Google Plus Shutdown

Google Plus is over as of today. They’re apparently deleting accounts as I type this. Fortunately I was able to spend time pulling all the photos of my son playing soccer that were posted there. I doubt many are using it. Just a heads up.

I’m so relieved. I got a G+ account forced on me by Youtube ages ago. Now I can forget it ever existed.

One of the soccer dads who took really good pictures used it as a repository for all the pix since 2010 or so. I had to comb through there to save tons of them and really, I wish I could just have access to them all forever including those that aren’t my son since I coached every kid in them. It’s kind of a brutal loss for me.

The pen and paper RPG scene there was incredible and I am very sad it’s gone. It was the only social media I used in the last few years. It will be hard to rebuilt what was there but people are desperately trying to save what they can. It’s hard to describe but it was a fantastic and special place and I sorely miss it already. Like seeing an old and dear friend board a plane to move to a faraway place. There is no other place replicating what G+ did yet and it’s frustrating to have to finagle Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, MeWe and others to keep up with people instead of just one place.

Photos should be backed up in Google Photos. That’s not going away so if you can contact him he may be able to share them with you directly.

Yeah, it’s a massive loss for the RPG scene. I wasn’t actively involved with it, but it was the best resource for a lot of pen and paper stuff :(

Yeah. Lots of communities there are splintered. PashPost replicates some of the feel, MeWe made an official push to pull folks over, and obviously stuff like reddit, discord, and even Facebook have been around for ages already, but in the end it was the people that mattered, not the medium, and the TTRPG people that gathered on G+ were second to none. I hope someplace manages to pull em all back in somehow, but for now I’ll be checking half a dozen lesser communities… Blah

I knew a tinfoil hatter guy who deleted all his Facebook, etc. accounts because of “privacy reasons” - and went all in on Google Plus, where he continued until recently to upload all his photos and work (an artist).
How you’d trust Google with all your data but not Facebook is a bit of a mystery to me, but whatever.

Sucks for the handful of people that actually used Google Plus.
I hope they do something more with Hangouts, though. It is a UI catastrophe, but the only thing that works reliably for me and friends where Skype, Discord, etc. always ends up with broken voice audio…