[eitland]

The easy nym fix is to create a "page" with your handle. The "page" can post, comment on YouTube etc. Not heavily advertised though, I only became aware of it when I had to give up my old YouTube account.

You can easily switch between main account and nym account and you only need one password.

[Macha]

This was created a few months after they got forceful about merging people's YT and G+ accounts (maybe one month before they turned off non-G+ comments?)

[dredmorbius]

That "easy nym fix" still requires storing your real ID with Google.

That's a non-starter for many of us, as it's still available: to hackers, national security, subpoena processes, etc. See Bruce Schneier's recent Stanford talk.

[eitland]

Agreed. There are cases where this is not enough. For me (who are aware of the possibility of having multiple personas but is totally comfortable with national security 2014 edition to know about it ) and most ordinary people (who happily upload all their stuff to Facebook anyway) the current solution seems like a good and user friendly alternative.

If the fact that Google needs to know who their customers are isn't acceptable then people need to find other services. Google can pinpoint us pretty much anyway they are just being upfront about it in my opinion.

[Shooti]

Actually it doesn't. You don't need a G+ Profile to connect a Youtube channel to a G+ Page.

That's the crux of the whole problem, G+ is so heavily associated with being a social network connected to real identity that having it manage the profile system is untenable.