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Comment by Kylekramer | Hacker News Reader

Now that is has been turned on, I got to agree with saurik (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3132566). It doesn't really make sense. Why would I want my social network profile attached to and controlled by my school or work? I remember a family member going through a difficult transition when he was laid off from a job he was working at for decades and no longer had access to just his email/contacts. If people use Google+ like Google wants them to, there is going to be even more important stuff held in accounts that the user doesn't really control.

Hangouts for Docs can be useful, I suppose, and I am glad those with custom domains are invited to the party, but it seems like an awkward fit.

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I think is largely aimed at the people who are using Google Apps for their own domain. I certainly wouldn't want a corporate account tied to my Google+ identity, but my own domain and email address which I've been using for over a decade definitely fit the bill.

Yep, that's the boat I'm in. I've got google apps for my own domain, and maintain 2 personal accounts on there (one for friends, one for acquaintances), my work is also on google apps. That means that there are already 3 google accounts that I'm juggling (or struggling with) and I was loathe to add a 4th account just to use google plus.

But it has further use as well. You can have your own personal identity on your gmail address and your official corporate identity on apps. Mixing roles is never a good idea and g+ on apps makes it easier to avoid.

If you don't want your social profile controlled by your school or work, don't use your school or work email address as your login. I'm not sure that's even specific to Google+...

There's a reverse of that use case: a school or org may want to provide social networking to its users, specifically for that context, e.g. exchange of information within the institution.

> There's a reverse of that use case: a school or org may want to provide social networking to its users, specifically for that context, e.g. exchange of information within the institution.

Wow, that's actually really interesting. I hadn't thought of that angle before but I could see that happening.

> exchange of information within the institution

yes. an organization's "knowledge" is mostly persisted in email. G+ is a huge step forward in knowledge sharing, discovery, and recovery within an organization.

"Why would I want my social network profile attached to and controlled by my school or work?"

The better question is why would you want your email address controlled by one company? Those of who decided we want something portable that doesn't end in "@gmail.com" now have access to Google Plus.

Keep in mind that you are assuming that something that costs on the order of 50 cents a month necessarily implies that only big corporations rather than individuals use it.

There are lots of people who are freelancers or founders who use email at their own domain as their personal email.

It is free for individuals, or was maybe they changed that?

I ised it for free for seversl years but just started paying in the hope of getting better support. Given I didnt I am probably going to go back to free.

I meant the total cost, I was including domain registration. Apps for your domain is free for businesses and individuals under a certain threshold.

Still free but the link is kind of buried.

They also recently dropped the free version to 10 accounts instead of 50.

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