19 ms·

We Need To Talk, Google

470 points by Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago

Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      If I really wanted interface consistency, I would run my own mail client. That's what I do; in fact, I run one that's unlikely to change its UI much (KMail from KDE version 3, the Trinity Desktop Environment build).
    - Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago
      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 13y ago
        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.
epistasis 13y ago
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.
the_watcher 13y ago
The Youtube/G+ insistence is so frustrating. It's driven me to Vimeo several times.
gavinpc 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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).
quail 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    Really though, try Jolla's Sailfish OS. It is a phenomenal product, and will beat Ubuntu Touch to market quite handily.
  - quail 13y ago
    I went with a Blackberry Z10 after reading about its built in encryption and privacy features in the book Cypherpunks. As an aside, I checked out the new Q5 yesterday and it has refinements in all the right places. Both are highly underrated smartphones.
    - andor 13y ago
      There's no reason to trust Blackberry. Even though the new devices can do IMAP directly (not indirectly through the "cloud"), they send your login credentials to RIM. Details: http://frank.geekheim.de/?p=2379 http://frank.geekheim.de/?p=2379
  - r00fus 13y ago
    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.
ibudiallo 13y ago
If you click long enough on any Google service, you will end up with a Google + account. It's just statistics.
sirkneeland 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    Okay I concede I hadn't considered that. It can definitely be upgraded to evil status then.
    - thatswrong0 13y ago
      Definitely falls into the 'dark pattern' category as well. http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2013/07/23/the-slippery-slope/ http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2013/07/23/the-slippery...
  - jevinskie 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      They've changed them/moved them a few times, too. Presumably in the hopes that you'll screw up.
joeblau 13y ago
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.
lawdawg 13y ago
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.
- dohertyjf 13y ago
  I don't think that's the point. The point is that Google isn't differentiating between a business profile and a personal profile well.
  - lawdawg 13y ago
    Which is a UX problem, not a "Google attempting to drive me into yet another unwanted "social" network". You don't think it's in Google's best interest that channels create Google+ Pages rather than individual Google+ profiles?
    - drill_sarge 13y ago
      It is in Googles interest to have as many G+ profiles (aka potential userbase) as possible.
      - andygates 13y ago
        But they want each one to be tied to a single physical person. They actively dislike alts, which makes having a home profile and a work profile and $counterculture_of_choice profile or two awkward and annoying.
- darklajid 13y ago
  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.
AJ007 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
  - frenger 13y ago
    That's one hell of a goddamn tip. As someone who recently closed their Google account, this will come in handy. Thanks.
  - colanderman 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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 13y ago
        Source ? If some video doesn't work with youtube-dl, I'm sure they'd like to hear about it.
spindritf 13y ago
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.
- gilrain 13y ago
  You can still do this, and I recently did. You have to have an alternate email address set and confirmed. Then, you delete your GMail account, which can by done through the products section of the account management page. After that, your Google account's primary email (and thus login) will be whatever your alternate address was set to.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    Do you have solid instructions on this? I tried this once, and it sorta worked, then didn't. Then I re-registered the Gmail address (separately) and all my Google Groups subscriptions snapped back over and so on. Plus, don't Android 2.3 devices require a Gmail account to setup/login? I just tried using my normal Google Account and it complained "oh you don't have Gmail".
    - andrewaylett 13y ago
      I still have two Google accounts on my phone for this reason. I've turned off syncing for most things for the GMail one, though.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  >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.
drill_sarge 13y ago
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.
dombili 13y ago
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.
ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Equally is best not to allow piss poor execution to be an excuse for evil.
dxm 13y ago
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.)
Simple1234 13y ago
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.
- nolok 13y ago
  I'm with you on this, I had no trouble with my accounts being associated until they decided it had to mean my real name appeared on youtube. I understand why they do it given the state on comments there, but for me this is why I keep my account dissociated ever since (despite the stupid popup that keeps asking me the same question every couple of days).
- Wilya 13y ago
  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").
noir_lord 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
  - merijnv 13y ago
    Here in the UK I've noticed that accessing YouTube directly is slow, laggy and choppy. But when I accidentally visited while using a SOCKS proxy running over a VPS in the US it was snappy. After some more testing it seems that my local ISP is indeed throttling YouTube, but their inability to look inside an SSH tunnel means I can still access it at decent speed.
  - johnward 13y ago
    You tube is basically real player now. Buffering...
  - 13y ago
noinput 13y ago
Might want to remove your site search with google and link to google maps on your masthead image, then.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Pretty sure that performing a google search is just as easy today as it ever was.
  - bowlofpetunias 13y ago
    No it isn't. For starters, I regularly have to first convince Google that I don't want to do just a local search in my country or my language. Simply setting my preferences (which are hard to find and confusing) once won't do it. If I do happen to go along with Google's insistence in making my world a smaller place, I get confronted not having my options at the usual place, or under the usual labels (Google still can't keep interface language and local search apart), or worse: features that are missing completely. Try to find something that has to do with software development but that happens to contain one keyword that also has meaning in the local language on a localized version of Google. It's a fucking joke. Gets even worse if Google assumes you misspelled the technical term in question.
  - jakobe 13y ago
    Not really. Google's autocorrect regularly 'corrects' my search term to something else. Or Google suggests a similar search, where by "similar" they mean "the same search but with the most important term missing". Sometimes Google instant stops working and I can't search anymore. I have to reload the page before I can enter new search terms. Google used to be so simple, predictable, and it always worked. Now it is a complex, intransparent mess. Google Search is becoming more and more like Altavista and Yahoo were like when Google started.
darkchasma 13y ago
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?
- S_A_P 13y ago
  Agree- poor choice of words. I think the proper way to verbalize it is 'piss poor user experience, annoying, inconvenient'.
- dougabug 13y ago
  Google services are free the way the food for the rabbits was free in "Watership Down."
- amenod 13y ago
  Yes, "extortion" - give me more data about you if you want to use our so-called "free" services. Extortion in my book too.
  - darkchasma 13y ago
    Your book is missing a few key pages.
- Ensorceled 13y ago
  Yes, extortion. "Wouldn't want something nasty to happen to all that good will you've built up on youtube, better get a G+ profile" That you didn't pay money to get into the trap doesn't make it less of a trap.
- typon 13y ago
  If you're not being sold anything and the company is making money, then you're the product. Nothing is free.
cromwellian 13y ago
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.
- nolok 13y ago
  But why force me (if I link) to change the name I appear as on youtube to be the real one they required for g+ ? I can't believe I'm the only one with things I posted as FooBar42 that I don't want under the name Mr John Smith, not in an age where your name is googled for about anything.
  - cbhl 13y ago
    The argument is that if you didn't want them posted under "Mr John Smith" you shouldn't have posted them at all. I think they let you delete/hide all your old comments as part of the transition, but agreed that only accounts for the personal account use case, not the corporate YouTube channel use case.
    - petitbeurre 13y ago
      That argument, though, makes no sense at all. I'm a homosexual, and living in a very conservative and homophobic part of France. I don't want any things related to homosexuality and the lgbt community posted under my real identity, because then any member of my family or any of my friends could stumble upon it and make problematical deductions. Does that mean that I shouldn't be involved online in the lgbt community whatsoever, because it's not something my relatives support? Another fairly easy counter-example would be the one of an anonymous online political activist. I don't get people who support that kind of arguments.
ianlevesque 13y ago
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.
stfsbrb 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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)
amenod 13y ago
> 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.
pasbesoin 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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).
dimadima 13y ago
So true. Just drop them. Forget them. Gmail has somehow insinuated itself as an indispensable tool for millions (billions?) of people. Bullshit! Forget it! Yeah, it's nice, but it's just not worth it anymore. I recently busted out some decade's old postfix knowledge and set up some email for myself. Want to access that email from anywhere: use Mutt! It's great! Whatever you do, drop Google. Too Big To Fail == Will Fuck You Without Blinking.
iwasakabukiman 13y ago
> 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-have-an-expectation-of-privacy http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/14/4621474/yes-gmail-users-ha...
jsz0 13y ago
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.
rogerchucker 13y ago
I have issues with people who whine about this G+ integration but are absolutely happy with services that require Facebook account or with the iCloud unification of Apple products. I just hope the author isn't one of them.
matador 13y ago
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.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
infoseckid 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    Either build your own or do not complain when it is free. Its fair. You cannot "demand" in exchange for FREE
    - acuozzo 13y ago
      Complaints != Demands
    - meapix 13y ago
      Youtube is not free. I get ads all the time.
DevKoala 13y ago
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.
ImprovedSilence 13y ago
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.
oscargrouch 13y ago
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
gwu78 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
wil421 13y ago
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.
snowwrestler 13y ago
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.
trev13 13y ago
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.
tn13 13y ago
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.
CoryG89 13y ago
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 13y ago
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.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tjmc 13y ago
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?
V-2 13y ago
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 13y ago
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.
jeena 13y ago
I had the exact same problem when I tried to make a channel for my band.
sdfjkl 13y ago
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.
amerika_blog 13y ago
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.

470 points by Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago

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 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    If I really wanted interface consistency, I would run my own mail client. That's what I do; in fact, I run one that's unlikely to change its UI much (KMail from KDE version 3, the Trinity Desktop Environment build).
  - Sami_Lehtinen 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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.

epistasis 13y ago

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.

the_watcher 13y ago

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

gavinpc 13y ago

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 13y ago
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).

quail 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Really though, try Jolla's Sailfish OS. It is a phenomenal product, and will beat Ubuntu Touch to market quite handily.
- quail 13y ago
  I went with a Blackberry Z10 after reading about its built in encryption and privacy features in the book Cypherpunks. As an aside, I checked out the new Q5 yesterday and it has refinements in all the right places. Both are highly underrated smartphones.
  - andor 13y ago
    There's no reason to trust Blackberry. Even though the new devices can do IMAP directly (not indirectly through the "cloud"), they send your login credentials to RIM. Details: http://frank.geekheim.de/?p=2379 http://frank.geekheim.de/?p=2379
- r00fus 13y ago
  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.

ibudiallo 13y ago

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

sirkneeland 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Okay I concede I hadn't considered that. It can definitely be upgraded to evil status then.
  - thatswrong0 13y ago
    Definitely falls into the 'dark pattern' category as well. http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2013/07/23/the-slippery-slope/ http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2013/07/23/the-slippery...
- jevinskie 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    They've changed them/moved them a few times, too. Presumably in the hopes that you'll screw up.

joeblau 13y ago

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.

lawdawg 13y ago

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.

dohertyjf 13y ago
I don't think that's the point. The point is that Google isn't differentiating between a business profile and a personal profile well.
- lawdawg 13y ago
  Which is a UX problem, not a "Google attempting to drive me into yet another unwanted "social" network". You don't think it's in Google's best interest that channels create Google+ Pages rather than individual Google+ profiles?
  - drill_sarge 13y ago
    It is in Googles interest to have as many G+ profiles (aka potential userbase) as possible.
    - andygates 13y ago
      But they want each one to be tied to a single physical person. They actively dislike alts, which makes having a home profile and a work profile and $counterculture_of_choice profile or two awkward and annoying.
darklajid 13y ago
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.

AJ007 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.
- frenger 13y ago
  That's one hell of a goddamn tip. As someone who recently closed their Google account, this will come in handy. Thanks.
- colanderman 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      Source ? If some video doesn't work with youtube-dl, I'm sure they'd like to hear about it.

spindritf 13y ago

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.

gilrain 13y ago
You can still do this, and I recently did. You have to have an alternate email address set and confirmed. Then, you delete your GMail account, which can by done through the products section of the account management page. After that, your Google account's primary email (and thus login) will be whatever your alternate address was set to.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Do you have solid instructions on this? I tried this once, and it sorta worked, then didn't. Then I re-registered the Gmail address (separately) and all my Google Groups subscriptions snapped back over and so on. Plus, don't Android 2.3 devices require a Gmail account to setup/login? I just tried using my normal Google Account and it complained "oh you don't have Gmail".
  - andrewaylett 13y ago
    I still have two Google accounts on my phone for this reason. I've turned off syncing for most things for the GMail one, though.
MichaelGG 13y ago
>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.

drill_sarge 13y ago

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.

dombili 13y ago

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.

ChikkaChiChi 13y ago

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 13y ago
Equally is best not to allow piss poor execution to be an excuse for evil.

dxm 13y ago

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.)

Simple1234 13y ago

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.

nolok 13y ago
I'm with you on this, I had no trouble with my accounts being associated until they decided it had to mean my real name appeared on youtube. I understand why they do it given the state on comments there, but for me this is why I keep my account dissociated ever since (despite the stupid popup that keeps asking me the same question every couple of days).
Wilya 13y ago
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").

noir_lord 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.
- merijnv 13y ago
  Here in the UK I've noticed that accessing YouTube directly is slow, laggy and choppy. But when I accidentally visited while using a SOCKS proxy running over a VPS in the US it was snappy. After some more testing it seems that my local ISP is indeed throttling YouTube, but their inability to look inside an SSH tunnel means I can still access it at decent speed.
- johnward 13y ago
  You tube is basically real player now. Buffering...
- 13y ago

noinput 13y ago

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

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

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 13y ago
Pretty sure that performing a google search is just as easy today as it ever was.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  No it isn't. For starters, I regularly have to first convince Google that I don't want to do just a local search in my country or my language. Simply setting my preferences (which are hard to find and confusing) once won't do it. If I do happen to go along with Google's insistence in making my world a smaller place, I get confronted not having my options at the usual place, or under the usual labels (Google still can't keep interface language and local search apart), or worse: features that are missing completely. Try to find something that has to do with software development but that happens to contain one keyword that also has meaning in the local language on a localized version of Google. It's a fucking joke. Gets even worse if Google assumes you misspelled the technical term in question.
- jakobe 13y ago
  Not really. Google's autocorrect regularly 'corrects' my search term to something else. Or Google suggests a similar search, where by "similar" they mean "the same search but with the most important term missing". Sometimes Google instant stops working and I can't search anymore. I have to reload the page before I can enter new search terms. Google used to be so simple, predictable, and it always worked. Now it is a complex, intransparent mess. Google Search is becoming more and more like Altavista and Yahoo were like when Google started.

darkchasma 13y ago

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?

S_A_P 13y ago
Agree- poor choice of words. I think the proper way to verbalize it is 'piss poor user experience, annoying, inconvenient'.
dougabug 13y ago
Google services are free the way the food for the rabbits was free in "Watership Down."
amenod 13y ago
Yes, "extortion" - give me more data about you if you want to use our so-called "free" services. Extortion in my book too.
- darkchasma 13y ago
  Your book is missing a few key pages.
Ensorceled 13y ago
Yes, extortion. "Wouldn't want something nasty to happen to all that good will you've built up on youtube, better get a G+ profile" That you didn't pay money to get into the trap doesn't make it less of a trap.
typon 13y ago
If you're not being sold anything and the company is making money, then you're the product. Nothing is free.

cromwellian 13y ago

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.

nolok 13y ago
But why force me (if I link) to change the name I appear as on youtube to be the real one they required for g+ ? I can't believe I'm the only one with things I posted as FooBar42 that I don't want under the name Mr John Smith, not in an age where your name is googled for about anything.
- cbhl 13y ago
  The argument is that if you didn't want them posted under "Mr John Smith" you shouldn't have posted them at all. I think they let you delete/hide all your old comments as part of the transition, but agreed that only accounts for the personal account use case, not the corporate YouTube channel use case.
  - petitbeurre 13y ago
    That argument, though, makes no sense at all. I'm a homosexual, and living in a very conservative and homophobic part of France. I don't want any things related to homosexuality and the lgbt community posted under my real identity, because then any member of my family or any of my friends could stumble upon it and make problematical deductions. Does that mean that I shouldn't be involved online in the lgbt community whatsoever, because it's not something my relatives support? Another fairly easy counter-example would be the one of an anonymous online political activist. I don't get people who support that kind of arguments.

ianlevesque 13y ago

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.

stfsbrb 13y ago

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 13y ago
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)

amenod 13y ago

> 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.

pasbesoin 13y ago

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 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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).

dimadima 13y ago

So true. Just drop them. Forget them. Gmail has somehow insinuated itself as an indispensable tool for millions (billions?) of people. Bullshit! Forget it! Yeah, it's nice, but it's just not worth it anymore. I recently busted out some decade's old postfix knowledge and set up some email for myself. Want to access that email from anywhere: use Mutt! It's great! Whatever you do, drop Google. Too Big To Fail == Will Fuck You Without Blinking.

iwasakabukiman 13y ago

> 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-have-an-expectation-of-privacy http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/14/4621474/yes-gmail-users-ha...

jsz0 13y ago

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.

rogerchucker 13y ago

I have issues with people who whine about this G+ integration but are absolutely happy with services that require Facebook account or with the iCloud unification of Apple products. I just hope the author isn't one of them.

matador 13y ago

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.

deleted 13y ago

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infoseckid 13y ago

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 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Either build your own or do not complain when it is free. Its fair. You cannot "demand" in exchange for FREE
  - acuozzo 13y ago
    Complaints != Demands
  - meapix 13y ago
    Youtube is not free. I get ads all the time.

DevKoala 13y ago

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.

ImprovedSilence 13y ago

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.

oscargrouch 13y ago

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

gwu78 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.

wil421 13y ago

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.

snowwrestler 13y ago

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.

trev13 13y ago

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.

tn13 13y ago

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.

CoryG89 13y ago

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 13y ago

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.

deleted 13y ago

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tjmc 13y ago

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?

V-2 13y ago

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 13y ago

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.

jeena 13y ago

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

sdfjkl 13y ago

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.

amerika_blog 13y ago

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.