Love it or hate it, Google+ has always been a hard sell for Google. I’ve seen quite a number of online posts and YouTube comments (since it became a requirement to have Google+ with your YouTube account) over the years saying how much people dislike being forced to create a Google+ account when they don’t want one. This has been a mandatory thing since January 2012, and many believed that this was simply a way for Google to force more people to boost the number of Google+ accounts out there.
Now, there is light at the end of the tunnel, as Larry Kim confirmed the fact that it’s not mandatory anymore.
As you can see, you can now opt out of the Google+ account creation if you so choose by clicking on the No Thanks button.
Call this full of evidence, or merely conspiracy theory, but there has been the idea that Google is de-emphasizing its three-year-old social network, perhaps even thinking of killing it. After all, back in April, Vic Gundotra, who is the godfather of Google+, stepped down, and Google even removed the display of Google+ authorship information from search results last month.
But will they really kill Google+? Probably not. This could simply be Google taking a bad situation and re-arranging how it works to make things more appealing to Google users. As an example, Google is continuing to improve upon products like Hangouts and Hangouts on Air. Both of these services are directly related to Google+.
Either way, it seems that it isn’t Google’s intention to pump up it’s Google+ user numbers. Maybe it’s good the way it is.