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There's always a cost. Time, effort, losing people that didn't want everything to be connected, exposing privacy (remembered that people weren't aware when G+ names were replacing youtube ones and exposed their comments).

Opportunity cost and a lot of good will, but it's hard to measure both of those things.

I for one don't think they gave it a decent shot. What I mean is that I, and others, were annoyed by the heavy-handed attempt, and didn't see its value. This is despite the fact that Facebook leaves loads to be desired - even Facebook internal propaganda says "People don't use facebook because they like facebook - they use facebook because they like their friends."

Of course, all of my friends are on YouTube or Gmail. But I'm not social networking with them on Google+. Something was missing.

Lots of goodwill, brand equity, and trust lost. Particularly among thought leaders and the technorati. The amount of dysfunction revealed by the G+episode is pretty staggering, really.

Having Snowden's disclosures hit in the midst of that didn't help either.