
We Need To Talk, Google - Sami_Lehtinen
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002593.html
======
cromwellian
Google is simply trying to unify their services. YouTube was an acquisition,
with it's own login system and social network. They don't want to maintain
this separation forever, they want a single signon for everything.

Ditto for sharing and contacts. You had separate 'contacts' in Gmail,
Latitude, G+, Reader, YouTube, and probably others I'm missing. Users
shouldn't be prompted to maintain N different copies of this information and
manage it in confusing ways.

It's a mistake to view this as "they're forcing me to use the G+ social
stream". It's more "they're consolidating my 5 different profiles and
authentication credentials across services."

Google could axe the social stream and this would still make sense.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Google is simply trying to unify their services_

That's silly. If they wanted to unify their services, they'd turn youtube
channels into G+ profiles. And they'd do it without any hassle for the users.

I'm sorry, but it's obvious that Google is desperately trying to inflate their
G+ profile numbers by any means they can devise, because they won't admit to
themselves that they've already lost the social network battle to FB. No
amount of being apologetic and spin-doctoring can make this less obvious.

~~~
cromwellian
Turning a YouTube channel into a G+ profile doesn't fix it. YouTube channels
are often owned and managed by multiple people. A G+ profile is a user
identity, G+ pages represent places or things. So you'd then force everyone to
have a separate G+ account just for their YT channel so that they can share
non-personal login credentials with other people managing this.

This if anything would inflate G+ profile numbers more.

------
bowlofpetunias
This is just one of the many issues with Google products these days.

I dread using anything from Google because of the confusing accounts mess, the
language and localization chaos, the forced de-anonimization, the consistent
ignoring of explicitly set preferences and the countless bugs in all of those.

The way I feel about using Google services today mirrors how I felt about
Windows a decade ago. You start out trying to accomplish a simple task, like
doing a search or watching a video, end you end up spending minutes jumping
through all kinds of hoops.

~~~
radnom
Pretty sure that performing a google search is just as easy today as it ever
was.

~~~
ZoFreX
Things that go wrong with Google searches for me on a weekly basis:

* I search from Firefox and my browser spends 30 seconds in the middle of the redirection from .com to .co.uk

* I click a search result and my browser spends 30 seconds waiting for the redirection/click tracking script, and there's no easy way to get the actual URL you are going to any more, so you have to wait

* I type in a query and the auto-refresh kicks in, but it lags, and I (unnecessarily, because I am not used to the auto-search feature) hit enter on the keyboard as well, which leaves Google in a completely broken state where updating the query and hitting enter or the search button has no effect

* I make a new search from Firefox and then perform a second search from inside that page, and the whole page locks up in the greyed out "I am loading more results" state. I hit refresh but the URL is still that of my original query, so I end up looking at that again instead

* The search-as-you-type feature is enabled, despite me having disabled it over a dozen times now (and yes, I am signed in)

For one reason or another, I have to wait several seconds to see my Google
search results multiple times per day. That's a pretty low barrier for
complaining, but it's also enough time to open a new tab, go to Bing.com, type
in my original query again, and click the results - all before my Google query
finishes loading.

Other than issues with the unnecessary number of HTTP requests between my
clicks and actually getting to the page I want, the obvious sticking factor is
the search-as-you-type feature: It's reimplementing too much of the normal
browser cycle, but isn't implemented well enough to not fall over, and these
types of solutions don't integrate well with the tools I have to control page
loads (the stop and refresh buttons).

Edit: Also as a programmer I realise I am not in their 99% use case, but it is
incredibly difficult for me to find the information I need these days. The
auto-correct feature is in overdrive compared to how it worked a few years
ago, and frequently 'corrects' technical terms to totally useless queries.
Aggravating the issue is the removal of the '+' operator, and the fact that
even quoted search terms now allow synonyms and corrections. There are lots of
other issues with the search results in recent times, such as the predilection
to give me 10 results all from the exact same website, but I drilled down on
the technical issues because frankly the search results are still better on
Google than their competitors. But the technical implementation and user
experience? They are falling behind in those areas.

~~~
jakobe
Concerning the click tracking thing, there's a browser extension for Safari
that replaces the tracking links with the real links. This extension has made
Google search a more reliable for me. Maybe there's a similar extension
available for Firefox?

~~~
ZoFreX
Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it!

------
AJ007
This is a good example of a "forced" or "assisted" conversion. The user really
doesn't want to do it, they just want to view the damn YouTube video.

Google is employing these same optimization techniques elsewhere. I've noticed
very subtle, and consequently expensive, things that have been done with
Adwords.

There is a simple solution to this, which unfortunately castrates Google's
entire platform. Its the same reason why I've been avoiding Android. It is
also why I have to tell my friends I can't view their Youtube link because it
says I have to sign in.

~~~
k3n
FYI, you can replace "watch?v=12345" to "/v/12345" to view videos without
logging in (works for age-restricted content as well). As a bonus, the video
fills the browser screen, and removes all the annoying "related" content,
comments, etc.

~~~
colanderman
Or if you're on Linux, you can use youtube-dl + mplayer to get a high-quality
hardware-accelerated glitch-free viewing experience, instead of the
RealPlayer-esque experience Flash provides.

~~~
zurn
Also try youtubedown in place of youtube-dl - I think it works with a bigger
percentage of videos.

[http://www.jwz.org/hacks/#youtubedown](http://www.jwz.org/hacks/#youtubedown)

~~~
Aissen
Source ? If some video doesn't work with youtube-dl, I'm sure they'd like to
hear about it.

~~~
zurn
Own impression, but might just be luck vs. me updating them. Youtube changes
the obfuscation around periodically to discourage apps like these.

------
epistasis
Google has gotten really really bad about this. I don't typically log in to
Gmails web interface, but when I do I'm accosted by little yellow popups
everywhere that obscure the interface. After logging in to google services,
the first thing I have to do is cleanup all the unnecessary clutter.

And this pushiness with Plus has consumed all my good will with Google. They
used up their reputation advantage, and are just another tech company to me
now. I hope it was worth it, because reputations are very very expensive
things to change.

------
lawdawg
Get over it people, Google+ is the new account system for _all_ Google
products. If you don't like Google having a single account/profile system, or
the fact that Google+ profiles include a "social" network product, then you
best look for alternatives ASAP.

~~~
darklajid
I try to. The single thing I struggle with? Android.

Maybe Firefox OS will be interesting, iOS isn't. And .. right now I can pay
for Android apps, but I'm banned from rate them, comment on them. Ignoring all
the 'Do you want to be tracked to provide Better Services (tm)" stuff in that
ecosystem.

~~~
fluidcruft
If your phone is supported, you could install CyanogenMod (it works fine
without gapps installed). From there you can use f-droid for apps, but
possibly Amazon App Store could be a good alternative to the Google Play
morass.

~~~
darklajid
I'm running Cyanogenmod, but I like to have (potentially paid) applications
(to avoid the 'apps' non-word). I paid for quite a lot already.

I'm never allowed to rate them, to comment on them in the Google Play store,
since .. I cannot have a G+ account (and frankly, I don't want one).

~~~
csmatt
I run CM too. I killed my G+ account when I found it difficult to change my
privacy settings. Not being able to rate apps pissed me off.

------
noir_lord
Google used to be the wunderkind, I remember when absolutely everything they
touched was gold...and now they seem to have so much stuff that is broken
across so many products.

Alot of it is just dumb stuff and the rest is stuff that should have been
caught.

This is the last week..

Google Apps Admin Interface - It's an unnavigable mess, I use it so seldom
that it's not familiarity or the lack of that makes me hate the new one, it's
the fact I can't _find_ anything.

Android - Factory Reset Android 4.3 - Open the play store and it hangs, force
close it then reopen and it shows you the "Accept Terms" dialog (which was on-
screen but not shown the first time) so you can't assent to the terms.

Gmail - wildcard forward for an entire domain _does not work_ and if the
support forums (which never got answered) are to be believed this is an issue
going back to August _last year_.

Myriad services don't load on the first attempt, strange error messages.

Throw in the privacy stuff coming out of Google recently and I'm seriously
thinking about bringing everything back in-house, I've worked as a sysadmin in
the past (though I'm a programmer by trade) and for the hassle I'm having with
Google products I could do this stuff myself.

~~~
300bps
Not to mention YouTube is all but unusable now. I understand that this may be
local ISPs trying to kill YouTube by throttling it. But all I know is that I
have a 75/35 Mbps account from Verizon FIOS and everything else is
unbelievably fast but YouTube which hardly ever works anymore during peak
times.

~~~
endgame
I switched to HTML5 video for youtube because I don't have flash on this
machine. Initially I couldn't watch about 30% of videos because "flash player
is required". Now it's closer to 90% - either because "flash player is
required" or "this video is unavailable" \- and yet the youtube-dl script
still works. Stop lying to me, Google!

~~~
tl
As an additional insult, when an item in my RSS feed is a YouTube video, I can
play it in Feedly in a (flashless) Safari. However, if I go to the youtube
page (the embedded version in Feedly lacks fullscreen, for example), "flash
player is required." Who is youtube's most viable competitor? Vimeo? Is there
anything consumers can do to encourage content to be posted there instead?

------
darkchasma
Felt like extortion? To freely post your video to their free hosting service,
which allows you free distribution and marketing of your brand to the entire
world. For free. And this felt like extortion?

~~~
amenod
Yes, "extortion" \- give me more data about you if you want to use our so-
called "free" services. Extortion in my book too.

~~~
darkchasma
Your book is missing a few key pages.

------
spindritf
Logging into Google and its services has always been a mess. Once upon a time
you could even have a Google Account associated with an e-mail address hosted
elsewhere, not through Google Apps.

It was always a confusing maze of separate cross-associated accounts (YouTube,
Google Account, GMail, Google Groups...) strung together. Actually, it's one
of the aspects of Google's services that has clearly improved over time. Even
with all the G+ nonsense.

~~~
MichaelGG
>Once upon a time you could even have a Google Account associated with an
e-mail address hosted elsewhere, not through Google Apps.

You still can; that's the only good thing. Earlier Androids required you to
have a Gmail account (I just tried a 2.3 Android phone out). So now I have a
stupid, half-used Gmail account, and a separate, proper account with my own
email. No way to merge them, and then no way to setup older devices without
Gmail. And now when I'm in Google Play or their other apps, I've got to switch
between accounts -- it's an idiotic mess.

On a side note, Microsoft had functional SSO in the 90s. For all the silly
rebranding (and killing and reviving it) at least you could sign in with an
email address.

~~~
dmix
Yahoo also has a competent SSO that was well integrated across products.

------
gwu78
Your experience may be different, but I welcome any confirmation from anyone
using a tablet:

I notice that when user signs up for a Gmail account on a tablet, after she
completes all the required info, she is then presented with a "one-click"
style sign up screen for Google+. This screen does not have a "No thank you"
option. Nor is there a "Back to previous" link. There is nothing to indicate
the new Gmail account has successfully been created. It is more or less a dead
end. There are only two options: Sign up for Google+ by clicking a link or
close the browser tab.

How many users will know their Gmail account has successfully been created and
close the tab?

Closing the browser tab and then navigating to gmail.com will take the user to
her new account. There is no need to sign up for a Google+ account.

I have a difficult time believing this process of opening a new email account
where seemingly "all roads lead to a Google+ account" is accidental. Then
again, it could be. If not, then I'd say the G+ team is doing a fine job at
manufacturing consent.

The question is why do they need to do that? I thought Google was in good
health. This just seems desperate and try hard.

~~~
zurn
I think this can be remedied by providing a sufficiently unnatural sounding
"real name" for the pseudonymous google id you use on the tablet. Then you get
kicked out of Google+ automatically.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
For some reasons, I actually do agree. My dad just yesterday enjoyed some hard
time trying to get even simple services like Gmail to work. Because he knew
how to use it earlier, but now things works differently than they used to.
Cloud services, nice, you'll get always latest version. But what if the latest
version simply isn't something you want?

~~~
pdonis
_But what if the latest version simply isn 't something you want?_

Exactly. Even worse, what if the _old_ version was what you wanted, and now
it's gone?

For example, Google's book reader on Android. I started using it frequently
about 6 months ago. Since then, _every_ UI change they have made has made the
experience worse for me. The only reason I still use it is that it does have
one big advantage over the other readers I use (the main ones are Aldiko
Premium and the Kindle app): it senses and handles page turns _really_ well,
and the other readers suck at it. (And I suspect that even that advantage is
because Google is using some kind of back door in the Android OS that other
readers can't access, to be able to sense swipes with greater accuracy.)

~~~
RexRollman
I know how you feel. Gmail's interface has become incredibly complicated and
every change feels like a step backward.

But as much as I don't care for Gmail's current interface, I can't and don't
expect Google to support older web interfaces. If I really wanted interface
consistency, I would run my own mail client.

~~~
Sami_Lehtinen
That's exactly why I do run completely own servers, email, website, private
communication platform etc. I don't like Google at all. Using Gmail is a trap,
as we have seen here in other discussions.

~~~
pdonis
I don't use Gmail or other Google services either, but that has nothing to do
with their UI; it has to do with me not trusting them with their data. You
don't need to use Gmail's web interface to use Gmail; you can access it using
any IMAP-capable email client.

------
sirkneeland
Is it "evil"? No. While I agree with the author that it sucks, I feel that
calling it evil dilutes the word of the power it should have when used.

So much ink has been spilled on the "evil" stuff that it seems as though
people's energy and attention spans are exhausted when the more "banal" stuff
comes around. And so Google can get away with shoving as much G+ on us as they
like.

"Google, don't be banal"....more accurate, but decidedly less catchy

~~~
kevingadd
Tricking/coercing users into broadcasting their real name to the internet
(through repetition, malicious UX design and just plain broken software) is
actually pretty close to 'evil', since it can put some groups at risk. Less
relevant for a Youtube account, perhaps, but the same criticisms of FB and G+
'Real Names' policies apply here to Google trying to force YT users to display
real names.

~~~
jevinskie
Exactly. They pester you quite often to try to link YouTube with Google+. I'm
surprised I haven't accidentally clicked the wrong choice yet. The copy for
the two options is confusing!

~~~
kevingadd
They've changed them/moved them a few times, too. Presumably in the hopes that
you'll screw up.

~~~
jevinskie
It just happened again. It is a two step process. 1) "Hey fix your name, you
better do this!" and then if you click "No", it does 2) "Are you really sure?"
with a new way of presenting the same two choices! It is absolutely a dark
pattern and I am thinking about finding/writing a browser extension to take
care of it.

------
snowwrestler
The fundamental problem here is that some Google properties, like Google
Analytics and Google Plus, recognize the concept of enterprise account
management, and some, like YouTube, do not.

Want a Google Plus page for your business? Great, first create a personal
account for yourself, then create a Page account for your business. You can
add other employees as admins on that Page.

Want to create a YouTube channel for your business? Great, create an account
called "yourbusinessname." Only one login can manage it, so email the password
to your other employees. (Real secure, Google.)

YouTube still can't tell the difference between a person and an organization,
which is IMO indefensible. Twitter does this too. I find it astounding that
they have not improved this yet.

------
quail
Google is getting pushy now because they _can_. They've become habitual and
omnipresent. Now is the perfect time.

A couple of years ago I could see Google's vendor lock-in strategy unfold.
I've been trying ever since to completely purge myself of Google, but it
hasn't been easy.

For anyone thinking of doing the same, be prepared to test many services out.

~~~
MichaelGG
Unfortunately Android's still the only really reasonable choice. Apple and MS
are far more restrictive on the devices, and nothing seems to come close to
the Nexus line of devices anyways.

It's pretty annoying that I can't rate apps I buy though.

~~~
r00fus
Is privacy and device restrictiveness the same thing?

I don't want "open" necessarily, I want "respect" (for my privacy).

Unless you're going to inspect all the code/apps running on your system, an
open-source OS isn't necessarily going to guarantee your privacy.

~~~
MichaelGG
You're right, it's not. I don't really care about open source. I don't trust
Google and I don't like their intrusive tactics. I'd actually feel more
comfortable with Microsoft, as they probably have more layers of management
preventing stuff getting done. I can't believe the part of the company that
mismanaged the largest IM network into nothingness is competent enough to
really invade my privacy to a disturbing degree.

More what I care about is making sure I can run software I'm interested in,
and have my device do what I want it to do. Tethering (on a phone) regardless
of carrier policy, for instance. Apps that might violate store policy -- I
simply don't have the potential worry with Android.

------
Simple1234
Yeah, the YouTube one is really bad. The pop-up really needs to be redone too.
It used to be a nice easy to understand wizard and as soon as you saw it you
could tell instantly you weren't interested. Now it's an awkwardly worded
choice and you have to take the time to read and think about it. I might even
go so far as to call it a dark usability pattern. Where's the "don't ask me
again" checkbox?

Personally, I like commenting on really unseemly videos and only having an
obscure username attached to it.

~~~
Wilya
The "display your real name" Youtube pop-up is clearly designed to be
misleading. The damn thing doesn't even have a "close" button. Nor does it
have the option everybody wants to choose ("I'm not displaying my real name
because I just don't want to").

------
ImprovedSilence
Why the fuck does everything have to be social!? SOCIAL THIS AND SOCIAL THAT,
CAN'T I JUST SIT DOWN AND WATCH A FUCKING VIDEO FOR MY OWN SAKE. I've just
about had it with everything Internet 2.0 and beyond these days.

------
ibudiallo
If you click long enough on any Google service, you will end up with a Google
+ account. It's just statistics.

------
pasbesoin
If your product isn't good enough to succeed (or "win") on an opt-in basis,
then your problems run deeper than what coercive sign ups can fix.

~~~
tiziano88
What product? they're trying to consolidate their login system across
products, and you happen to get a social profile with the bundle. It's not
like you even have to use it or be aware of its existence, if you don't need
it.

~~~
pasbesoin
The Google+ "social" product. I'm not sure of its current state, as everything
is a moving target, but at the time I acquired one, the creation flow was
deliberately somewhat misleading, for example not pointing out that you don't
need to supply a profile photo. And/or there was one question that required a
response; some googling (irony?) revealed that one could remove the answer or
its public visibility _after_ signing up.

And this was after much of the initial foofera (sp?), that had already caused
Google to scale back some of its demands for/during the sign up flow, IIRC.

Plus had/has a lot going for it. Then, they tried to cram it (and "true
names", etc.) down our throat.

 _Opt-in._ Carrot first, not stick.

\--

P.S. Let me put it this way: I want the ability to choose for myself and
entirely what aspects of a "Google profile" I make public.

Separately, I'll also add that as Google has gobbled up more and more popular
products, I've become increasingly leery of a single profile that tracks and
analyzes me across all of them and their varied and diverse functionality.

I'm not doing anything particularly nefarious. But when the price Amazon
charges me depends on a profile, and my insurance rate or ability to get
insurance may depend on another profile and "social graph", etc., etc... And
also on principle and for some sense of privacy and peace of mind (however
incomplete)...

Monocultures are subject to disease and corruption. One analogy that I might
extent to online cultures. I don't want all my eggs in one basket --
especially when it's not even by my choice.

~~~
tiziano88
You do realize that YouTube is still owned by Google, and therefore if they
wanted to consider your profiles as one, they probably can already? My guess
it's that they're trying (more or less successfully) to reduce the confusion,
by not letting users sign up several times for all their products (which in
the end is only one product -- Google).

------
dxm
About three months ago I wanted to download the original of a video I had
uploaded to Youtube since I had lost my local copy and it was sentimental. I
was unable to even access the video without first creating a Google+ account,
I was unable to download my data and cancel my Youtube account without first
creating a Google+ account. I went to Google Takeout and removed everything,
and cancelled. (Note: This was a business account that I was paying for, not a
free account. I felt as if my data was being held hostage despite me paying
for the storage and usage costs.)

------
ChikkaChiChi
Don't mistake piss poor execution for being evil. Google has had more missteps
with its acquisitions and cross service communication than any other company
I've worked with in recent memory.

~~~
alan_cx
Equally is best not to allow piss poor execution to be an excuse for evil.

------
the_watcher
The Youtube/G+ insistence is so frustrating. It's driven me to Vimeo several
times.

------
trev13
I still do not understand why google is trying to force everyone to use google
+. The other day, I tried to give a great review for an app that i purchased
from google play but couldn't because it required that I sign up for google
plus..that just doesn't make sense.

------
dombili
Kind of ironic for someone who works for an internet security firm to say that
he's deleting his Google account not because of privacy issues but for other
"inconveniences". I get where he's coming from though. That YouTube pop-ups
are really annoying.

------
DevKoala
I have the same issue. I don't want a presence on G+. Why can't the unifying
account mechanism be like a Microsoft account, that exists on a database
without a public front? Also, Youtube is now looking like a social network, it
has lost it's identity.

------
drill_sarge
Don't use Google Account then. I have one just for unimportant stuff (like for
registering on certain forums) and only access it via imap with mail client.
Don't know why you want to be logged in to Google while searching the web.
Same for Youtube.

------
CoryG89
Wow so much hate for Google lately. I'm not so sure about these people
claiming the "NSA thing" has nothing to do with these feelings their having.
I'm also not to sure why the author is upset. It seems to me that the request
Google sent to link the Youtube account with Google+ WAS asking whether or not
the account was an individual (and wanted to use G+). It seems to me that this
is someone either doing this without thinking or really reading it, or
accidentally and then getting mad about it. IIRC, I believe I've done this
once before with a Gmail account and figured out a way to reverse it. I
remember they didn't make it easy though.

------
interpol_p
I found the way Google dealt with YouTube logins to be pretty horrendous.

For a long time YouTube kept asking me to associate a google account with my
YouTube user ID. So I gave in and tried to do that.

I tried to use one of my three other gmail addresses — no, that doesn't work
because they were _existing_ Google accounts. I had to create a brand new
gmail address just to associate with my YouTube user ID.

I also keep forgetting the email address I used to associate with that ID.
They have user name recovery, password recovery, but not email-associated-
with-username recovery.

The whole experience was drawn out and terrible.

------
sdfjkl
I agree that this overzealous cross-promotion of services and unification into
the One Account (to in the darkness bind them) is annoying and clearly only in
the best interests of Google and not their users. There may be a minor benefit
to users, but if it were about providing convenience, it would not be pushed
so aggressively.

I've stopped recommending Chrome to my friends/family when it sprouted that
evil "Not signed into Chrome - you're missing out!" button, trying to lure
them into sharing their live browsing history with Google.

------
wil421
No offense Google, but Google+ is not good. I dont want another social site or
to be forced into yours. It should go the way of Google Reader even though
Reader was a much better service.

------
iwasakabukiman
> And to be clear, it has nothing to do with recent allegations that a person
> has no legitimate expectation of privacy when using Gmail.

This claim has been a huge story about nothing. I think this has been proven
false quite a few times over. Nilay Patel at The Verge has a great article
about this.[1]

[1][http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/14/4621474/yes-gmail-users-
ha...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/14/4621474/yes-gmail-users-have-an-
expectation-of-privacy)

------
amenod
> And it has nothing to do with any sort of concerns that Google provides the
> NSA direct access to its servers. > (Google's security engineers can be
> trusted, I think.)

A bit off-topic, but I'm not sure what you mean here. Yes, they can be trusted
- to do their job. Which managers dictate. Which includes whatever NSA
dictates. So yes, you can bet NSA has total access to everything it wants at
Google, direct and total.

------
ianlevesque
And relatedly requiring "Real Names" a la Facebook at the same time. That
makes it feel like a regression to a vocal minority of users.

------
gavinpc
You get this popup if you're doing anything on youtube, even just trying watch
Baby Mozart. (My son is one.)

For viewing, you can just delete the cookies and reload the page. With Reader
gone (and forwarding for GMail, which I've also deprecated), I don't stay
logged in to google.com anymore.

That doesn't work of course if you actually want to _use_ your youtube
channel, but hey.

~~~
johnward
I don't know how many times I can watch a ball bounce or a hand put the round
peg into the round hole. I've watched way too much Baby Einstein videos and I
don't even have kids (wife just babysits).

------
tn13
I think Google needs to realize that Google+ is a failure and any attempts to
link G+ with their other products will hurt those products.

------
joeblau
I continually say No when Google asks to link my accounts, but it's getting
rather annoying. Google is doing whatever it can to get users on Google+ which
I think makes sense for them. Maybe they have some greater vision that I don't
know about, but Google isn't one to advertise that type of stuff.

------
noinput
Might want to remove your site search with google and link to google maps on
your masthead image, then.

------
stfsbrb
I'm still convinced that Google's insistence on funneling all activity from
their services into Google+ accounts (even in cases where it clearly doesn't
make sense) is being done solely so that Google can go back to their
shareholders and report a large amount of "growth" in their social platform.
They don't seem to have any end game or plan beyond merely pumping up the
numbers as high as possible. Maybe they are just aiming for the day when they
can claim Google+ has more members than Facebook?

~~~
cromwellian
Shareholders don't care about G+, Facebook's IPO and returns have already
shown them that search advertising is way better and social network ads are
not the real threat that was sold.

What Wall Street looks at is search and display ads. Reporting 400 million
active G+ users wouldn't do anything, anymore than 700 million GMail users,
750 million Chrome users, Android with 80% of the market. None of those really
drive any direct revenue. (GMail does, but not much)

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tjmc
The problem with free services is that you're not entitled to demand anything.
The customers of YouTube are advertisers, and you are _their_ potential
customer. I'd suggest lobbying up the chain of command.

btw, if you do use an alternative, please know that Vimeo runs like a crippled
dog outside of the US. If you believe that the service of customers is
important, the quality of the actual video service really should be your first
priority right?

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oscargrouch
last night i was trying to comment a youtube video, and before i could post, i
got this message: "you must have a g+ profile, we will create it for you" but
i dont want another social network profile (im even leaving my facebook
acount) i already have a gmail account and think that this should be enough to
someone comment on youtube..

anyway.. nevermind the comment to youtube, ive drop it.. I dont like to be
forced to do something i dont want to, without a reasonable fairness to the
matter..

this is a sign that the corporate internet is swallowing day-by-day the belle-
epoque internet that used to represent freedom, knowledge share, and power to
the voiceless for all human kind..

its that kind of internet we all want to grow... the bad feeling this guy has,
i think we are all feeling it..

a feeling that the internet we used to know is disapearing because greedy
people want to own the internet and the people who use it..

its a shame its being going this way.. its a sign we should not trust the
corporate world to take the lead on where the internet should go...

we should do it! they should not lead us, they should follow.. we can do it,
we can act as a collective mind stronger than anything else..

use other services, create new ones, we should be in control.. use your choice
as a weapon

------
V-2
This is really irritating. I use a nickname on YouTube and they keep on asking
me whether I want to switch to my real name (I do not) like I do on Gmail...
There is no way to permanently refuse that nice offer, so it keeps coming up,
presumably in hope that one day I'll finally misclick and after that, the case
will settle. I tried Google Plus for a while too, but I deleted the profile
because they were so shoving it down my throat.

------
vjvj
My sentiments exactly. I don't want to have my full name displayed on a social
network. But once I change it on G+ it also changes on the emails I send.

Bye Google.

------
matador
If anybody working for YouTube is reading this, here are my comments:

I was actually supportive of G+ until I had a very bad experience with YouTube
and the forced G+ integration recently. Now what I want from YouTube is

(1) Ability to keep my current username and not use my real name, and not be
linked to my G+ profile. I do not want to inadvertently broadcast my YouTube
"Likes" to my social network.

(2) I do not want a public channel (not even something like
youtube.com/user/<username>) but I want to create private playlists for myself
(which is currently not possible without a public channel). The reason I do
not want a public channel is because I have no doubt at some point YouTube
will manage to "reset" my privacy preferences and expose all my likes,
comments etc. to the world through my publicly accessible channel page. And
since my YouTube username is just my FirstnameLastname, anybody who googles my
name will find all my YouTube activity history.

So till recently whenever YouTube would pop up its dialog boxes insisting I
link my channel or use my real name etc., I would always try to choose the
option that was closest to what I wanted (as described above). However these
dialog box options gave little to no hint as to what are the hidden
consequences of choosing one option or the other, and long story short, I
managed to somehow end up, first with a public facing channel
(yt.com/user/<username>), and then when I tried to get rid of it/make it
private because of above mentioned privacy concerns, I ended up losing access
to all my playlists INCLUDING my Favorites and Watch Later default playlists.

Now of course that was probably a result of what I unknowingly did, but at no
point did YouTube warn me that I would lose my playlists and favorites
(YouTube never gave me the slightest hint that private channels cannot have
playlists, I had to google it out later from the product forums). I have been
a user of a lot of badly designed websites, but no website so far has ever
allowed me to delete all of my data without a warning of some sort. Anyway, I
got very scared at what YouTube and G+ had done to my account, so I quickly
unlinked G+ from YouTube and deleted my G+ profile (I didn't want to end up
losing my data in Gmail too).

Thankfully, after I contacted YouTube customer support, they got back to me
pretty soon and restored my old YouTube account, somehow I had managed to
delete it and create a new one in its place with my real name (hmm I wonder
how), and I got back access to my playlists. However the incident has shaken
my confidence a lot in Google and its services. I have now started backing up
all my data in Gmail to my laptop using Thunderbird. Since YouTube support
restored my account to what it originally was, I still keep getting those
YouTube dialog boxes asking me to use my real name etc., on average once every
other video I try to watch. Now I just refresh the page or watch in incognito
mode if it won't go away, hopefully someday YouTube will realize I am not
interested and stop annoying me.

To be honest I am nowadays actually really scared to mess around with the
account settings of Gmail or other Google services. I remember that whole
Google Plus real name policy and en-masse accounts deletion fiasco. I actually
have two Google accounts, both made a long time back, both with my real name
and I am sure this violates some TOS of Google, and I am genuinely worried
that one day Google will suddenly just suspend/delete my accounts without
warning because of this.

~~~
jamiepenney
I never thought of contacting customer support to try and restore my old
account. I lost all of my playlists when they "helpfully" suggested that I
delete my "unused" channel. The popup said this would have no effect on my
youtube experience.

But it did. It deleted all the playlists I had created, and I couldnt re-
create them without linking a Google+ account to my youtube account and
creating a public channel. I didn't do that because that account is the one I
don't associate with my real name. It was a very frustrating user experience,
and has added to my list of reasons to get away from google services.

------
jsz0
The Google+ push is annoying but expected. Somewhat off topic but I really
wish Google would normalize the volume of ads/videos. These days I tend to get
super loud ads then often a quiet video so I'm constantly adjusting my audio
levels. Same problem with audio levels between videos but I can accept that's
a bit harder to get right. The loud ads though IMO are unacceptable.

------
jeena
I had the exact same problem when I tried to make a channel for my band.

------
amerika_blog
I'm tired of corporations trying to force me to use their other services. Let
it happen naturally, if it's gonna happen. Don't make me shape my workflow
based on your needs.

------
infoseckid
You should try to build own your video hosting site or SHUT UP. At least
Youtube is free, the last time I checked F-Secure was not, so SHUT UP! or
build your own :)

~~~
acuozzo
You've an interesting perspective.

So, in your mind, someone shouldn't complain about something unless he/she has
tried to build his/her own version of it?

~~~
infoseckid
Either build your own or do not complain when it is free. Its fair. You cannot
"demand" in exchange for FREE

~~~
acuozzo
Complaints != Demands

