This article seems to basically be a giant troll... if you can't see what problems Google+ claims to solve for a consumer, you aren't looking very hard. As far as I can see, there's two giant issues that G+ addresses and one that's arguably more important, but also more invisible.

1) It's not Facebook. Don't discount how much some people loathe FB as a company, and (in my opinion) rightfully so! They've made a business out of tricking users into accidentally over-sharing, they've engaged in some pretty stunning acts of censorship, and keep changing the UI in drastic steps that shock their existing userbase. (I have some sympathy with this last one, but it is a widespread complaint, nonetheless.)

2) In G+, privacy controls are manifest and obvious. There's little functionality in this realm that FB doesn't also offer, but it's not actively hidden from users on G+, but rather promoted to a primary feature of the UI.

The other thing that I think G+ does right is to get away from the "one-size-fits-all" model, under which every contact is a "friend". When you hear people saying "they're my Facebook friend, but not a real friend," it's clear that FB has flubbed it. G+, like Twitter and other such social media networks, allows for asymmetric contacts, which really lets the user control how they want to use the site.

Anyway, that's just my 2¢.