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Co-Founder of Youtube makes his first comment in 8 years

520 points by rl12345 13y ago

adem 13y ago
seems more like a channel status update (or whatever they call it in youtube). i see it as some kind of "what happened to the youtube we built" attitude, which seems appropriate.
rl12345 13y ago
http://i.imgur.com/WIApJHX.png http://i.imgur.com/WIApJHX.png the screenshot, just in case.
jrs99 13y ago
i hate going to youtube and realizing that i'm signed in and my history is being saved.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  I get this feeling all the time after following a link from reddit. I just hope they can deduce from the referrer that I am not actually interested in purchasing life-like male self-stimulation products.
- spectrum 13y ago
  That's why I use different browsers. Chromium logged in with my Google accounts, Firefox for everything else.
  - eliasmacpherson 13y ago
    I go one step further, and put chromium in incognito while logging in to google services. The only problem is clicking youtube links from gmail/gtalk - I have to remember to paste them in to firefox.
    - trendoid 13y ago
      block cookies from YT?
- hahainternet 13y ago
  So uh, pause it and delete the existing history?
Springtime 13y ago
Hilarious.
VikingCoder 13y ago
Because YouTube comments were completely useless, and now the company is trying to make them useful / interesting. If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. That was completely impossible, the old way.
- Larrikin 13y ago
  If I'm not talking about it to my friend already I find that comment just as useful or important as a random stranger.
- ma2rten 13y ago
  If that were really the sole motivation, they could have just linked G+ in addition to other social networks to your old account.
- leephillips 13y ago
  Yes, the internet makes it so convenient to remain within one's echo chamber.
- homosaur 13y ago
  I don't think G+ has much to do with it, more the self-moderation, but I will say the commenting on YT has improved significantly in the last few months. That of course means we've moved from "abysmal" to "shitty" but hey, progress is progress.
- andor 13y ago
  If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. Or really creepy. a- Imagine you're going to a real world bookstore. You look at the back cover of a few books and all the reviews are by your Google+ "friends". Customized for you to increase the chances you're buying it. (If ads are going everywhere and you try to ignore them, what will be left?) b- In your holidays you're traveling to another continent. After arriving, you're surprised that you see the faces of your Facebook stalkers everywhere. Would you like that? c- Your government rolls out new mandatory ID smartcards for both the offline and online worlds. Soon after they require everybody to sign their TCP packets with those cards. A friendly smiling illustration of a computer asks you to swipe your card to login to your OS. Have a safe journey online!
doe88 13y ago
That way Google+ can claim 1 billion active users and say their service is a huge success, even surpassing their nemesis Facebook.
- hobs 13y ago
  Don't forget the likely increased revenue tying more accounts to real names to sell impressions that are more targeted. It's all about the money.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    I think the goal is ultimately more targeted advertising. In a way this is helpful. It would be great for adult advertising to stop showing up on cartoon videos.
- mtgx 13y ago
  Google has claimed right from the beginning that they want G+ to be a "social layer" across all of their services, which could also be seen as a "social network", but not in the same way Facebook is a "social network.
  - wutbrodo 13y ago
    To be fair, I think they shifted their messaging a little bit (vis-a-vis whether G+ was intended as a FB-style destination network or a social layer that happens to have a stream) to take advantage of the initial burst of interest/success in the actual social-network-stream part of Google+. But yea, there are plenty of people who are too stupid/disingenuous to understand the "social layer" concept they're going for even in cases where it's very straightforward.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
da_n 13y ago
Tangentially related, my experience with the YouTube/Google plus social network merge has been pretty awful. I opted-out initially to integrate with Google plus, I couldn't have cared less so I just stuck with my original username/account. It seems even though I opted out, Google created a Google plus YouTube profile for me anyway and now chooses to nag me about it every time I go there. I have to pick every time I go to YouTube which 'profile' I want to use (defaulted to Google plus social network) even though I never wanted this new profile, and I have a big banner telling me I am using YouTube as profile 'x' permanently stuck at the top just to rub it in. This annoyed me enough that a couple of weeks ago I gave up and tried to integrate it into their social network so I could just have 1 profile. Now it appears I no longer have the option to merge my original profile into Google plus, it just isn't there on the account settings. Because I made one decision to opt-out of their social network it seems I will permanently have 2 profiles from this time forward, the Google plus one has none of my history, subscriptions, likes etc it is a completely useless account.
- this_user 13y ago
  I have a Google account but without G+ and a YT account that was linked to the Google account. The solution for getting rid of the repeated popups asking you to turn your YT account into a G+ account seems to be to delete your YT channel. That way you will only be logged in with your normal Google account. Of course, you still won't be able to comment (or operate a channel), but at least the popup seems to be gone.
  - da_n 13y ago
    It's funny I used to get that screen to turn it into a plus account but I got annoyed with it and opted out, I guess I didn't appreciate it was a one time option. All I get now is a plain profile picker (which as I say defaults to the social network profile, I have accidentally used it several times liking videos etc and then realising I was in the wrong profile). All things being considered this is only a trivial annoyance, I am just surprised at how bad the UX is for me now.
- fiatjaf 13y ago
  This is happening with me and is making me sad. Help!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
filipedeschamps 13y ago
Before I clicked the link, I tried to imagine all the possible comments I'd read, but not this one.
mlyang 13y ago
This isn't just to make commenting more social (i.e. pushing friends comments to the top)-- I imagine it's also largely to hold more people accountable for their comments (w/ their reputation) so that there aren't as many nonsense/flame/bigoted comments like there always have been on Youtube, and in turn get higher quality comments (e.g. Quora vs. Yahoo answers analogy)
- minimaxir 13y ago
  The accountability argument only holds if Real Name is 100% enforced, which so far hasn't happened. (and if Blizzard's Real ID fiasco is any indication, it never will.)
- acdha 13y ago
  > hold more people accountable for their comments (w/ their reputation) This belief has been thoroughly debunked by Facebook comments. There's absolutely no reason to believe that Google+ will be any better, particularly since the ghost-town nature of G+ means people will rightly assume they can flame away and nobody they know will ever see it.
  - mlyang 13y ago
    That's true-- although just based on my observations it feels like Facebook comments on popular posts are silly because of how angry/polarized they are, not necessarily how nonsensical they are (relative to Youtube's comments historically). For example: typical bad Facebook comment = angry rant at Sean Parker from person who seems genuinely angry vs typical bad Youtube comment = some nonsense troll/needlessly racist comment.
    - acdha 13y ago
      Perhaps, although I've seen an awful lot of trollish/bigoted Facebook public comments on anything related to politics — it's not as bad as YouTube but increasingly close.
personlurking 13y ago
I just tried to comment on a Youtube video and was not asked to sign in to Google+, so not sure what the co-founder is talking about. I don't have Google+ but I have a Youtube account.
sker 13y ago
I've pretty much given up. Google has deleted my playlists and favorites countless times. Every time they try to integrate YouTube with one of their services/account management, I end up losing everything. My only consolation is that Google+ is accumulating a lot of vitriol and hate across the web. It's shaping up to be the most hated "social" product in the entire Internet.
- john-n 13y ago
  Forgetting Buzz?
  - haimez 13y ago
    Things have to be known before they can be hated.
    - r0h1n 13y ago
      No. Things can be hated if someone is forcing to know them.
  - samolang 13y ago
    I loved Buzz
    - Pxtl 13y ago
      Buzz was actually a nice bare-minimum functionality of social networking - lite Twitter. Plus is Google trying to consolidate some monstrosity of everythign Google Social into one space. Buzz was fine, if ugly. The only real problem with Buzz was how they leaked private GMail information.
  - lmm 13y ago
    Buzz didn't keep hassling me when I was trying to use youtube.
- ToastyMallows 13y ago
  I've never had this happen and I've had a YouTube account for a while. This honestly sounds like a bug of some sort. Have you found other people experiencing this?
jaxomlotus 13y ago
In answer to his comment: Because you sold it to Google.
- joshribakoff 13y ago
  My thoughts as well. If you're going to sell out, you should fully anticipate that "the man" will just gut your company & let it bleed out. Maybe they bought it to kill it off, etc.
  - jobigoud 13y ago
    But you should still have the right to be pissed off on a personal level.
    - jaxomlotus 13y ago
      Not really. You give up that right when you traded it in for a cool billion. Users should maybe be more pissed at him for selling, than Google for tying Youtube to their overall Google strategy. (Not that anybody should be pissed over such an issue. Just saying.)
aestetix 13y ago
At this point it seems like Google's mission is to help make profit for Apple and Facebook.
thrillgore 13y ago
slow clap
nclzz 13y ago
He's a real genius.
jiggy2011 13y ago
Surely it wouldn't be it couldn't be that hard to built a better youtube and seed it with quality content. I'm surprised nobody has succeeded. Is it just that the costs of serving video require an enormous company or is it that the term youtube is basically synonymous with "internet video".
- homosaur 13y ago
  uh, you mean like Vimeo?
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    Basically. I like Vimeo better than youtube but it doesn't seem to get used as much. The front page of vimeo isn't as good though. It tells you about vimeo itself rather than giving you a large search bar and a bunch of content like youtube does.
    - homosaur 13y ago
      Yeah you are right on about that. I always wondered why they aren't more friendly to their own content for nonusers because they're very friendly to discovery when you're logged in. I think it doesn't get used as much though because they will pull content if you're just posting videos of your friend doing cartwheels or something. There is a higher barrier to entry but they also only want very high quality HD or serious commercial or educational content. I wonder whether they aren't more forward about discovery to save on bandwidth money.
    - myko 13y ago
      Vimeo is nice on the web, but they're garbage at mobile. YouTube has an excellent mobile app on both major mobile platforms and is supported on popular TV additions like AppleTV/Chromecast. Vimeo really needs to step up their mobile game.
      - homosaur 13y ago
        This used to be true, but what issues are you having with mobile? Since Android support was added, I've had few issues with it.
voorloopnul 13y ago
Resistance is futile. Google+ is awesome and soon or later you will be assimilated.
mfarid 13y ago
Mischief, thou art afoot !!!
smanuel 13y ago
- Google is afraid of Facebook - Google wants more users in Google+ - People don't care about Google+ - This doesn't change the fact that Google is still afraid of Facebook and wants more people to use G+ - Google will try to do everything it can to drag you into this service which you won't use anyway What's so strange about this?
- BitMastro 13y ago
  -90% false -100% true -100% false for people using Google+ (absolute percentage unknown) -50% false -80% true
  - smanuel 13y ago
    Let me rephrase "google is afraid of facebook" because it obviously leads to a lot of falses. Google would like to keep the marketing money that goes to Facebook back at Google.
    - BitMastro 13y ago
      True, I believe that it is a simple reasoning: more people on Google+ leads to the better targeting for a wider audience, so better ads and more revenue. The social interaction is just another channel of information. As you said, why is it so strange? It makes a lot of sense from a marketing point of view (the business strategy dictates so) and an engineering point of view (they already have a commenting system for users).
gabrielcb 13y ago
So hilarious!
schlegelrock 13y ago
Internet you complete me.
- filipedeschamps 13y ago
  LOL
ancarda 13y ago
A few weeks ago, YouTube started automatically signing me into my Google+ account (which I was forced into getting) rather than my YouTube account -- which has years of favorites and other content. I'm getting sick of it. I only signed up to Google+ because my friend wanted to use Hangouts. Now it's screwed up my YouTube channel and I can't revert it. The only reason I post on YouTube is to share small clips with people (all my videos are unlisted). Vimeo takes ~40 minutes to encode, whereas YouTube is a lot faster meaning it's far more convenient. Checking out my Google account, it seems I have Chrome on here. I'm outraged as I never signed in with Google on Chrome. I always clicked "Not Now". What does "Not Now" even mean? Where's the "Never" option? This is why I hate Google. I probably made the mistake of signing into my YouTube account on Chrome which has been infected with Google+ and that leaked through to Chrome. Apparently that means my bookmarks can be stored without my permission. The best way is to deal with this issue is to delete my Google Account. Unfortunately, that's very problematic and I've been spending the last few months trying to move to other services. I'm slowly migrating my mail (admittedly to Google Apps but I'll be switching to a different provider soon), once I'm done I'll nuke the account. That's along with Google Docs/Drive. BitTorrent Sync actually works very well as an alternative. I can't wait till I get to hit delete on this account. Good fucking riddance.
- ninjac0der 13y ago
  I completely avoided myspace, facebook, and twitter, only to be bitten by google. I started out just using gmail, then Picasa came along. Google didn't really have social overtones at the time, so it seemed safe. Then google music seemed interesting for awhile... and along came G+ to invade everything. So far I've managed to backup and delete everything except for the gmail account. From now on, I'll host and/or build my own apps.
- wheaties 13y ago
  Yeah, they keep insisting on logging me into google+. I keep declining but I somehow ended up with an account. I detest forced integration and such. I enjoy the free email but I'm thinking of switching to Opera's email spin-off. Rather pay and know what I'm getting than not pay and not know.
- 13y ago
Kylekramer 13y ago
YouTube comments have long been reviled as the worst of the worst the internet has to offer. I don't know why people seem to want the status quo.
- gph 13y ago
  Because there is probably a lot of overlap between those who think Youtube comments are terrible and those who post terrible Youtube comments. People might slag it in public, but I think a lot of people secretly enjoy leaving abusive and trollish anonymous comments. It's not like all those comments were the work of a few bad apples. The sheer volume would suggest otherwise.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  You're making a very basic logical error. Youtube comments on the whole may be horrible, but that doesn't discount the possibility (in fact, I'd say certainty) that some youtube comments could be good, even valuable. There are many channels on youtube where the comments are fairly high quality, even by HN standards. The downside is that the people who put in the effort to nurture high quality comments on their channels, and the people who have been high quality commenters on youtube are the most negatively impacted by these changes. And the negative impact on the highest quality of comments might end up reducing the average quality much more than any moderate impact on the volume of the lower quality comments.
  - Kylekramer 13y ago
    So in order to preserve a small minority who have somehow carved out a working system (which I'll assume exist despite never seeing them) in the overwhelming onslaught of vitriol and crap, we just have to deal with said vitriol and crap continue as is? This also assumes that Google+ comments will kill off these high quality comment channels. I am sure it is true for some, but it is hardly the absolute death knell for quality conversation to require a Google+ account.
    - icebraining 13y ago
Shooti 13y ago
IIRC don't think this comment was actually made today/yesterday. I remember it being linked to a couple a weeks ago when they flipped the switch on G+ comments for the discussion tab and this was his response to that.
wil421 13y ago
I dont want another social media site, and I especially dont want to get forced into using one. I also want to use google's apps such has gmail, youtube, and others without having to sign into google+.
ringdabell 13y ago
What happened to "don't be evil"? The criticism is a bit thick, but the prompts to join G+ are increasingly manipulative and gimmicky, designed almost entirely to _trick_ the user to into signing up + spamming their gmail contacts. A requirement to have G+ account to make youtube comments is just one part of a greater trend that includes: 1. Requiring a G+ account to review Android apps in the Play store 2. Cunningly worded join prompts for first-time Android users when they start up their new Android device(s) You know G+ is an abysmal failure when the Page & Co has to force it on users of google's other services. C'mon bro, what gives? The moral superiority narrative that the valley likes to perpetuate vis-a-vis more traditional industries like banking, etc. is increasingly laughable and absurd. Let's be real tech bros and broesses. Bidness is bidness.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  > You know G+ is an abysmal failure when the Page & Co has to force it on users of google's other services. C'mon bro, what gives? They literally have been explaining this for nearly a year. There's no such thing as a G+ account and a 'Google Account'. They are the same things. I think if anything what this has proven is that you cannot rely on your customers to read the slightest thing from you, but if you change how they expect things to work, they will get incredibly angry even if the service is totally free. Even if you are IMPROVING the service you will get anger. Moral of the story: Don't have many customers.
  - ancarda 13y ago
    No. Moral of the story is "Don't fuck around". I like my YouTube account. I don't like Google+. Stop forcing it on me. I'd be happy with a YouTube that doesn't let me comment but let's me upload videos and everything else I'm doing now. Instead, I'm packing up and leaving. The irony is your moral might just work. Google will end up with less and less customers if they keep behaving in this way. Only people willing to tolerate Google+ will be left. Maybe that's what they want.
    - twistedpair 13y ago
peterwwillis 13y ago
I thought the point was to reduce the hate-filled screeds by linking their comments to a real profile of a real person. But with the "nyms" fiasco that's probably impossible now.
rjv 13y ago
The Internet never ceases to amaze me. Why does everyone act like a child throwing a tantrum when something changes? Are people that incapable of adapting? It's really not that big of a deal.
- kunai 13y ago
  Because recent changes by many tech companies are being made because they're running out of ideas. We all had a good thing going until around 2010 or so. That's the point when companies stopped making good changes, and went on fanatical change-sprees that made things harder, less efficient, and worse. Change for the sake of change is not always progress, you know. Windows 8 -- sucked. Windows 8.1 -- much better. At least Microsoft had the balls to backtrack a little bit, and it paid off big time for them. Somehow I don't see Google doing that.
pastullo 13y ago
Genius!
OoTheNigerian 13y ago
Although it may not be a popular opinion, here is the reason: there is only one Google (at least for social stuff) and one login system now. Google plus is the "Google account" you need to use any of their social services. I am frankly surprised that they allowed the login of their acquisitions to stay fragmented for such a long time.
- adrianb 13y ago
  The Google Account was already in use before Google+ was created. The difference was that you could have a mixture of services enabled for your account (I only use Gmail, I never use Picasa so I don't have it on my an account). Now they seem to force you to always have the Google+ enabled even if you never use it. Including for older accounts. I guess this is what makes people angry. It's like being prompted to create Picasa albums every time you try to read your Gmail.
  - Shooti 13y ago
    Exactly his point: A lot of the Google services hosted within a Google account essentially served as independent accounts themselves, each with their own independent sharing model/systems divorced from the others. Google's trying to switch over to a new system there's just one generalized Google identity (hosted by G+), and all of the products/services tap into that. If you want that identity to be your real identity, you use a Google+ Profile. If you want to remain anonymous or represent a business entity/organisation, you use a G+ Page. The problem is there's two Google+' sharing the same name: "Google+, the identity system" and "Google+, the social network" and they've done a hamfisted job of explaining what the value of any of it is to the user.
  - DominikR 13y ago
    No you are not forced to have Google+ enabled on your Google Account. Some social services like Youtube and Google+ require it, but you could still use Gmail without having Google+ enabled.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  So you think that blogger accounts will be folded into google plus?
mrpotes 13y ago
Is the answer not "Because you sold out"? What did he expect to happen when Google snapped them up?
jonknee 13y ago
Considering that it was nearly impossible to make YouTube's commenting system worse, I'm interested to see if the G+ integration improves things. For whatever reason YouTube has forever had the lowest quality comments of any site I can think of.
- silverbax88 13y ago
  And now they will have the lowest quantity as well.
  - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
    If the quality is so bad isn't it a good thing to have fewer of them? ;-)
  - jonknee 13y ago
    That would be great! Comments aren't cumulative--1,000+ comments of low quality aren't as a whole better than 50 comments of high quality.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
I don't think they've handled the merge well at all, but it happening was both inevitable and sensible. Google+ obviously has much better communication features, and it's ridiculous that Youtube didn't have them for so long.
ape4 13y ago
It seems with Google+ people can add you but you have no option to reject them. Anybody know a way?
- LeonidasXIV 13y ago
  You don't have to add them back. Just like twitter, following/circling is not a symmetrical operation.
- profgubler 13y ago
  Those people will only see your updates if you send something that is public and is not to a circle.
zaidf 13y ago
This is a sad, desperate attempt by Google to take on a competitor(facebook). I wish Google showed as much restraint and care in taking on facebook as facebook is showing in taking on google when it comes to search.
slvrspoon 13y ago
Larry Page and board's extreme fear of facebook has caused them to turn on their own don't be evil slogan and believe in their own BS. G+ is "strategic" to Goog? in what way shape or form does all this crappy enforced connectivity benefit me. As long as maps on my phone knows my location, i'm good.
StandardFuture 13y ago
Uh ... these guys have created their own response to the changes on YouTube lol: http://www.vus.io http://www.vus.io
- adrianmalacoda 13y ago
  What exactly is that, though? None of the social links in the bottom right corner go anywhere. The only thing on that page is an email submission form. The wording leads one to conclude that it must be some alternative to YouTube, but I don't see anything else on that site.
mcphilip 13y ago
The longer I use youtube while signed in, the more useless it becomes to me. I have a wide range of interests. If I'm watching the Dead Skeletons - Dead Mantra music video, it's not helpful to have 5 Starcraft 2 VODs in the recommended video list (i.e. I enjoy watching professional Starcraft 2). I'd much prefer recommendations similar to the Dead Skeletons. I've found no way to turn off this recommendation bubble and have since decided youtube is best used without an account if you want to actually explore its content.
- dec0dedab0de 13y ago
  I can't agree with this enough. The same goes for targeted advertising. I already know what other things I like, show me stuff I'm looking for now.
  - plus- 13y ago
    It always make me laugh seeing ads for something I already bought couple of days ago.
- typon 13y ago
  After having deleted everything from my old non-Google account, I decided to stop using YouTube logged in. Everything is so much better, the only thing I hate is how I can't give likes to videos. Everything else is okay, brings back the exploration aspect that made YouTube fun.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  It's really goddamned frustrating and just shows how hollow google is as a company. They have search and ads, and an utter inability to actually build anything else or connect with a customer base. For a company this is like having cancer. It's astounding that they can ignore the situation to such a degree. Youtube is already an amazing force in the world, and that's with google half-assing so much of it. With enough work it could be a multi-billion dollar business and the next generation of media. Instead it'll probably take years while individuals and 3rd parties figure out ways to do what google fails to do (make content more explorable and discoverable, for one, make paid revenue models possible, for another) for them to catch on and build the functionality into youtube directly. Meanwhile, instead of building improvements they're paying this stupid google plus strategy tax. Google is chasing facebook when they should be chasing HBO, and amazon, and the discovery channel. It's like they live in a giant mansion with a huge lawn where a bunch of super talented people have been camping out for a while, trying to figure out how to make the next generation of video work. And everyday google gets out of bed, looks out over that scene, grunts, scratches its ass, thinks maybe they should just call the cops to get rid of the hooligans, then goes off to watch Judge Judy.
joshuaspaulding 13y ago
I find it funny when people complain about shit they get for free.
- alayne 13y ago
  I don't understand the "free" argument people keep making. Haven't you read the arguments debunking that point of view? It's only "free" in terms of there not being a transfer of money from you to Google. Google is trying to entice you into using their services so they can sell advertising. You are being pimped out by Google and they are paying you with their services. If Google wants to keep pimping me out to these advertisers, they better make the working conditions palatable and their services useful. Google runs a business which users are a part of and if you think they are providing their services as a charity and have no right to complain about the business because you don't give them money, you really haven't thought about this very deeply. Since there is no charity here, the idea that we should be grateful is absurd. Additionally, Google's huge control makes is difficult to participate in parts of the Internet (e.g. watching videos) without using their services. I think between their business model exploiting their users and their market stranglehold people absolutely have a right to complain when they make unwanted service changes.
harimau 13y ago
Not only YouTube but everything Google is trying to integrate with G+. When showing a colleague a photo from a trip or looking at a review of something, I don't need to be shown as being available for a "hangout". I'm not "always available all the time" - I just want to get mundane things done sometimes.
hardwaresofton 13y ago
I had a hearty laugh at this. Thanks to everyone who made this possible. Walled gardens forever
mankypro 13y ago
Most excellent.
verelo 13y ago
"Because you sold YouTube to Google" In all serious though, I think this just further opens up the door for competing services like Netflix, Instagram and Vine to dig in. With Netflix for my serious video watching, and Vine / Instagram for cat videos, I find myself visiting YouTube much less. Requiring a G+ account for comments is the little extra effort that makes me not engage. IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video.
- nivla 13y ago
  >IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video. Highly doubt it. Youtube is one of the hardest thing to compete with, even Google search is much easier to go after. Did you read that article about Youtube where Google pays local ISPs to act as a CDN? That is the best CDN money can buy. A competitor without matching performance is going to be largely ignore by both consumers and publishers.
Sarkie 13y ago
Blame Steve Jobs. https://web.archive.org/web/20130122022004/http://silicon-news.com/news/2012/06/17/steve-jobs-google-plus/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130122022004/http://silicon-ne...
ktran03 13y ago
I get annoyed by those n stupid popups on every video now. Do I really have to close 15 * overlays before I can watch a video?? really? Google, how does this add to the experience? How does it make youtube a better product? I won't even get started on the asinine recommendation system. Backed by one of the largest companies in the world and the brightest employees in the world. And yet youtube gets crappier every year. Scratching my head on this one.
ApacheEcho 13y ago
Why do they insist on shoving Google+ down people's throats. It isn't going to work out. It's going to crumble and die just like Buzz.
sdfjkl 13y ago
I find the web works much better with fewer logins[1]. In my opinion, the old way of using the web, by URL alone, worked best. Want to share something? Copy the URL to your blog, paste it to IRC/IM or wherever. Those that actually care enough to follow you will comment on it if they really want to (and you want them to). We never needed those moronic sharing buttons, only those who wanted to track us did. And we don't need logins for any of that. [1] I noticed this since using the Self-destructing cookies addon for Firefox, which deletes all cookies for a site when the last tab on that site is closed (unless whitelisted). I'm whitelisting only a select few sites, and Google/YouTube are not among them.
ccash71 13y ago
check out the CueNotes app for Chrome for YouTube. The CueNotes comment system is much much better, allows you to stay anonymous on YouTube but still get quality comments, follow people, tag stuff by time, etc. really fun.
pearjuice 13y ago
So does this increase the quality of comments now that anything you post will turn up in search results with your name?
knodi 13y ago
Also WTF does it keep asking me if I want to use my real name. SAVE MY FUCKING PERF!!
deeteecee 13y ago
the inbox is a mysterious thing to find for me nowadays
visualphoenix 13y ago
Larry Page has his office in the G+ building, and has said a number of times he is committed to seeing G+ be a success. http://www.virante.org/blog/2013/04/23/is-google-still-the-future-of-google/ http://www.virante.org/blog/2013/04/23/is-google-still-the-f... There is a lot of hate for G+ and/or the service unification stuff... I personally dislike it - but I don't think it's going away anytime soon.
cromwellian 13y ago
Here's a simple way to improve YouTube. Turn off comments. I have never once, as far as I can remember, read a YouTube comment that was in any way, insightful or provided meaningful information that wasn't better obtained elsewhere. It is a cesspool, and the people who are complaining about needing to login to G+ to leave a comment frankly largely intersect with the set of people who are the problem. Honestly, if logging into G+ bothers you, you probably are the kind of person who "shoots from the hip" and doesn't put a lot of thought into your comments anyway. I don't believe the G+ comments on YouTube are about the idea of real identity being a check against racists, assholes, douchebags, and other comment archetypes. That has failed for Facebook comments and so has up/downvoting on YT. Instead, I think it's about filtering based on social network sharing. Simply put, if someone shares a link to your video somewhere with their circle of followers, the external thread that develops outside of YT, within that community is likely to be more coherent and cogent, and that will be surfaced in the YT comments especially if you have social affinity with that person. Think about it as a kind of comment federation. What if every YT video that has been linked from HackerNews stories surfaced the HN comments directly under the video on YT if you were in fact, a HackerNews user (had a login). Don't you think the HN comment thread would be higher quality than the general YT audience comments? That kind of federation is technically not possible today, because we don't have a standard spec for comment upstreaming, but because Google owns G+ and YT, they can do this kind of integration. The reality is, comments from video reshares from people you know, who have small circles of followers, will be higher quality. Someone with 10,000 or 100,000 followers however probably will exhibit the same problems because the probability of bad actors rises with quantity. However, at least you can control this by filtering who you follow. There's a general purpose derangement going on with respect to G+ that I just don't get. I don't like Facebook, never have, I barely ever log into it. I don't like social networks in general, I like _interest networks_. But I don't throw a hissy fit when most of the sites on the web force me to either create an account, or login with Facebook. I just login with Facebook and go about my business, denying most of the permissions it wants from me. It's really not that big of a deal. I don't use FB, but it is not a burden on me personally to use it as a single sign on service. The reason why I use G+ is similar to the reason why I use HN or Reddit -- the communities. Simply put, there are more interesting, tightly knit, communities with less annoying, disruptive people on G+ than there is on FB. Maybe that's elitist, but that's the way it is. Perhaps it's the advantage of having less users, less adoption than Facebook. There's merit in being a so-called "Ghost Town", in that anyone willing to live there is more dedicated to the town, and less willing to take a shit on it.
Mindless2112 13y ago
Headline is inaccurate, though I can't really blame the submitter. jawed occasionally makes comments on YouTube (example: [1]), but eventually hides everything but YouTube's first video from his channel (presumably so he can "make his first comment in X years" which then gets headlines). [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo&lc=XBr2JHTM1EEDT3_YVfvISinZ5fjS2Ri-HLNHcLz58Ns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo&lc=XBr2JHTM1EEDT3...
mullingitover 13y ago
I'm not at all a G+ fan, and yet I wholeheartedly support Google's decision to require it for YouTube comments. There is no single policy they could've enacted to improve the quality of their comment cespool, and I feel that the people complaining about it the loudest were likely part of the problem.
jamaicahest 13y ago
Top comments are about complaining about how people don't like youtube, instead of actually debating the actual issue. Seems this site is becoming more like Reddit every day. I love Reddit, but it's like beer and cola. I love both, but I love them for their different taste and I don't want them to taste the same.
GTW1226 13y ago
YOUTUBE AND GOOGLE BOYCOTT DAY! JOIN THIS EVENT! https://www.facebook.com/events/626182714087659/ https://www.facebook.com/events/626182714087659/

520 points by rl12345 13y ago

adem 13y ago

seems more like a channel status update (or whatever they call it in youtube). i see it as some kind of "what happened to the youtube we built" attitude, which seems appropriate.

rl12345 13y ago

http://i.imgur.com/WIApJHX.png http://i.imgur.com/WIApJHX.png the screenshot, just in case.

jrs99 13y ago

i hate going to youtube and realizing that i'm signed in and my history is being saved.

hackinthebochs 13y ago
I get this feeling all the time after following a link from reddit. I just hope they can deduce from the referrer that I am not actually interested in purchasing life-like male self-stimulation products.
spectrum 13y ago
That's why I use different browsers. Chromium logged in with my Google accounts, Firefox for everything else.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  I go one step further, and put chromium in incognito while logging in to google services. The only problem is clicking youtube links from gmail/gtalk - I have to remember to paste them in to firefox.
  - trendoid 13y ago
    block cookies from YT?
hahainternet 13y ago
So uh, pause it and delete the existing history?

Springtime 13y ago

Hilarious.

VikingCoder 13y ago

Because YouTube comments were completely useless, and now the company is trying to make them useful / interesting. If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. That was completely impossible, the old way.

Larrikin 13y ago
If I'm not talking about it to my friend already I find that comment just as useful or important as a random stranger.
ma2rten 13y ago
If that were really the sole motivation, they could have just linked G+ in addition to other social networks to your old account.
leephillips 13y ago
Yes, the internet makes it so convenient to remain within one's echo chamber.
homosaur 13y ago
I don't think G+ has much to do with it, more the self-moderation, but I will say the commenting on YT has improved significantly in the last few months. That of course means we've moved from "abysmal" to "shitty" but hey, progress is progress.
andor 13y ago
If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. Or really creepy. a- Imagine you're going to a real world bookstore. You look at the back cover of a few books and all the reviews are by your Google+ "friends". Customized for you to increase the chances you're buying it. (If ads are going everywhere and you try to ignore them, what will be left?) b- In your holidays you're traveling to another continent. After arriving, you're surprised that you see the faces of your Facebook stalkers everywhere. Would you like that? c- Your government rolls out new mandatory ID smartcards for both the offline and online worlds. Soon after they require everybody to sign their TCP packets with those cards. A friendly smiling illustration of a computer asks you to swipe your card to login to your OS. Have a safe journey online!

doe88 13y ago

That way Google+ can claim 1 billion active users and say their service is a huge success, even surpassing their nemesis Facebook.

hobs 13y ago
Don't forget the likely increased revenue tying more accounts to real names to sell impressions that are more targeted. It's all about the money.
- mathattack 13y ago
  I think the goal is ultimately more targeted advertising. In a way this is helpful. It would be great for adult advertising to stop showing up on cartoon videos.
mtgx 13y ago
Google has claimed right from the beginning that they want G+ to be a "social layer" across all of their services, which could also be seen as a "social network", but not in the same way Facebook is a "social network.
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  To be fair, I think they shifted their messaging a little bit (vis-a-vis whether G+ was intended as a FB-style destination network or a social layer that happens to have a stream) to take advantage of the initial burst of interest/success in the actual social-network-stream part of Google+. But yea, there are plenty of people who are too stupid/disingenuous to understand the "social layer" concept they're going for even in cases where it's very straightforward.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

da_n 13y ago

Tangentially related, my experience with the YouTube/Google plus social network merge has been pretty awful. I opted-out initially to integrate with Google plus, I couldn't have cared less so I just stuck with my original username/account. It seems even though I opted out, Google created a Google plus YouTube profile for me anyway and now chooses to nag me about it every time I go there. I have to pick every time I go to YouTube which 'profile' I want to use (defaulted to Google plus social network) even though I never wanted this new profile, and I have a big banner telling me I am using YouTube as profile 'x' permanently stuck at the top just to rub it in. This annoyed me enough that a couple of weeks ago I gave up and tried to integrate it into their social network so I could just have 1 profile. Now it appears I no longer have the option to merge my original profile into Google plus, it just isn't there on the account settings. Because I made one decision to opt-out of their social network it seems I will permanently have 2 profiles from this time forward, the Google plus one has none of my history, subscriptions, likes etc it is a completely useless account.

this_user 13y ago
I have a Google account but without G+ and a YT account that was linked to the Google account. The solution for getting rid of the repeated popups asking you to turn your YT account into a G+ account seems to be to delete your YT channel. That way you will only be logged in with your normal Google account. Of course, you still won't be able to comment (or operate a channel), but at least the popup seems to be gone.
- da_n 13y ago
  It's funny I used to get that screen to turn it into a plus account but I got annoyed with it and opted out, I guess I didn't appreciate it was a one time option. All I get now is a plain profile picker (which as I say defaults to the social network profile, I have accidentally used it several times liking videos etc and then realising I was in the wrong profile). All things being considered this is only a trivial annoyance, I am just surprised at how bad the UX is for me now.
fiatjaf 13y ago
This is happening with me and is making me sad. Help!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

filipedeschamps 13y ago

Before I clicked the link, I tried to imagine all the possible comments I'd read, but not this one.

mlyang 13y ago

This isn't just to make commenting more social (i.e. pushing friends comments to the top)-- I imagine it's also largely to hold more people accountable for their comments (w/ their reputation) so that there aren't as many nonsense/flame/bigoted comments like there always have been on Youtube, and in turn get higher quality comments (e.g. Quora vs. Yahoo answers analogy)

minimaxir 13y ago
The accountability argument only holds if Real Name is 100% enforced, which so far hasn't happened. (and if Blizzard's Real ID fiasco is any indication, it never will.)
acdha 13y ago
> hold more people accountable for their comments (w/ their reputation) This belief has been thoroughly debunked by Facebook comments. There's absolutely no reason to believe that Google+ will be any better, particularly since the ghost-town nature of G+ means people will rightly assume they can flame away and nobody they know will ever see it.
- mlyang 13y ago
  That's true-- although just based on my observations it feels like Facebook comments on popular posts are silly because of how angry/polarized they are, not necessarily how nonsensical they are (relative to Youtube's comments historically). For example: typical bad Facebook comment = angry rant at Sean Parker from person who seems genuinely angry vs typical bad Youtube comment = some nonsense troll/needlessly racist comment.
  - acdha 13y ago
    Perhaps, although I've seen an awful lot of trollish/bigoted Facebook public comments on anything related to politics — it's not as bad as YouTube but increasingly close.

personlurking 13y ago

I just tried to comment on a Youtube video and was not asked to sign in to Google+, so not sure what the co-founder is talking about. I don't have Google+ but I have a Youtube account.

sker 13y ago

I've pretty much given up. Google has deleted my playlists and favorites countless times. Every time they try to integrate YouTube with one of their services/account management, I end up losing everything. My only consolation is that Google+ is accumulating a lot of vitriol and hate across the web. It's shaping up to be the most hated "social" product in the entire Internet.

john-n 13y ago
Forgetting Buzz?
- haimez 13y ago
  Things have to be known before they can be hated.
  - r0h1n 13y ago
    No. Things can be hated if someone is forcing to know them.
- samolang 13y ago
  I loved Buzz
  - Pxtl 13y ago
    Buzz was actually a nice bare-minimum functionality of social networking - lite Twitter. Plus is Google trying to consolidate some monstrosity of everythign Google Social into one space. Buzz was fine, if ugly. The only real problem with Buzz was how they leaked private GMail information.
- lmm 13y ago
  Buzz didn't keep hassling me when I was trying to use youtube.
ToastyMallows 13y ago
I've never had this happen and I've had a YouTube account for a while. This honestly sounds like a bug of some sort. Have you found other people experiencing this?

jaxomlotus 13y ago

In answer to his comment: Because you sold it to Google.

joshribakoff 13y ago
My thoughts as well. If you're going to sell out, you should fully anticipate that "the man" will just gut your company & let it bleed out. Maybe they bought it to kill it off, etc.
- jobigoud 13y ago
  But you should still have the right to be pissed off on a personal level.
  - jaxomlotus 13y ago
    Not really. You give up that right when you traded it in for a cool billion. Users should maybe be more pissed at him for selling, than Google for tying Youtube to their overall Google strategy. (Not that anybody should be pissed over such an issue. Just saying.)

aestetix 13y ago

At this point it seems like Google's mission is to help make profit for Apple and Facebook.

thrillgore 13y ago

slow clap

nclzz 13y ago

He's a real genius.

jiggy2011 13y ago

Surely it wouldn't be it couldn't be that hard to built a better youtube and seed it with quality content. I'm surprised nobody has succeeded. Is it just that the costs of serving video require an enormous company or is it that the term youtube is basically synonymous with "internet video".

homosaur 13y ago
uh, you mean like Vimeo?
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  Basically. I like Vimeo better than youtube but it doesn't seem to get used as much. The front page of vimeo isn't as good though. It tells you about vimeo itself rather than giving you a large search bar and a bunch of content like youtube does.
  - homosaur 13y ago
    Yeah you are right on about that. I always wondered why they aren't more friendly to their own content for nonusers because they're very friendly to discovery when you're logged in. I think it doesn't get used as much though because they will pull content if you're just posting videos of your friend doing cartwheels or something. There is a higher barrier to entry but they also only want very high quality HD or serious commercial or educational content. I wonder whether they aren't more forward about discovery to save on bandwidth money.
  - myko 13y ago
    Vimeo is nice on the web, but they're garbage at mobile. YouTube has an excellent mobile app on both major mobile platforms and is supported on popular TV additions like AppleTV/Chromecast. Vimeo really needs to step up their mobile game.
    - homosaur 13y ago
      This used to be true, but what issues are you having with mobile? Since Android support was added, I've had few issues with it.

voorloopnul 13y ago

Resistance is futile. Google+ is awesome and soon or later you will be assimilated.

mfarid 13y ago

Mischief, thou art afoot !!!

smanuel 13y ago

- Google is afraid of Facebook - Google wants more users in Google+ - People don't care about Google+ - This doesn't change the fact that Google is still afraid of Facebook and wants more people to use G+ - Google will try to do everything it can to drag you into this service which you won't use anyway What's so strange about this?

BitMastro 13y ago
-90% false -100% true -100% false for people using Google+ (absolute percentage unknown) -50% false -80% true
- smanuel 13y ago
  Let me rephrase "google is afraid of facebook" because it obviously leads to a lot of falses. Google would like to keep the marketing money that goes to Facebook back at Google.
  - BitMastro 13y ago
    True, I believe that it is a simple reasoning: more people on Google+ leads to the better targeting for a wider audience, so better ads and more revenue. The social interaction is just another channel of information. As you said, why is it so strange? It makes a lot of sense from a marketing point of view (the business strategy dictates so) and an engineering point of view (they already have a commenting system for users).

gabrielcb 13y ago

So hilarious!

schlegelrock 13y ago

Internet you complete me.

filipedeschamps 13y ago
LOL

ancarda 13y ago

A few weeks ago, YouTube started automatically signing me into my Google+ account (which I was forced into getting) rather than my YouTube account -- which has years of favorites and other content. I'm getting sick of it. I only signed up to Google+ because my friend wanted to use Hangouts. Now it's screwed up my YouTube channel and I can't revert it. The only reason I post on YouTube is to share small clips with people (all my videos are unlisted). Vimeo takes ~40 minutes to encode, whereas YouTube is a lot faster meaning it's far more convenient. Checking out my Google account, it seems I have Chrome on here. I'm outraged as I never signed in with Google on Chrome. I always clicked "Not Now". What does "Not Now" even mean? Where's the "Never" option? This is why I hate Google. I probably made the mistake of signing into my YouTube account on Chrome which has been infected with Google+ and that leaked through to Chrome. Apparently that means my bookmarks can be stored without my permission. The best way is to deal with this issue is to delete my Google Account. Unfortunately, that's very problematic and I've been spending the last few months trying to move to other services. I'm slowly migrating my mail (admittedly to Google Apps but I'll be switching to a different provider soon), once I'm done I'll nuke the account. That's along with Google Docs/Drive. BitTorrent Sync actually works very well as an alternative. I can't wait till I get to hit delete on this account. Good fucking riddance.

ninjac0der 13y ago
I completely avoided myspace, facebook, and twitter, only to be bitten by google. I started out just using gmail, then Picasa came along. Google didn't really have social overtones at the time, so it seemed safe. Then google music seemed interesting for awhile... and along came G+ to invade everything. So far I've managed to backup and delete everything except for the gmail account. From now on, I'll host and/or build my own apps.
wheaties 13y ago
Yeah, they keep insisting on logging me into google+. I keep declining but I somehow ended up with an account. I detest forced integration and such. I enjoy the free email but I'm thinking of switching to Opera's email spin-off. Rather pay and know what I'm getting than not pay and not know.
13y ago

Kylekramer 13y ago

YouTube comments have long been reviled as the worst of the worst the internet has to offer. I don't know why people seem to want the status quo.

gph 13y ago
Because there is probably a lot of overlap between those who think Youtube comments are terrible and those who post terrible Youtube comments. People might slag it in public, but I think a lot of people secretly enjoy leaving abusive and trollish anonymous comments. It's not like all those comments were the work of a few bad apples. The sheer volume would suggest otherwise.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
You're making a very basic logical error. Youtube comments on the whole may be horrible, but that doesn't discount the possibility (in fact, I'd say certainty) that some youtube comments could be good, even valuable. There are many channels on youtube where the comments are fairly high quality, even by HN standards. The downside is that the people who put in the effort to nurture high quality comments on their channels, and the people who have been high quality commenters on youtube are the most negatively impacted by these changes. And the negative impact on the highest quality of comments might end up reducing the average quality much more than any moderate impact on the volume of the lower quality comments.
- Kylekramer 13y ago
  So in order to preserve a small minority who have somehow carved out a working system (which I'll assume exist despite never seeing them) in the overwhelming onslaught of vitriol and crap, we just have to deal with said vitriol and crap continue as is? This also assumes that Google+ comments will kill off these high quality comment channels. I am sure it is true for some, but it is hardly the absolute death knell for quality conversation to require a Google+ account.
  - icebraining 13y ago

Shooti 13y ago

IIRC don't think this comment was actually made today/yesterday. I remember it being linked to a couple a weeks ago when they flipped the switch on G+ comments for the discussion tab and this was his response to that.

wil421 13y ago

I dont want another social media site, and I especially dont want to get forced into using one. I also want to use google's apps such has gmail, youtube, and others without having to sign into google+.

ringdabell 13y ago

What happened to "don't be evil"? The criticism is a bit thick, but the prompts to join G+ are increasingly manipulative and gimmicky, designed almost entirely to _trick_ the user to into signing up + spamming their gmail contacts. A requirement to have G+ account to make youtube comments is just one part of a greater trend that includes: 1. Requiring a G+ account to review Android apps in the Play store 2. Cunningly worded join prompts for first-time Android users when they start up their new Android device(s) You know G+ is an abysmal failure when the Page & Co has to force it on users of google's other services. C'mon bro, what gives? The moral superiority narrative that the valley likes to perpetuate vis-a-vis more traditional industries like banking, etc. is increasingly laughable and absurd. Let's be real tech bros and broesses. Bidness is bidness.

hahainternet 13y ago
> You know G+ is an abysmal failure when the Page & Co has to force it on users of google's other services. C'mon bro, what gives? They literally have been explaining this for nearly a year. There's no such thing as a G+ account and a 'Google Account'. They are the same things. I think if anything what this has proven is that you cannot rely on your customers to read the slightest thing from you, but if you change how they expect things to work, they will get incredibly angry even if the service is totally free. Even if you are IMPROVING the service you will get anger. Moral of the story: Don't have many customers.
- ancarda 13y ago
  No. Moral of the story is "Don't fuck around". I like my YouTube account. I don't like Google+. Stop forcing it on me. I'd be happy with a YouTube that doesn't let me comment but let's me upload videos and everything else I'm doing now. Instead, I'm packing up and leaving. The irony is your moral might just work. Google will end up with less and less customers if they keep behaving in this way. Only people willing to tolerate Google+ will be left. Maybe that's what they want.
  - twistedpair 13y ago

peterwwillis 13y ago

I thought the point was to reduce the hate-filled screeds by linking their comments to a real profile of a real person. But with the "nyms" fiasco that's probably impossible now.

rjv 13y ago

The Internet never ceases to amaze me. Why does everyone act like a child throwing a tantrum when something changes? Are people that incapable of adapting? It's really not that big of a deal.

kunai 13y ago
Because recent changes by many tech companies are being made because they're running out of ideas. We all had a good thing going until around 2010 or so. That's the point when companies stopped making good changes, and went on fanatical change-sprees that made things harder, less efficient, and worse. Change for the sake of change is not always progress, you know. Windows 8 -- sucked. Windows 8.1 -- much better. At least Microsoft had the balls to backtrack a little bit, and it paid off big time for them. Somehow I don't see Google doing that.

pastullo 13y ago

Genius!

OoTheNigerian 13y ago

Although it may not be a popular opinion, here is the reason: there is only one Google (at least for social stuff) and one login system now. Google plus is the "Google account" you need to use any of their social services. I am frankly surprised that they allowed the login of their acquisitions to stay fragmented for such a long time.

adrianb 13y ago
The Google Account was already in use before Google+ was created. The difference was that you could have a mixture of services enabled for your account (I only use Gmail, I never use Picasa so I don't have it on my an account). Now they seem to force you to always have the Google+ enabled even if you never use it. Including for older accounts. I guess this is what makes people angry. It's like being prompted to create Picasa albums every time you try to read your Gmail.
- Shooti 13y ago
  Exactly his point: A lot of the Google services hosted within a Google account essentially served as independent accounts themselves, each with their own independent sharing model/systems divorced from the others. Google's trying to switch over to a new system there's just one generalized Google identity (hosted by G+), and all of the products/services tap into that. If you want that identity to be your real identity, you use a Google+ Profile. If you want to remain anonymous or represent a business entity/organisation, you use a G+ Page. The problem is there's two Google+' sharing the same name: "Google+, the identity system" and "Google+, the social network" and they've done a hamfisted job of explaining what the value of any of it is to the user.
- DominikR 13y ago
  No you are not forced to have Google+ enabled on your Google Account. Some social services like Youtube and Google+ require it, but you could still use Gmail without having Google+ enabled.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
So you think that blogger accounts will be folded into google plus?

mrpotes 13y ago

Is the answer not "Because you sold out"? What did he expect to happen when Google snapped them up?

jonknee 13y ago

Considering that it was nearly impossible to make YouTube's commenting system worse, I'm interested to see if the G+ integration improves things. For whatever reason YouTube has forever had the lowest quality comments of any site I can think of.

silverbax88 13y ago
And now they will have the lowest quantity as well.
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
  If the quality is so bad isn't it a good thing to have fewer of them? ;-)
- jonknee 13y ago
  That would be great! Comments aren't cumulative--1,000+ comments of low quality aren't as a whole better than 50 comments of high quality.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

I don't think they've handled the merge well at all, but it happening was both inevitable and sensible. Google+ obviously has much better communication features, and it's ridiculous that Youtube didn't have them for so long.

ape4 13y ago

It seems with Google+ people can add you but you have no option to reject them. Anybody know a way?

LeonidasXIV 13y ago
You don't have to add them back. Just like twitter, following/circling is not a symmetrical operation.
profgubler 13y ago
Those people will only see your updates if you send something that is public and is not to a circle.

zaidf 13y ago

This is a sad, desperate attempt by Google to take on a competitor(facebook). I wish Google showed as much restraint and care in taking on facebook as facebook is showing in taking on google when it comes to search.

slvrspoon 13y ago

Larry Page and board's extreme fear of facebook has caused them to turn on their own don't be evil slogan and believe in their own BS. G+ is "strategic" to Goog? in what way shape or form does all this crappy enforced connectivity benefit me. As long as maps on my phone knows my location, i'm good.

StandardFuture 13y ago

Uh ... these guys have created their own response to the changes on YouTube lol: http://www.vus.io http://www.vus.io

adrianmalacoda 13y ago
What exactly is that, though? None of the social links in the bottom right corner go anywhere. The only thing on that page is an email submission form. The wording leads one to conclude that it must be some alternative to YouTube, but I don't see anything else on that site.

mcphilip 13y ago

The longer I use youtube while signed in, the more useless it becomes to me. I have a wide range of interests. If I'm watching the Dead Skeletons - Dead Mantra music video, it's not helpful to have 5 Starcraft 2 VODs in the recommended video list (i.e. I enjoy watching professional Starcraft 2). I'd much prefer recommendations similar to the Dead Skeletons. I've found no way to turn off this recommendation bubble and have since decided youtube is best used without an account if you want to actually explore its content.

dec0dedab0de 13y ago
I can't agree with this enough. The same goes for targeted advertising. I already know what other things I like, show me stuff I'm looking for now.
- plus- 13y ago
  It always make me laugh seeing ads for something I already bought couple of days ago.
typon 13y ago
After having deleted everything from my old non-Google account, I decided to stop using YouTube logged in. Everything is so much better, the only thing I hate is how I can't give likes to videos. Everything else is okay, brings back the exploration aspect that made YouTube fun.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
It's really goddamned frustrating and just shows how hollow google is as a company. They have search and ads, and an utter inability to actually build anything else or connect with a customer base. For a company this is like having cancer. It's astounding that they can ignore the situation to such a degree. Youtube is already an amazing force in the world, and that's with google half-assing so much of it. With enough work it could be a multi-billion dollar business and the next generation of media. Instead it'll probably take years while individuals and 3rd parties figure out ways to do what google fails to do (make content more explorable and discoverable, for one, make paid revenue models possible, for another) for them to catch on and build the functionality into youtube directly. Meanwhile, instead of building improvements they're paying this stupid google plus strategy tax. Google is chasing facebook when they should be chasing HBO, and amazon, and the discovery channel. It's like they live in a giant mansion with a huge lawn where a bunch of super talented people have been camping out for a while, trying to figure out how to make the next generation of video work. And everyday google gets out of bed, looks out over that scene, grunts, scratches its ass, thinks maybe they should just call the cops to get rid of the hooligans, then goes off to watch Judge Judy.

joshuaspaulding 13y ago

I find it funny when people complain about shit they get for free.

alayne 13y ago
I don't understand the "free" argument people keep making. Haven't you read the arguments debunking that point of view? It's only "free" in terms of there not being a transfer of money from you to Google. Google is trying to entice you into using their services so they can sell advertising. You are being pimped out by Google and they are paying you with their services. If Google wants to keep pimping me out to these advertisers, they better make the working conditions palatable and their services useful. Google runs a business which users are a part of and if you think they are providing their services as a charity and have no right to complain about the business because you don't give them money, you really haven't thought about this very deeply. Since there is no charity here, the idea that we should be grateful is absurd. Additionally, Google's huge control makes is difficult to participate in parts of the Internet (e.g. watching videos) without using their services. I think between their business model exploiting their users and their market stranglehold people absolutely have a right to complain when they make unwanted service changes.

harimau 13y ago

Not only YouTube but everything Google is trying to integrate with G+. When showing a colleague a photo from a trip or looking at a review of something, I don't need to be shown as being available for a "hangout". I'm not "always available all the time" - I just want to get mundane things done sometimes.

hardwaresofton 13y ago

I had a hearty laugh at this. Thanks to everyone who made this possible. Walled gardens forever

mankypro 13y ago

Most excellent.

verelo 13y ago

"Because you sold YouTube to Google" In all serious though, I think this just further opens up the door for competing services like Netflix, Instagram and Vine to dig in. With Netflix for my serious video watching, and Vine / Instagram for cat videos, I find myself visiting YouTube much less. Requiring a G+ account for comments is the little extra effort that makes me not engage. IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video.

nivla 13y ago
>IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video. Highly doubt it. Youtube is one of the hardest thing to compete with, even Google search is much easier to go after. Did you read that article about Youtube where Google pays local ISPs to act as a CDN? That is the best CDN money can buy. A competitor without matching performance is going to be largely ignore by both consumers and publishers.

Sarkie 13y ago

Blame Steve Jobs. https://web.archive.org/web/20130122022004/http://silicon-news.com/news/2012/06/17/steve-jobs-google-plus/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130122022004/http://silicon-ne...

ktran03 13y ago

I get annoyed by those n stupid popups on every video now. Do I really have to close 15 * overlays before I can watch a video?? really? Google, how does this add to the experience? How does it make youtube a better product? I won't even get started on the asinine recommendation system. Backed by one of the largest companies in the world and the brightest employees in the world. And yet youtube gets crappier every year. Scratching my head on this one.

ApacheEcho 13y ago

Why do they insist on shoving Google+ down people's throats. It isn't going to work out. It's going to crumble and die just like Buzz.

sdfjkl 13y ago

I find the web works much better with fewer logins[1]. In my opinion, the old way of using the web, by URL alone, worked best. Want to share something? Copy the URL to your blog, paste it to IRC/IM or wherever. Those that actually care enough to follow you will comment on it if they really want to (and you want them to). We never needed those moronic sharing buttons, only those who wanted to track us did. And we don't need logins for any of that. [1] I noticed this since using the Self-destructing cookies addon for Firefox, which deletes all cookies for a site when the last tab on that site is closed (unless whitelisted). I'm whitelisting only a select few sites, and Google/YouTube are not among them.

ccash71 13y ago

check out the CueNotes app for Chrome for YouTube. The CueNotes comment system is much much better, allows you to stay anonymous on YouTube but still get quality comments, follow people, tag stuff by time, etc. really fun.

pearjuice 13y ago

So does this increase the quality of comments now that anything you post will turn up in search results with your name?

knodi 13y ago

Also WTF does it keep asking me if I want to use my real name. SAVE MY FUCKING PERF!!

deeteecee 13y ago

the inbox is a mysterious thing to find for me nowadays

visualphoenix 13y ago

Larry Page has his office in the G+ building, and has said a number of times he is committed to seeing G+ be a success. http://www.virante.org/blog/2013/04/23/is-google-still-the-future-of-google/ http://www.virante.org/blog/2013/04/23/is-google-still-the-f... There is a lot of hate for G+ and/or the service unification stuff... I personally dislike it - but I don't think it's going away anytime soon.

cromwellian 13y ago

Here's a simple way to improve YouTube. Turn off comments. I have never once, as far as I can remember, read a YouTube comment that was in any way, insightful or provided meaningful information that wasn't better obtained elsewhere. It is a cesspool, and the people who are complaining about needing to login to G+ to leave a comment frankly largely intersect with the set of people who are the problem. Honestly, if logging into G+ bothers you, you probably are the kind of person who "shoots from the hip" and doesn't put a lot of thought into your comments anyway. I don't believe the G+ comments on YouTube are about the idea of real identity being a check against racists, assholes, douchebags, and other comment archetypes. That has failed for Facebook comments and so has up/downvoting on YT. Instead, I think it's about filtering based on social network sharing. Simply put, if someone shares a link to your video somewhere with their circle of followers, the external thread that develops outside of YT, within that community is likely to be more coherent and cogent, and that will be surfaced in the YT comments especially if you have social affinity with that person. Think about it as a kind of comment federation. What if every YT video that has been linked from HackerNews stories surfaced the HN comments directly under the video on YT if you were in fact, a HackerNews user (had a login). Don't you think the HN comment thread would be higher quality than the general YT audience comments? That kind of federation is technically not possible today, because we don't have a standard spec for comment upstreaming, but because Google owns G+ and YT, they can do this kind of integration. The reality is, comments from video reshares from people you know, who have small circles of followers, will be higher quality. Someone with 10,000 or 100,000 followers however probably will exhibit the same problems because the probability of bad actors rises with quantity. However, at least you can control this by filtering who you follow. There's a general purpose derangement going on with respect to G+ that I just don't get. I don't like Facebook, never have, I barely ever log into it. I don't like social networks in general, I like _interest networks_. But I don't throw a hissy fit when most of the sites on the web force me to either create an account, or login with Facebook. I just login with Facebook and go about my business, denying most of the permissions it wants from me. It's really not that big of a deal. I don't use FB, but it is not a burden on me personally to use it as a single sign on service. The reason why I use G+ is similar to the reason why I use HN or Reddit -- the communities. Simply put, there are more interesting, tightly knit, communities with less annoying, disruptive people on G+ than there is on FB. Maybe that's elitist, but that's the way it is. Perhaps it's the advantage of having less users, less adoption than Facebook. There's merit in being a so-called "Ghost Town", in that anyone willing to live there is more dedicated to the town, and less willing to take a shit on it.

Mindless2112 13y ago

Headline is inaccurate, though I can't really blame the submitter. jawed occasionally makes comments on YouTube (example: [1]), but eventually hides everything but YouTube's first video from his channel (presumably so he can "make his first comment in X years" which then gets headlines). [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo&lc=XBr2JHTM1EEDT3_YVfvISinZ5fjS2Ri-HLNHcLz58Ns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo&lc=XBr2JHTM1EEDT3...

mullingitover 13y ago

I'm not at all a G+ fan, and yet I wholeheartedly support Google's decision to require it for YouTube comments. There is no single policy they could've enacted to improve the quality of their comment cespool, and I feel that the people complaining about it the loudest were likely part of the problem.

jamaicahest 13y ago

Top comments are about complaining about how people don't like youtube, instead of actually debating the actual issue. Seems this site is becoming more like Reddit every day. I love Reddit, but it's like beer and cola. I love both, but I love them for their different taste and I don't want them to taste the same.

GTW1226 13y ago

YOUTUBE AND GOOGLE BOYCOTT DAY! JOIN THIS EVENT! https://www.facebook.com/events/626182714087659/ https://www.facebook.com/events/626182714087659/