Last time this happened people thought social was the future. Facebook was considered a threat to everything since they had the social-graph, so everything had to become social. Google+, Google Buzz, Orkut.
It was to me the social network for grownups without the Facebook clickbait - I liked the circles model too (I did one for professional stuff one for personal) and great photos support.
But then someone was put in charge who lost their mind and just started wrecking products (YouTube etc) with plus and it was chaos.
It was a poor decision, and I agree as a consumer that this time period sucked. But I understand why the push was made. G+ only bet was to get everyone to use at once and right away. I don't agree with the assessment of someone losing their mind in this ordeal, it was the only option they had to otherwise be second bitch at best for perpetuity.
There was probably no viable business model for that as it was, closest is LinkedIn, which is rife with influencers, grifting and inspirational chain mail.
It was nicely contenty and bloggy feeling.
They're very good at measuring the intent of the searcher, perhaps not so good at measuring the intent of why a ranking page existed in the first place.
Perhaps gets harder when more AI-like content will appear.
The difference this time is, the new shiny thing goes directly into Google territory.
Google Play Services is not that much of a money maker and it sells about as many phones in a year as Apple sells in a couple of weeks