[ringdabell]

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]

> 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]

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.

[hahainternet]

> 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.

Literally nobody cares.

> 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.

I hope so! I can only imagine if Youtube was as full of interesting content as G+, and not so filled with people whining that a terrible terrible system isn't being kept soley for their own preferences.

[ancarda]

Is this how you treat your customers?

[hahainternet]

For the most part yes. There are always naysayers, always conservatives. If you listen to them, no progress can ever be made. You have to decide on a course and take it.

Ultimately, if integration with Google ruins Youtube, then a competitor will eviscerate them. If it ultimately improves it, the criticisms will fade away.

[MrZongle2]

"There are always naysayers, always conservatives. If you listen to them, no progress can ever be made."

Did it occur to you that perhaps some of these "conservatives" learned a painful lesson the type of which you have not yet encountered?

[SeanLuke]

Wait, you actually paid money to Google for Youtube?

You aren't the customer. You are the product being sold.

[bookwormAT]

Nonesense. He's the customer.

[twistedpair]

I guess you're not on FB either, or you'd be upset that half the websites you join want you to sign up with FB Connect. Similar with Apple's services. Single shot services are growing few and far between on the web.

[lmm]

If a site requires facebook, I won't use it. If a site where I previously had an account forces me to shift to signing in with facebook, you bet your ass I'm leaving.

[ringdabell]

> There's no such thing as a G+ account and a 'Google Account'. They are the same things

Thats not the case if you registered for a google service (i.e. gmail) pre G+, which I imagine includes a TON of users. If you fall into this category (like me) and don't have a G+ account (i.e. a "Public Profile), you get spammed like crazy and constantly asked to join up.

And the service isn't free. I'm paying for it with my user information. Let's be real, Google isn't some savior upon high blessing us with "free" services from the goodness of their hearts. Be honest.

btw I'm a huge fan of Google, I just find their hyprocracy of "we're not a cunning business trying to maximize profits, we're a social enterprise saving humanity, that just happens to make money" annoying and insulting.

We need to get rid of this narrative that creators = god and users = proles that don't have the "right" to complain.

[hahainternet]

> Thats not the case if you registered for a google service (i.e. gmail) pre G+, which I imagine includes a TON of users. If you fall into this category (like me) and don't have a G+ account (i.e. a "Public Profile), you get spammed like crazy and constantly asked to join up.

Right, because they're amalgamating the accounts. They've been telling people this forever.

> And the service isn't free. I'm paying for it with my user information

No you're not. It's free.

> We need to get rid of this narrative that creators = god and users = proles that don't have the "right" to complain.

Who said anything about creators. They /OWN/ Youtube. They have made it /VERY/ clear what is happening. If you want to ignore that that's up to you, but you can't turn around and act as if it's some inexplicable weird move that makes no sense when they have detailed every step of it.

[ringdabell]

>No you're not. It's free.

Nothing is free bro. Business 101.

>Who said anything about creators. They /OWN/ Youtube. They have made it /VERY/ clear what is happening. If you want to ignore that that's up to you, but you can't turn around and act as if it's some inexplicable weird move that makes no sense when they have detailed every step of it.

No one is saying its a weird move. I'm just arguing that the WAY they are doing it is extremely annoying and not very user-friendly.

You shouldn't have to have a public profile or be forced to share your comment on youtube. It's obviously advantageous from a google perspective, but not very user-friendly.

The value of G+ should incentive the user to want to share their comment. Google shouldn't FORCE you to do it. That's not very friendly/flexible.

[hahainternet]

> Nothing is free bro. Business 101.

That's not a fact, that's just a saying. Youtube is free to you, it's not free to advertisers. There can be products that come free to some and not free to others.

> You shouldn't have to have a public profile or be forced to share your comment on youtube

You aren't, choose the option to create a page and your account name is kept, your identity is kept and the public page contains the same info as your Youtube profile. You can then switch between your two identities as you see fit. I fail to see how this is such an objectionable solution.

[ringdabell]

Yes you could do that, but again I don't see how its user-friendly to have to resort to creating multiple accounts to bypass the G+ requirements.

No one is saying that Google doesn't have the _right_ to do this, just that its obnoxious and goes against the very user-friendly/oriented image that Google itself tries to perpetuate. You've yet to address this very point.

>That's not a fact, that's just a saying. Youtube is free to you, it's not free to advertisers. There can be products that come free to some and not free to others.

You're just splitting hairs about what constitutes an expense. Youtube is not 100% free to use. There are costs... like the time it takes to watch an ad before your video plays... that's a bit myopic on my part as well, but if you want to get technical...

[6d0debc071]

> 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.

Now, yes, and some people don't like that. Of course it's 'free' for whatever that's worth - and you can do whatever you want. Just don't expect that people are going to be thrilled. Free doesn't buy you free approval.

[kybernetyk]

> even if the service is totally free

In my experience they get especially angry if the service is free. :)

[Shooti]

There's no post API and all sharing is done manually so spamming anyone with G+ is impossible unless you actively use it.

I think what they're effectively trying to do boils down into unifying the Google account: instead of every Google product maintaining its own divorced account/sharing infrastructure they're effectively retconning all of their products so they're now all based off one source, the Google+ Profile. This allows any change they make to the underlying G+ architecture to instantly propagate across all their products, as well as much more effective user data collection.

The problem is while the setup has plenty of benefit to Google, they've barely explained the benefit to the user.

[icebraining]

There's no post API and all sharing is done manually so spamming anyone with G+ is impossible unless you actively use it.

That's a little naive. Of course there's an "API", it's what your browser uses to post something. Just because it's not designed for automated programs it doesn't mean it can't and won't be used.

[goostavos]

Yeah, too true. A quick strole through the internet "freelance" boards will show that there's no shortage of people looking for comment bots for all of the major platforms.

[aryastark]

> What happened to "don't be evil"?

That died long ago. In 2008 or even earlier, Google was capturing data from your WiFi router with their street view cars.