Regarding the rendering technologies it was exactly the same, a big pile of JS that you need to render actual content.

The main point of the author seems to be that G+ doesn't use progressive enhancement.

Jesus, downvotes for mentioning Google Wave.

I was specifically responding to this part: >A web where re-sharing of content is limited by the platform, not by the capabilities of your client. A web where you cannot comment on an article unless registering in a corporate namespace (which kicked you out if you happened to choose a name they do not particularly like).

The point was that Google tried it open, it didn't work. Facebook is closed, they tried that. Is it working?

Google Wave is probably the single worst introduction of a new technology that I've ever seen. To this day, I have no idea what it actually was or was for. All I know is that it did everything, but nothing, and it did it simultaneously in shared sessions.