I thought these meant something else:

+: the term following must be in the text (but may be stemmed)

"": search for exactly this phrase (not stemmed)

So for example: +hiking => a term like hike, hiking, hiker, etc. must be on the page

+"hiking" => the string "hiking" must be on the page

"hiking" trekking outdoor => look for the string "hiking" and preferably return results that contain it, though hits for trekking and outdoor (stemmed) suffice

But apparently I'm wrong, and "" and + don't mean that any longer?

+ hasn't been an operator for years with us now. Quotes mean find the exact term indicated, no stemming, nothing -- just an exact match.

That's about as user unfriendly as it gets. Such things work their way into your muscle memory and to annoy 100% of your power users for some social media play that has nothing to do with search is textbook monopolistic behavior.

Definitely their jump the shark moment for me.

I know people (me included if I'm truly honest with myself) are still peeved about Reader but Google Plus was the Search service's sharkjump for me I think.

Don't teach me how to use your engine perfectly for 20 years then change it for some half baked social thing lmao.

I hope someone got a pisstake massive raise off it so it was at least worth something to someone!