No, it's not just "trendy", there are some legitimate reasons to dislike them. Just like many people have reasons to dislike Apple or Microsoft even though they

No, it's not just "trendy", there are some legitimate reasons to dislike them. Just like many people have reasons to dislike Apple or Microsoft even though they also make some great stuff. Google has done a lot to shoot itself in the foot regarding goodwill in the developer community, even though they still contribute a lot to open source. They killed off Reader and a lot of other products, has closed down many open APIs, so instead of enthusiasm when they launch a new product, now they get "oh yeah, how long is this product going to live?" They are now forcing every service and pushing their users into Google+ whether they want to or not. It seems like Social is something Google is obsessed with winning, and they are happy to alienate some users in order to do that.