Users don’t notice when your product development slows down. They’re logging in to use your product, not monitor your development progress. However, if things go quiet for long enough, they’ll be easily distracted when a competitor releases a new feature, whether valuable or frivolous.

Good point. Maybe I'm not an active enough user, but G+ does not seem to be using the continuous development model that's gained popularity recently (Github, Chrome/ium, etc).

Rather they seem to be using the waterfall model - months of development, rollout, repeat, all the while little pain points continue unaddressed.

For example, it took them several months after rollout to add hashtags, and that was one of the most requested features. And of course the recent big facelift is another bit of evidence.

Personally I just wish they'd add hastag filtering to circles [1]. I don't know if I'm in the minority here, but to increase my engagement I simply require better signal:noise filtering.

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3828010