4 ms·

>I’m sure there was a ton of legacy to deal with here, but you have to wonder about what might have been if an identity layer had simply been applied across all

>I’m sure there was a ton of legacy to deal with here, but you have to wonder about what might have been if an identity layer had simply been applied across all these products and they were invested in. Google kind of did this though, and everyone hated it. Remember on YouTube, the mess they made when they introduced Google+. Maybe the author means "if a single identity had existed from the beginning..."

mooman219 5y ago
I want the best of de-coupling and coupling of services, where you only need one identity to manage a variety of services, but each service is isolated from one another. This comes in two forms: identity and repercussions. In terms of identity, I want the ability to present myself differently depending on the service their using. I don't want my real name in say a game lobby where harassment happens more regularly. In terms of repercussions, I don't want a TOS violation on one connected service to influence the other services. I hear a lot horror stories of where malicious intent from a 3rd party on some service causes the closure of all coupled services and you're left dry. I think Microsoft does a reasonable job at this. If you violate the TOS of Office 365, you may lose access to that, but the rest of your account stays usable.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  Yup, I lost access to bing rewards on my main account but I can still use it for everything else. (Including searching, I just don’t get points for it).
- yellow_lead 5y ago
  That's a good take. I agree with presentation, and I think Google fixed this on YouTube to some extent. However, they're failing at the repercussions aspect.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Didn't Yahoo have something vaguely like this? I don't remember the details too well, just some vague memory of Crockford bemoaning how well Yahoo services were segregated from each other compared to Google.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    At least the old pre-Verizon, non-Japanese Yahoo. Japanese Yahoo is very integrated 'till today (banned at Auctions? There's a big chance of your account being shuttered down.) and Verizon's Yahoo has gone down to mail and news (okay, there's Yahoo Finanace (the products, not their newsroom), but I don't think that most people are using it now, and Yahoo Answers being gone is one of the most prominent examples).
hexa22 5y ago
They did a terrible job of it. They broke all existing comment trees and pushed google+ really hard and automated posting. I seem to remember that commenting on YouTube would then make a post on google+ with your real name and likely notified your contacts about it.
- toyg 5y ago
  They clearly didn't want to be left stuck with maintaining multiple authentication systems (legacy ones and G+), so they thought they'd eat shit for a while but results would be worth it. But they executed so forcefully, that the backlash eventually forced them to backtrack on the most visible properties. This said, now every product they create or acquire gets wired to a single authentication system, so I guess they did make some progress, even though it's a "Google account" rather than a "G+ account".

mooman219 5y ago

I want the best of de-coupling and coupling of services, where you only need one identity to manage a variety of services, but each service is isolated from one another. This comes in two forms: identity and repercussions. In terms of identity, I want the ability to present myself differently depending on the service their using. I don't want my real name in say a game lobby where harassment happens more regularly. In terms of repercussions, I don't want a TOS violation on one connected service to influence the other services. I hear a lot horror stories of where malicious intent from a 3rd party on some service causes the closure of all coupled services and you're left dry. I think Microsoft does a reasonable job at this. If you violate the TOS of Office 365, you may lose access to that, but the rest of your account stays usable.

vxNsr 5y ago
Yup, I lost access to bing rewards on my main account but I can still use it for everything else. (Including searching, I just don’t get points for it).
yellow_lead 5y ago
That's a good take. I agree with presentation, and I think Google fixed this on YouTube to some extent. However, they're failing at the repercussions aspect.
zdragnar 5y ago
Didn't Yahoo have something vaguely like this? I don't remember the details too well, just some vague memory of Crockford bemoaning how well Yahoo services were segregated from each other compared to Google.
- zinekeller 5y ago
  At least the old pre-Verizon, non-Japanese Yahoo. Japanese Yahoo is very integrated 'till today (banned at Auctions? There's a big chance of your account being shuttered down.) and Verizon's Yahoo has gone down to mail and news (okay, there's Yahoo Finanace (the products, not their newsroom), but I don't think that most people are using it now, and Yahoo Answers being gone is one of the most prominent examples).

hexa22 5y ago

They did a terrible job of it. They broke all existing comment trees and pushed google+ really hard and automated posting. I seem to remember that commenting on YouTube would then make a post on google+ with your real name and likely notified your contacts about it.

toyg 5y ago
They clearly didn't want to be left stuck with maintaining multiple authentication systems (legacy ones and G+), so they thought they'd eat shit for a while but results would be worth it. But they executed so forcefully, that the backlash eventually forced them to backtrack on the most visible properties. This said, now every product they create or acquire gets wired to a single authentication system, so I guess they did make some progress, even though it's a "Google account" rather than a "G+ account".