Well played. I don't think many remember this. The product was completely forgettable but the introduction of this user hostile pattern was a turning point.
I was referring to Google+. I don't know if you mean something else like Facebook, which is no less abusive than Google+ ever was
People seemed to like Google+ but a) nymwars lead to dangerous situations (although no less dangerous than Facebook's graph search) for people that don't want to reveal their real names but also b) the merging of accounts ruined some people's Youtube channels. Zuckerberg is so much of a control freak that I suspect (based on evidence I've vaguely heard, not just my own intuition) links to Google+ used to get deleted. It used to be the case people liked it but they "couldn't get their friends to use it". So yeah - in part, inertia; but also what if you linked it and nobody saw it in the feed?
I know. I was joining in on the joke, I think I just made that one up though. Im pretty sure youtube asks that If you upload a video and don't have a phone number on file