In the 7 years since the launch of Google+ in 2011, the social network has been through a lot of trials and tribulations. Technically, the search engine giant's fourth attempt at a social network — following in the footsteps of such mishaps as Google Buzz, Google Friend Connect, and Orkut (yes, this was real) — Google+ aimed for the stars, but never quite managed to live up to the hopes and expectations of both its creators and users alike.

Google+'s hardships are anything but a secret at this point. There was a time when Google itself wanted to pretend everything was okay — notably in 2015, ...