Let's presume that Google in ~2010 believed that more personal services (like Google Now today) are the future. That requires identification to be layered onto

Let's presume that Google in ~2010 believed that more personal services (like Google Now today) are the future. That requires identification to be layered onto everything they do, including search. But requiring a login for search seems absurd and immediately seems creepy (even if the intent is innocent) and would have been met with intense resistance. It seems a far easier strategy to create a social service where identification is a presumed requirement, and then sprinkle a bit of that across all of the other services. By 2011, half a billion users had been trained by Facebook that logging in with your real identity was the norm. After all, all of your friends were doing it. Thus, Google+ was born. It was the first time that all of Google made a consolidated step toward identification across all of their services. It was a rally point internally and externally, was easily understood, had a clear product roadmap, and opened the door to all kinds of new, stickier products. I think that the expectations of G+ being a Facebook killer were misguided. Google would love to replace the FB News Feed, but I think it's already achieved much of what it set out to do.