
Google is making a huge and annoying mistake - ColinWright
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2012/05/google-is-making-a-huge-and-annoying-mistake.html
======
VikingCoder
> It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability
> to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers.

First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in,
used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video?

If that's true, then I bet it was very easy to spam. Giving it a Thumb Up,
without being logged in, would also mean that none of your friends had any
idea that you had given it a Thumb Up, and you could never again find a
history of things you had Thumbed Up.

And now, to upvote, you need to be logged in...

What website, anywhere on the internet, allows you to upvote without being
logged in? Not HackerNews. Not Reddit. Not Facebook.

By knowing who you Follow, Google and YouTube now have a much better way to
find information that you care about. If I search on YouTube for "python", it
has a chance to know that I mean the programming language, because of who I'm
Following.

Also, every single +1 that you get on your YouTube videos now has a real
person behind it. Every single +1 is now worth Gold. Every single +1 has a
better chance to go viral, because the Followers of that person who clicked +1
have a chance to see it.

If I search on YouTube for something, and I see "Wil Wheaton +1d this," I'm
MUCH more likely to want to check it out.

~~~
Wilya
You can't thumb up on Youtube without a Google Account (which is not exactly
the same as a Google+ account).

And, I already get the +1s (or thumbs up, or whatever it's called) of the
people I follow on Youtube, in my Youtube stream. And I do like things there.
On the other hand, sharing ? I'd think twice before doing it.

~~~
VikingCoder
So, to make some people happy, Google would have to allow you to have a
separate Google account, Google+ account, and YouTube account.

To make other people happy, it would be completely optional to link those
accounts together - but keep them separate, for some reason.

To make other people happy, they should be able to use one account to do all
of the those things.

Finally, to make other people happy, Google should just be a search engine
with 10 blue links.

~~~
Wilya
I don't really argue one way or another. Just wanted to precise that the
anonymous user issue is a bit irrelevant. They couldn't do anything before,
they still can't do anything.

What changes (if they really do what the original blog post suggests) is this:
* They remove the up/down votes system internal to Youtube (which is already a
full-fledged system, where you have a stream where you can see when someone
you follow likes something, etc) * They move 'share to Google+' from the
'Share' submenu (where it already is, alongside with Facebook, Twitter) to
where the up/down votes were

------
jes5199
Youtube used to be a demilitarized zone in the social wars. Every social
network uses Youtube as their default video provider, every cell phone OS has
a Youtube app as the default video app.

Google saying that Youtube is now, fundamentally, a G+ territory means that
social video is no longer something we can take for granted; expect Facebook
and Apple to jump ship, and Youtube is left with, what, only the loyal G+
users?

I miss the days when Google, Apple, and Facebook cooperated rather than
squabbled. The internet has gotten crappier lately.

~~~
nostromo
Facebook isn't so dumb that they haven't seen YouTube as Google's trojan horse
for a long time. Facebook has had a video platform since 2007 -- it just
hasn't taken off.

> I miss the days when Google, Apple, and Facebook cooperated rather than
> squabbled.

I don't; competition is good.

~~~
jmsduran
If by competition you mean the walled data silos each company builds in order
to prevent users from leaving their platform, I would much rather prefer
cooperation.

------
nextparadigms
In the beginning people complained that Google has like a dozen different
"Like" buttons on the Reader, Youtube and so on. Now they complain that they
want to use just one everywhere?

I think it's a great move. Personally, I even want them to integrate their G+
commenting system into all their services. It's one of the best commenting
systems out there, and certainly much better than the Youtube one. It might
even encourage better comments on Youtube.

~~~
pitchups
It is a question of semantics and word choice really - pretty sure that if
they had said "Login with your Google Account" instead of "Upgrade to
Google+", the reaction would not have been as negative. All that the Upgrade
to Google+ does is tie your Google account to Google+ - you don't have to
follow anyone, post anything or fill out any details of you profile. So they
could have just called it : We are tying / converting (not upgrading) your
account to a Google+ account so you can Like the video.

~~~
sp332
In order to get a Google+ account, you have to give them a lot more
information than you do to just get a normal Google account. And you have to
use your real name or they'll disable you _entire_ account - including email
etc.

~~~
jmsduran
Even with those safeguards, it is still possible to create a phony/spam G+
account. Asking for more information doesn't solve the problem, it simply
forces the user to fabricate more information in the beginning during the sign
up process.

~~~
ebiester
The user, however, doesn't know the consequences of subverting the form.

~~~
waqf
If they're an accomplished spammer they won't hesitate to experiment. After
which it's yet another hoop which obstructs only the bona fide users.

------
johnnyo
Looks like this was a test Google recently deployed, more information here:

[http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/03/15/dislike-youtube-
cons...](http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/03/15/dislike-youtube-considers-
phasing-out-likedislike-in-favor-of-its-giant-1-button/)

~~~
kefs
Thank you for that link. Yours is the only relevant comment in this thread,
and should be read prior to upvoting. The rest is just fud.

------
javajosh
Google thinks it will die in the long run without social. They realize that
all the tech-savvy software product in the world can be reproduced eventually,
but secondary, human-savvy products, can never be reproduced. Furthermore,
they see the power in adding ever more context to search - see Bret Victor's
talk about how 'interaction' is bad, and inferring context is everything.
There's no better context than social.

While my visceral reaction is basically the same as Wil's, I actually think
that this is something Google needs to do if they believe in this vision. Time
will tell if it's justified: when they removed social features from Reader I
basically stopped using it. I probably won't stop using YouTube, but this may
be annoying enough for me to stop giving feedback (apart from the navigation
event itself, of course).

Also on the plus side, since Google insists on real identities on G+ then we
can at least look forward to more civil comments on YouTube, which I think we
all agree would be a net benefit.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I haven't seen a convincing argument that Google _needs_ social. I know they
believe it, I just haven't seen anything that made a compelling case that it's
actually true.

~~~
jonnathanson
Advertising is the vast majority of Google's revenue. How vast? AdWords alone
accounts for _97%_ of Google's earnings. The strategic vulnerability of that
position cannot possibly be overstated.

Along comes Facebook, which could (in theory, at least) roll out a perfectly
competitive product to threaten AdWords. If social really does provide better
context for advertising, and advertising within the world's prevailing social
network is deemed superior to advertising within search, then Google is
fucked. Some degree of 97% fucked, to be precise.

This is why Google's so feverishly obsessed with social in general, and
Facebook in particular. They see this -- rightly so -- as no less than an
existential threat. Now, their approach to the problem is up for debate. But
the extent of the problem is, if anything, popularly underestimated.

~~~
waterlesscloud
While that helps explain why Google's social efforts are weak, it doesn't make
the case that social is something Google needs.

What Google needs, in this case, is more information on its users, which is
not a particularly social thing to need.

Say Google is approaching social as an information gathering problem, and
Facebook is approaching social as a users-interacting problem, then who will
always win social under those conditions?

~~~
jonnathanson
_"While that helps explain why Google's social efforts are weak, it doesn't
make the case that social is something Google needs."_

Actually, my intent was just the opposite: to explain why Google "needs"
social (but not so much to explain why its efforts have been weak). That said,
I think it does offer explanation for their weakness in social to date: they
didn't really see it as a threat until it became one. It's very easy to see
why Facebook's ad platform can be a threat to Google's ad platform in
hindsight (i.e., right now), but it wasn't back when Facebook was first taking
off. It's hard to blame Google for not seeing Facebook as an existential
threat before it turned into one.

 _"Say Google is approaching social as an information gathering problem, and
Facebook is approaching social as a users-interacting problem, then who will
always win social under those conditions?"_

For Google, it's not about winning social, per se; it's about winning
advertising. Facebook is trying to win social. Google is trying to prevent
social from devastating its ad platform, and at the moment, it seems to think
that putting up a valiant fight to carve out a piece of social is the best
solution to that problem. That's why Google thinks it "needs" social. It may
or may not actually _need_ to win social, but it needs to defend and improve
its ad platform, and social is a big threat to that platform. Accordingly, I'd
argue that Google's approach to social has been defensive, and not offensive.
(Ironically, that may also explain its not being able to "get" social so far).

~~~
justincormack
I think they are also split between trying to think of Facebook as doing an
extension of their information gathering, ie social relationships add more
data that we can use to sell you ads more effectively we need to do this, as
against Facebook as a platform is a threat to the open web with search as a
gateway. The first part is easier for them, especially as plus gives them some
data from circles even if no one uses it. The only big platformy thing they
have is youtube, and perhaps android, oh and orkut, but they dont really know
how to compete with facebook, in the past they just tried to build attractive
places on the open web.

------
joejohnson
This is annoying, but how is it a huge mistake on Google's part? Sure, they're
going to annoy a few people, but I think that these tactics forcing people to
use G+ will probably work. People will be forced onto this G+ platform whether
they like it or not; the mass exodus threats about any social networking
platform never materialize into anything more than a few users deactivating
their accounts.

~~~
pavel_lishin
How much does Google gain from having a bunch of people who technically have
G+ accounts, but don't actually use them for anything aside from
liking/disliking videos?

~~~
ajross
They gain a bunch of people with an easy and painless upgrade path to G+ usage
if/when their friends start using it. It reduces the technical friction, which
is always the biggest blocker for early adopters.

Like most people, all of my friends use Facebook more or less exclusively. But
I know if I have a photo in my G+ account (the Android app syncs all photos to
the G+ cloud by default) I can send people a link and have a pretty reasonable
assurance they can see it.

~~~
masklinn
> They gain a bunch of people with an easy and painless upgrade path to G+
> usage

Do they, or do they just piss people off and result in them using their
services less? When Google mandated migrating youtube accounts to G+, I just
let mine rot.

~~~
ajross
Normal users don't get "pissed off" like that. There's no requirement to "use"
G+ to have a youtube account. They just click "OK" and continue using youtube
as before. You (and the author of the linked blog) have a bone to pick with
Google, which is fine. Just recognize that most people don't care. There's
nothing objectively more difficult about youtube now that it's linked to G+,
ditto gmail, etc...

~~~
adamc
On what do you base that astounding assertion?

~~~
ajross
Uh... masklinn was self-admittedly "pissed off", Will Wheaton "made a
rageface" and posted "go fuck yourself, Google"., I paraphrased those both to
"bone to pick" because I thought it sounded better.

What is "astounding" about that? They sound like synonyms to me. Do you have
an argument with the substance of what I wrote (regarding average users'
reacions to youtube merging accounts with G+)?

~~~
philwelch
A "bone to pick" implies a preexisting grudge, which is different from simply
being displeased with one decision or other.

~~~
ajross
Good grief. No, it doesn't. "I have a bone to pick with you" is a statement of
immediate annoyance. Here's a thefreedictionary reference that matches my
understanding. <http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/have+a+bone+to+pick+with>

This UK source isn't quite the connotation, though the reference to the Irish
usage matches the American English one pretty well:
[http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/30/messages/2182.ht...](http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/30/messages/2182.html)

Given that two of you now have gone out of your way to deliberately (and
uncharitably) misinterpret me: are you sure that _I_ am the one with a
preexisting grudge?

~~~
philwelch
I don't know you from Adam. Thanks for the correction though; I was genuinely
mistaken, not "deliberately and uncharitably misinterpreting" you.

------
cargo8
Did you consider that Google just cares about its own operations and future
profitability than it does about your startup's future?

Google has realized it NEEDS to have some social layer and influence
integrated into its services in order to compete and not fade into the
archives of the web. A much lower # of likes from identified users is MUCH
more valuable to Google than millions of anonymous likes.

~~~
sp332
Google likes aren't anonymous. You needed to have an account before you could
thumb-up a video already. But to get a Google+ account, you have to give them
your real name, or risk having your account banned.

------
jentulman
I think this move comes down to issues of branding with google accounts.

What's happened here is replacing needing a 'Youtube' account with a 'Google'
account, which for all intents and purposes has been a Google account for a
while now anyway. I have a feeling that this is the beginning of consolidating
the various ways in which you hold a google account for any of the services
under one G+ bannner.

The problem I see they might have with this is issues of association on non-
social networked activity with the G+ social network. I've found amongst my
non-tech friends a strong opposition to moving from Facebook to G+ as they
perceive Google to be less trustworthy than Facebook when it comes to matters
of privacy, and in extreme cases to think that Google is actively evil in its
data sucking in comparison.

~~~
masklinn
> What's happened here is replacing needing a 'Youtube' account with a
> 'Google' account

No, that happened years ago, you haven't been able to log into Youtube with a
Youtube account for a very, very long time. Instead, you've been greeted with
this:

> Update your YouTube account by linking to a Google Account

> You will no longer be able to sign in to YouTube without a Google Account.

> If you do not want to link this YouTube account, you can sign out here.

This new move is about forcefully shoving G+ further down user throats in the
hope of ever making it relevant.

------
jgroome
G+ is a joke. Nobody outside of the tech and geek industries either wants it
or uses it. And yet they carry on doing everything they can just to herd
people into creating G+ accounts.

Hey, it might work. Got to get those numbers up, right? But they can't make me
USE my G+ account.

~~~
sp332
Any page with a +1 button on it reports your visit back to Google. Even if you
don't push the button! So now Google can mine your browsing history for
advertisers.

~~~
waqf
Good news everyone! Chrome now supports multiple profiles. So you can have one
to log into Google services, and one for the rest of the web.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
Can I have one tab for google, and the others for the rest of the web. Or, am
I doomed to alt-tabbing between windows?

------
Rudism
This reminds me of the backlash against Facebook's "Like" button replacing the
"Become a Fan" button.

Personally, I would be happy to see G+ get a little more traction among my
less-techy friends and family which isn't going to happen without Google doing
stuff like this.

------
rsl7
As a user this makes me wonder how long it will be before I have to sign up
for Google+ in order to watch youtube videos at all? Or to search?

~~~
Auguste
Years later, it still annoys me that you need a Google account to sign up for
YouTube.

~~~
jrockway
What's the difference between having a Google account and a YouTube account?
Google owns YouTube.

~~~
est
It's the difference like you have to get a Condé Nast subscription in order to
comment on reddit.

Condé Nast owns reddit, remember?

I don't want to link my personal email (Gmail) account with the what cats I
watch on the Internet.

~~~
jrockway
Which email address would you use to register for the YouTube account?

~~~
muyuu
Everyone uses the old, already spam-ridden hotmail account for that.

------
vibrunazo
They're not crippling functionality to force people to g+. Adding a social
layer to existing products can potentially make them better if done right (ie:
finding content that was upvoted by people whose opinion you care about, vs
randoms you don't care about).

If done wrong it can be crippling. But then it's a problem of that specific
implementation, and you could make a constructive critic to improve it.
Instead, the author is just raging against g+ for no good reason.

~~~
debacle
No, the author is right.

The same thing happened when they linked up gmail accounts to YT logins. I
just stopped watching videos that required a login, because I didn't want to
link my YT account to my gmail account for privacy reasons.

------
gallerytungsten
In a perverse way, I kind of like annoying "upgrades" like this. Because I
have even less incentive to use the more-annoying service, I don't use it at
all; and thus have more time for productive activities.

------
alfbolide
It's just funny that people want google to fuck herself while they are
perfectly fine to be forced to sign in to comment either on the original
article or here.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
or that a bazillion other sites only give you the option to log in with your
Facebook account. Haters gonna hate.

------
yaix
I agree that Goog is currently making mistakes, but this one isn't one of
them. Of course they consolidate all the upvoting and liking stuff into one
database to then use that in their universal search ranking. Whining about not
getting upvoted by anonymous users is a little silly, because your competition
doesn't either.

If you want to talk about huge mistakes of Goog, count the seconds it takes to
execute all the JS crap they have stuffed even into the simplest of their
pages now. Or talk about their failed attempt of a re-design and even them
following the current position:fixed; hype, cluttering small screens with
headers and footers that don't scroll (the rainbow <hr> of our times).

------
guynamedloren
> _Oh, go fuck yourself, Google. This is just as bad as companies forcing me
> to “like” something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want
> me to “like.”_

Wow... can you say overreacting? Is this really _that_ bad? Is it even bad at
all? Wow.

------
nns1212
It is just being paranoid by Viddy & Socialcam funding.

Both the apps (and Dailymotion) are deeply integrated with the FB timeline and
hence getting a lot of views because of it.

People will laugh if they integrated Youtube with FB timeline. So, I think it
was in their best interest to integrate it with Google+.

So, either Google+ wins or Youtube loses. I believe that most likely the
latter will come true because of this move.

I think Google should buy social networks like Pinterest, Viddy or Socialcam
(and leaving them they way they are) instead of ruining its own products by
integrating them with Google+.

Facebook acquired Instagram in spite of it being integrated with Twitter.
Google should also play the same game.

------
NickPollard
This is where I show my complete lack of understanding about Social Media, but
really, what is the point of a 'like' button?

The web is built on URLs. If you _like_ something and want to share it with
people, send them a URL. That's what they're for.

~~~
masklinn
> what is the point of a 'like' button?

Feedback to the author, and crowd-rating for people you don't know.

What do you think the point of HN's up and down arrows are?

~~~
NickPollard
Ok, I understand that. My issue is the conflating of approval with sharing.

In this case, the problem is that people without G+ cannot voice their
approval. This is obviously a deliberate ploy to coerce people into joining
G+, but motives aside the issue is that Google are forcing people to share
when perhaps, some only want to approve.

As people have noted, whilst the frictionless sharing is good for viral
marketing, in the long term it's devastating to signal vs. noise. I left
Facebook largely because my stream was full of updates from people - good
friends, who I enjoy talking to - that said 'John Doe likes this: "Click like
for a chance to Win!"'

~~~
masklinn
Ah yes, I had mis-understood the purpose of your question, sorry.

------
cnbeuiwx
Stop using Google! You know its a company that spies on your every move, you
know they are selling your information to governments, you know they are
constantly IN YOUR FACE everywhere you turn on the net these days.

They are even worse than Microsoft was back in the days, when Google came
along with a clean search engine and a clean slate. These days, "dont do evil"
is as ridicolous as Obamas "Change!" campaign.

Google is a strong supporter of CISPA as well. Whats left to like in this
company? They make a good browser and good apps, but its not worth what they
are doing to their customers.

~~~
waqf
what are your references for: (i) _selling_ your information to governments
_(emphasis added)_ (ii) strong supporter of CISPA?

~~~
fear91
Sending users detail to governments:
[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/userdata/)

Google supportive of CISPA:
[http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/report-
google-...](http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/report-google-
supportive-of-cispa-revisions)

~~~
sesqu
That's not selling user details.

~~~
fear91
That's sending user details to the governments.

Which we all know, are always the good guys and they want to help you with
your life knowing what you search for and which websites you visit.

------
TomGullen
> I am adding now: Those upvotes are incredibly important to us, because we
> need them to earn another season of our show.

I'm assuming the changes are site wide, and not just targeted at you? If so,
everyone will get less votes. Therefore it doesn't matter in regards to this
point at all. Supply and demand right?

> You don't get people to enthusiastically use your services by forcing them
> to.

We're talking about a button.

It's amazing how much hyperbole and irrationality comes out the woodwork when
small changes are made. How is such an angry meaningless blog post making it's
way to front page of HN?

~~~
runevault
unless when Youtube set any requirements to earn continued funding it was
based on hard numbers, in which case they may simply see fewer of their
content partners make the cut to continue.

Stupid? Yes, but it's dangerous to just assume they'll do the right thing.
Frankly they should have added a + button on top of thumbs up/down so you
could easily share as a separate feature, not replace the thumbs.

------
igrekel
Remembers me how frustrated I was when I shared pictures from Picasa with
people on my contact list and what it did, without warning me, was to send
everyone a Google+ invitation.

~~~
josteink
Yeah. Google+ got me labeled as a spammer as well.

I had no idea, until I got told (in person) much, much later at some party
that I was "spamming them".

Thanks for handling your social network in a non-evil way Google. Appreciated.

------
epicviking
Given that you need a google account to access YouTube in the first place,
shouldn't google already have all the data they need here? They don't seem to
gain much with this...

~~~
idleloops
You don't need a Google account to access YouTube. You might need one to post
comments, upload and access private videos - but it's not a necessity.

~~~
runevault
Almost positive you need one to thumbs up and down, which is where this
becomes an issue.

------
mgurlitz
Tabletop made a huge mistake making their bottom line dependent on YouTube's
upvoting system. What if YouTube decides to get rid of the "Thumbs up" system?
Or if Google wants a share of your revenue from this service? See edw519's
comments here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2255615>

~~~
runevault
Mistake? Youtube funded them (and all of Geek and Sundry) as part of an
initiative to get better content onto Youtube. That's like saying taking VC is
a mistake as an entrepreneur.

~~~
jasonlotito
> That's like saying taking VC is a mistake as an entrepreneur.

Not quite, but nice try. Though, in a way, even if it did apply, it's still
holds water. If you are 100% dependent on VC funding you for your survival and
operations, then yeah, mistakes are being made.

Rather, it's like resting your entire business on a single entity, one big
customer. If that customer goes away, you lose your funding. Sorry, but if you
think being reliant on another businesses for all your funding is smart,
you're in for a rude awakening.

------
taosaur
This... does not appear to be a thing. Wil Wheaton is great and all, but I and
most of the commenters on his blog are still seeing normal, non-G+-integrated
thumbs up/down buttons.

------
gusandrews
Is anyone else facing a related problem, like I am -- that YouTube
inexplicably deleted their videos because there is no Google+ account
associated with the YouTube account? That's the only explanation I can see for
what happened to an account I created for a client. All of our videos were
taken down, and it says they were "removed by user" -- which they most
definitely were not. Other data points on this would be appreciated.

~~~
gusandrews
I've summarized my problem over here:
[http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!c...](http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-
topic/youtube/feedback--suggestions/afQwLwEaIuU)

------
appleaintbad
This is nothing. What I'm more concerned about for Google's sake is all of the
people giving up their Android phones for iPhones. It isn't an immediately
obvious trend but it will be within the next two years as people's contracts
run out.

Google needs to refocus on search and advertising, and put more effort into
R&D that might actually have world impact and significant ROI like perfecting
and licensing driverless car technology.

------
petercooper
Does YouTube share playlist popularity for videos? I've been using YouTube
since the early days and have several thousand videos in my "Favorites" folder
yet have almost never used the thumbs up/down (I don't see a direct benefit).
If I've dumped a video in my favorites for watching again later, that should
carry more weight for what WW wants likes for.

------
lysol
While I appreciate the sentiment and agree with his point of view, his simply
telling Google 'go fuck yourself' doesn't really offer an in-depth critique of
why these changes or wrong -- it just smacks of the same old 'Everything
that's new sucks' sentiment that I can and do find on IRC every day already.
Leave the analyses to the real UX folks.

~~~
iamgilesbowkett
"While I appreciate the sentiment and agree with his point of view, his simply
telling Google 'go fuck yourself' doesn't really offer an in-depth critique of
why these changes [are] wrong"

what you said is literally false. here's his in-depth critique:

"I’m going to lose a crapton of potential upvotes for Tabletop, because the
core of my audience is tech-savvy and may not want to “upgrade” to yet another
fucking social network they don’t want or need...

Those upvotes are incredibly important to us, because we need them to earn
another season of our show...

[this] will negatively affect how users can interact with us on YouTube."

translation: "we might lose the ability to do our show, because this G+ +1
button introduces friction and a sign-up process we don't expect our users
will bother to complete."

~~~
TomGullen
> translation: "we might lose the ability to do our show, because this G+ +1
> button introduces friction and a sign-up process we don't expect our users
> will bother to complete."

Yeah, but he misses the next step in logical thinking which is that the
changes will apply to everyone. This new button is for everyone, which means
everyone will get less votes which means less are needed for him to continue
to run the show.

~~~
erichocean
Everyone will get less votes _in different proportions, based on their
audience_.

It's not a linear adjustment for everyone.

~~~
TomGullen
Of course, but I imagine the proportional increase/decrease will probably be
the same with the people he's competing with.

That's not the point the author is arguing anyway.

------
jal278
I had a similar response to "fab" this evening, some kind of design site. It
looked interesting but in order to even _view_ a product linked from facebook
they required me to sign up. Immediate rage; I can't investigate if the site
is interesting enough to meriting signing up because signing up is required to
investigate. No thanks.

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kwerty
This newest change won't affect me too much because I wrote a Google Chrome
extension to keep my YouTube and regular Google accounts separate. However, as
the author suggests, content creators will not be so lucky.

Please try my extension if you're interested -

<http://kwerty.com/YouTube-User-Guard/>

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dendory
Personally I think removing the thumbs up and down is a huge mistake. I
understand that video producers don't like them, but guess what, when I load a
YouTube video the rating is the first thing I look at, and if it's under 50% I
know that the video will be crap. That judgement has been right EVERY time.

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Niksko
Google are doing this because the reason G+ is floundering is nobody is on
there.

Forcing people to use it is one way of getting more people on there. If even
on in a thousand people stays to look around, that could mean a snowball
effect that causes a massive spike in G+ users.

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naner
_This is just as bad as companies forcing me to “like” something on Facebook
before I can view whatever it is they want me to “like.”_

I don't think it is "just as bad" but it is quite obnoxious.

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dlikhten
Flip side: wouldn't it be nice if everything you had just played well
together? I don't see such rage when evernote is going to get the boot in osx
10.8.

~~~
rkudeshi
Huh? Why won't Evernote work in OS X Mountain Lion?

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danbmil99
I think the mistake here is that a company that collectively suffers from
Asperger's syndrome should not try to "bring the social".

Stick to your core competence always.

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known
With more money, you'll have more options in life. With less money, you've to
pick the right option. Google has lots of money.

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leoh
Is it me, or is this post exceedingly whiny?

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loeschg
The one video I checked still had the typical thumbs-up and thumbs-down
feature.

~~~
datagramm
Yeah, I still have the old buttons. I checked when signed in with my G+
account and also with a non-G+ account.

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est
Google Plus already fucked up a good portion of faithful GReader users. The
share feature used to be a very nice feature used exclusively among a group of
people, not it just sucks. Also the G+ button tries to re-crawle the RSS
source, so it lags and is anoying as fuck.

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thekungfuman
It's perfectly reasonable that Google would try to consolidate their
properties. You used to need a YouTube account to do anything, and they own
YouTube and don't feel like managing disparate databases about their users. It
may be a minor inconvenience because it's a change from what people are used
to, but it makes sense logistically and serves their business interests. They
ARE a business after all...

~~~
mattmanser
YouTube is not Google. Google is not YouTube. They just happen to own it.
Google should start remembering that before YouTube gets myspaced.

Which imo is looking increasingly likely.

Vimeo is one competitor which seems to already be growing like crazy for
example.

~~~
Kronopath
Vimeo will never overtake Youtube because of their draconian policies on
copyrighted content. For example, you're not allowed to upload videos that
show videogame gameplay unless it's a game you developed yourself (and shows
like these are a BIG part of Youtube's audience).

~~~
luser001
Hmm, I always thought the restriction on game recordings was just a way to
curate the community.

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idleloops
I wish these things were decentralised. Somewhere in my browser there should
be settings to set up my 'like' service, and the same for sharing and blogging
and a whole gamut of activities. Plus a simple way to switch between these,
and turn them off.

I have a real hatred for the merging of Google services - and I'm not even
sure why. I think it's because it just feels like the erosion of my privacy.
I've become someone that uses multiple browsers. I'm logging in and out of
services - just because I want to shed my persistent identity - that I
probably have exposed anyway.

Not having to sign into different services with different credentials is one
of the only benefits I feel I get, and yet I'm doing more logging in and out
then I ever did before.

~~~
mbreese
It used to be that it was all decentralized... you managed all of this stuff
with bookmarks/bookmarklets. If you liked something, you'd bookmark it. If you
wanted to share your bookmarks, you'd use a site like del.icio.us and their
bookmarklet. Nice and neat.

And then sites began adding the bookmarklet code directly to their pages.
Which seemed like a good idea - until they had to add a button for everyone's
favorite service. And then they had 10-20 buttons on each page, each using
javascript to call a remote service on the backend. And then it wasn't such a
good idea... so we started to see consolidation.

I miss my old bookmarklets.

(and get off my lawn).

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gcb
still less benign then sites that only have facebook's like.

at least g+ is the same 'account' as your youtube one. they already have your
data.

PITA still.

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gubatron
so I guess this guy won't like all the extra traffic he will get from G+, meh

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drivebyacct2
When are people going to just shut up about this stuff? Google is going
social. Either get with it or don't. I'm tired of seeing rants everytime they
decide to try something new out (by the way, this was a test for less than 1%
of their users). If you don't want to participate in Google's social network,
you don't get to participate in Google's social network. That includes YouTube
and it has for _years_.

Downvote away, I look forward to the next rant about Google's social
unification as if it's a big shock and surprise, maybe we can also discuss
semicolons in Javascript.

(everything else aside, I have no idea why they would throw away everything
they've invested in the '+1' branding)

Funny, both of my comments shaking my head in disbelief at unexplained Google
hate are commentlessly downvoted. Let the rage at Google flow through you and
the downvote arrow!

~~~
ixacto
The only reason that I have a Gmail address is that it is not blocked by
spambots and it is a bit of a defacto standard. I had a Facebook account in
2006, but deleted it after they let you sign up with a non .edu address. Back
in the day the point of Facebook at college was to organize activities and
share pictures with people I personally knew. Strangely enough most students
did not want people (or employers) seeing drunken party pictures of them, but
Facebook wanted to expand and the coolness of college was the PERFECT way to
leach out to everyone else.

TL;DR I am a facebook hipster. Facebook isn't cool anymore.

