flood of news articles about Maps, or Reader, or GMail -- the competition were basically honest, and used features or user experience to sway users. Google+ is the first attempt to take on entrenched unethical competition, and that competition's response has been to launch an astroturfed PR offensive. It doesn't matter how many of their accusations are refuted; as long as there's enough doubt to discourage users from signing up for Google+, the PR has served its job. Microsoft had a similar PR campaign in the mid-00's, to spread fear about Linux and the GPL. I still see occasional echos of this online; commentators posting long-discredited arguments about Linux being insecure, or GPL being viral, etc. I hope that the anti-Google+ campaign is less successful.