In 12 months (even less), there will be enough data to argue definitively, so what is the reason for having an opinion now. I'm not bashing you for your opinion, the whole argument is immature. Lets wait a little before psychoanalyze everything about this.
And, to be honest, the hive mind is _generally_ right about these things. Remember Color and how everyone was so sure it was going to fail spectacularly? And remember how it did? Or how skeptical everyone was about Diaspora? Or OpenID? Or how early most people realized that Facebook was going to destroy MySpace? It's not just noise. Well, Buzz may have been noise... and so may be Google+... but it's fun to talk about it.
The problem is that such speculation often gets disguised as serious journalism and pundit analyses when, at this point, is just gossip and opportunistic click bait.
Bingo!
>Why is there so much discussion about what might be the success or failure of products/services/companies/etc? It's all noise.
And the answer to that question is quite simple. If there are people out there willing to read it, then there are people out there that are going to write it. Online journalism and blogs have made these types of articles the norm.
maybe because if you invest when everything is definite, you take less risk and get less income?