Many social media buffs will remember a time just four short years ago when Google+ was the next big thing, with invite-only memberships and a lot of buzz surrounding it. No one was sure then where it would go, but the service has not exactly turned out like Internet search giant wanted.

The grand design was to eventually unite all of its products into a single social product; the result was closer to users begrudgingly signing up because they had to. The search engine giant was always able to claim a large number of Google+ users, but that was mostly because it required membership to use certain services.

But on Monday, Google said in a recent blog post that a Google+ account will no longer be necessary for services like YouTube. Google Photos and Streams will also become their own individual programs, rather than features of Google+. They admit that they “made some choices that, in hindsight, [they] needed to rethink.”

While the industry is taking this as a sign of the service’s defeat, Google isn’t admitting anything as of yet, saying “changes like these will lead to a more focused, more useful, more engaging Google+.” They probably won’t count it as a loss for a while, but it is not a good sign for their future in social media. It probably helps that they essentially forced users into using the network!

What does this mean for insurance agencies and other small, local businesses? If you are prioritizing Google+ over outlets like Facebook or Twitter, it may be a good time to put it on the back-burner and focus on something you may have been neglecting (LinkedIn, perhaps?).  Even if they are taking a hit on the social media front, Google and its billions of dollars will be just fine.