I disagree. People who used Reader were early adopters and influencers. Perhaps it was only 8 million users from Reader, but they would have had a multiplier effect.
Facebook is, generally, a better experience for a person that wants to keep up with their friends, because posting, discovering others' posts, organizing groups, having get-togethers in real life are quicker, simpler, easier for the general user.
So they'll ignore Google+ because they don't need that second social network if Google+ comes in second.
Which, for that persona, it really does.
Now I don't have any reason to have Google Account, and so I don't have one†. Of the users I introduced to Gmail, some have since moved back to live.com (e.g. family) because they saw me complaining so much, even though they had no real reason to move.
I no longer recommend Android since after 2 attempts, watching both my phones with otherwise perfectly functional hardware have their software go unsupported and crumble into the ground as every new update got pushed. And so my mom still has a Blackberry (yep!)
† Not strictly true, I still have an apps account to forward my mail, but only because I haven't migrated the last remaining user off the domain.
Remaining stuff is all data, so its just on my laptop. Of my last three employers, two were big Microsoft Outlook houses, so that's how corp calendar sharing has worked.
For RSS I am running Selfoss. It's passable, but it's no Reader. After obsessing over sundry services like YouTube I finally just decided to delete the account - playlists and all, since services like that are basically huge wastes of time anyway.
Right now I'm carrying a phone that doesn't even support e-mail, never mind web, and honestly have no intention of changing the situation unless forced by an employer. It's great, the battery lasts about 2 weeks. The only real aspect of this that hurt initially was the lack of a good GPS, but since I don't own a car and live in a big city, turns out it was just another excuse to pointlessly glue my head to a screen
I haven't used desktop client for private mail for years, and I don't see that changing, because of the privacy and security concerns. I'm willing to let NSA or some other faceless foreign entity snoop my email if that will prevent people around me that can get hold of my phone or computer from reading my mail.