Author Topic: YouTube finally forces creation of google+ A/C to comment (Read 51182 times)

tomos · « **on:** November 07, 2013, 12:49 PM »

YouTube have been annoying me for a long time with trying to persuade me to use my real name. The other option was to continue with my YT name - but *both* options led to the creation of a google+ account. So, I always 'X'd out of it, as I didnt want a google+ account.

Finally today, I was given the choice: create a google+ account or do not comment!
So I created a google plus account with my youtube name.

Immediately after, I got this banner:
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Screenshot - 2013-11-07 , 16_34_07.png

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Already having regrets, I clicked on the undo option.
Got this option:
___________________________________

Screenshot - 2013-11-07 , 19_35_41.png

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so I tried the "Temporarily disconnect..." and got this:
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Screenshot - 2013-11-07 , 19_38_01.png

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- all blurred out names there are the same - which is a little confusing. I didnt go through with it though because
1) it said "Temporarily disconnect..." (my emphasis)
2) I reckon the G+ account is already created so wont make a whole lot of difference
3) it would disconnect the two but then I would probably be back where I started - unable to comment in YT

tomos · « **Reply #1 on:** November 07, 2013, 01:02 PM »

Apart from not liking to be forced to do something; and my lack of enthusiasm for the 'social' web after my experiences with Facebook - well, I dont actually mind having a G+ account that much.

I have particular interests in music and sport and follow these to a certain extent on YT. I can imagine enjoying having all of my comments and maybe likes/favourites/etc. available in a possibly more accessible manner. We'll see. But I'm not ready for the approach where I dump everything I do on the web into one page for the world to see. I dont think I'll ever *want* that - I mean if I want to share my interest in e.g. Old-Time or Bluegrass music - I pretty much only want to share it with people I know are interested.

So, I have mixed feelings about this. Will see how I get on.

One thing I already hate G+ for:
it steals the Ctrl+PgUp/Dn shortcut for moving through the tabs in Firefox

dr_andus · « **Reply #2 on:** November 07, 2013, 01:22 PM »

Is this just about commenting?

So, for people who don't care about commenting (and don't want Google+), could they maintain their dual identity?

Or is the writing on the wall?

In which case the only viable option for someone who don't want to merge it with their real name would be to delete their Youtube a/c, I presume (if that's even possible)?

app103 · « **Reply #3 on:** November 07, 2013, 01:30 PM »

I don't mind needing a G+ account to comment, since I rarely ever comment on youtube.

But what I do mind is how when I share a video on G+, or comment on a video on G+, all the comments from the videos will now appear on Youtube. And this is retroactive. And it also means that if anyone replies to a G+ imported comment thread on Youtube, it will now appear on the original thread on G+.

Be really careful what videos you share on G+. If the quality of the comments are poor on Youtube, or there is a whole lot of trolling and flaming going on, you can now expect that type of comments to spread to your G+ like a disease.

Is this just about commenting?

So, for people who don't care about commenting (and don't want Google+), could they maintain their dual identity?

Or is the writing on the wall?

In which case the only viable option for someone who don't want to merge it with their real name would be to delete their Youtube a/c, I presume (if that's even possible)?
-dr_andus (November 07, 2013, 01:22 PM)

I have a youtube account that is not associated with my real name/G+ account. Google forced a secondary G+ identity on me that exists as a Youtube channel under my main account. It allows me to keep them separated, but not have to deal with having 2 google accounts to do it.

tomos · « **Reply #4 on:** November 07, 2013, 02:24 PM »

I have a youtube account that is not associated with my real name/G+ account. Google forced a secondary G+ identity on me that exists as a Youtube channel under my main account. It allows me to keep them separated, but not have to deal with having 2 google accounts to do it.
-app103 (November 07, 2013, 01:30 PM)

so do you have two G+ accounts with one gmail account?
That sounds like a good solution - I suspect it wont be offered to those who have no prior G+ account though...

Is this just about commenting?
-dr_andus (November 07, 2013, 01:22 PM)

so far anyway.
Re deleting accounts - you can delete your youtube account. It may be more difficult to create a (new) YT account separate from any current gmail accounts - you might have to get creative :-)

Fred Nerd · « **Reply #5 on:** November 10, 2013, 04:49 AM »

So basically it's all moving towards everything being linked in. I'm just glad I guessed it would happen and have several fake identities that were created a long time ago.
Even now I have too much with my real name. I have changed it on Facebook but I know it remembers it. It told me I could only change it once more so make sure I put my real name in. Suffice to say I didn't.
It's not that I don't like everything tied together, it's just that if everyone does, it will get more and more enforced. If everyone kept creating false accounts, and untying everything, they wouldn't try to force it so much.

Not to mention the issue of identity theft.

And the whole attraction of the internet was so you could post anonymously. You can say honest things. Such as on this forum no-one knows me, so I could tell you things that happen locally, and report it exactly without worrying about offending anyone. If this was linked to FB or G+, this would be posted there and someone could take offence.
I want to be allowed to post that I think shooting kangaroos is a good idea without losing my friends who disagree.

If we let things link, we'll get a lot of yes people, or a lot of fashionable haters.

nosh · « **Reply #6 on:** November 12, 2013, 08:19 AM »

This guy makes a pretty valid rant about the Google+ - Youtube clusterfuck.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #7 on:** November 12, 2013, 09:22 AM »

I don't mind needing a G+ account to comment, since I rarely ever comment on youtube.

But what I do mind is how when I share a video on G+, or comment on a video on G+, all the comments from the videos will now appear on Youtube. And this is retroactive. And it also means that if anyone replies to a G+ imported comment thread on Youtube, it will now appear on the original thread on G+.

Be really careful what videos you share on G+. If the quality of the comments are poor on Youtube, or there is a whole lot of trolling and flaming going on, you can now expect that type of comments to spread to your G+ like a disease.
...
I have a youtube account that is not associated with my real name/G+ account. Google forced a secondary G+ identity on me that exists as a Youtube channel under my main account. It allows me to keep them separated, but not have to deal with having 2 google accounts to do it.
-app103 (November 07, 2013, 01:30 PM)

Yeah that's REALLY unfortunate because except for some misc thing I never comment on YouTube. But G+ (why did we get addicted to +1?) was supposed to be the "Geek's Facebook" ... with a higher standard of user! So with sneaky changes like this, it's mashing basement dirt YouTube comments with what might be carefully curated G+ account! And mess up one little feature, or some strange click box, and Boom! You just wrecked your G+ account!

Facebook has their own evils, but I don't know of anything comparable on their side that can cause that much damage! (Instagram maybe?)

40hz · « **Reply #8 on:** November 12, 2013, 12:03 PM »

I suppose it's easier to insist on a G+ account when you own the service requiring it.

Feedly, that popular alternative for the now defunct GoogleReader service, tried to do the same recently - and got their collective butt handed back to them by their subscribers.

Feedly has since reversed course and admitted it was a mistake.

More on that GoogleReader[/i]]here and here.

tomos · « **Reply #9 on:** November 12, 2013, 03:17 PM »

This guy makes a pretty valid rant about the Google+ - Youtube clusterfuck.
-nosh (November 12, 2013, 08:19 AM)

wow, I didnt realise that things are *that* bad.
I didnt understand why weird comments were top of the list - if you go to that video on YT, someone did a test where they replied 500 times to a post complaining about the new sorting system. Oh, cant see it any more - the video has gone viral folks. Including swastikas and god knows what else in the comments.
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=jQjocZXHOg4

The marriage of Google+ and YouTube is in big trouble by the looks of it ....

mouser · « **Reply #10 on:** November 12, 2013, 09:18 PM »

Google is all about shoving it's stuff down our throats and doing whatever they have to do to lock everyone into their products. They use sneakier tactics than others, but the intent seems clear -- buy and get your tentacles into enough stuff and slowly make it impossible to use the internet without being dependent on google technology.

NSWF (language):

Note:

I don't have particular complaints about any one specific google product or decision. I just think when you put it all together what you see is a smarmy, greedy company whose goal is to get their grubby hands into everything and push out all competitors, and then worry about how to take advantage of us (or inundate us with advertisements) once we're locked in and the competition is killed.

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record -- but it wouldn't be so upsetting if a company came in and said: "ok here is our service, and here is how we're going to pay for it" but instead what we see, over and over again is a big company like google comes in, kills all the competition and establishes a monopoly by offering a free service with no advertisements.

Then after they capture the marketplace and spend a few years happily losing money and killing off the competitors who don't have as deep bank accounts, then they turn on the ads and start changing the terms of service, and using one service as a platform to push their other services.

And the worst thing about all this is that these companies make it virtually impossible for any small companies to compete with them -- it's a winner take all world and without the bankrole to bleed millions a year for a decade, you have no chance.

IainB · « **Reply #11 on:** November 12, 2013, 11:42 PM »

This guy makes a pretty valid rant about the Google+ - Youtube clusterfuck.
____________________
-nosh (November 12, 2013, 08:19 AM)
wow, I didnt realise that things are *that* bad.
I didnt understand why weird comments were top of the list - if you go to that video on YT, someone did a test where they replied 500 times to a post complaining about the new sorting system. Oh, cant see it any more - the video has gone viral folks. Including swastikas and god knows what else in the comments.
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=jQjocZXHOg4
The marriage of Google+ and YouTube is in big trouble by the looks of it ....
____________________
-tomos (November 12, 2013, 03:17 PM)

Amazing, I had been trying to avoid the almost coercive push by Google to get me registered on g+, but now I'm on it. It became impossible to avoid unless I shut down my google account.
Because I rarely use YouTube except to download/watch the odd video, I had not realised that it had become an apparently monumental clusterfark - as suggested by boogie2988 (the fat guy with the beard in a post above) and SONSofLIBERTYIII (the "Hot Girl" singing with the ukulele in the above post).

I can see why @mouser has the opinion that he does ^^ about Google, and I suspect he's probably right in what he says, but I would give Google some credit for introducing quite a lot of disruptive technology that has changed the landscape of the Internet in several novel and beneficial ways.
Google have at least tried to create or acquire some entirely new things - for example, Google Desktop Search, Picasa, Google Reader, Google Docs (was Writely) and WAVE - and by releasing lots/most (all?) of their stuff as "Beta" and with lots of hype, were able to mobilise large numbers of Internet users to put their prototypes through the hoops. Of course, this means that when people like boogie2988 complain and ask Google to "fix" the YouTube clusterfark, it doesn't really matter, because boogie2988 is not a paying customer - he's one of Google's millions of unpaid resources.
The real customers are presumably the advertisers and others who directly pay Google for their services. The market in which they play is one of Google's creation and it is ubiquitous, though I am unsure as to whether it is a "monopoly" per se (by strict definition).

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #12 on:** November 14, 2013, 04:15 PM »

a big company like google comes in, kills all the competition and establishes a monopoly by offering a free service with no advertisements.
-mouser (November 12, 2013, 09:18 PM)

I don't see how you get to this. Google achieved dominance by having search results that were incredibly better than its competition at the time (Yahoo, Alta Vista, etc.). And back in those days, much of the web had no advertising, as the companies were trying to establish mindshare first.

I also don't see how you can claim that Google is a monopoly in any of the services it performs. For search there's Bing and numerous smaller players; for video there's Vimeo and others; for email there's Outlook.com and too many others to even think about; for social networking, they're playing second fiddle at best; and so on.

So where you're using Google, it's because, in one way or another, you believe they've got a superior product.

tomos · « **Reply #13 on:** November 14, 2013, 05:01 PM »

^ pretty much agree there.

So where you're using Google, it's because, in one way or another, you believe they've got a superior product.
-CWuestefeld (November 14, 2013, 04:15 PM)

I think that would be generally true of the type of people who come here.
I dont use their search much any more myself, I find others superior.
I've been bribed to the tune of 15GB to use their email and am happy enough to allow that. That *used* to be a superior offer at any rate :-)

As for YouTube:
the problem for both google and the people who use YouTube, is this sudden deterioration - i.e. it's no longer superior. I dont know was it ever superior - is it not a bit like FB in that: everyone goes there simply because everyone goes there (?)
(I dont actually know the history of YT.)

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #14 on:** November 14, 2013, 06:16 PM »

NSWF (language):

-mouser (November 12, 2013, 09:18 PM)

Bummer...comments and ratings have been disabled for that video ... Guess Google isn't listening through the right hole..

Good voice, can carry a tune, kinda cute ... She should do more videos (hehe).

tomos · « **Reply #15 on:** November 14, 2013, 06:30 PM »

Here's the original - with comments still enabled, and a few more views than the other one ;-)
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=LTq8TrA3hb4

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #16 on:** November 14, 2013, 06:54 PM »

Here's the original - with comments still enabled, and a few more views than the other one ;-)
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=LTq8TrA3hb4
-tomos (November 14, 2013, 06:30 PM)

Thanks tomos!

IainB · « **Reply #17 on:** November 14, 2013, 07:49 PM »

...So where you're using Google, it's because, in one way or another, you believe they've got a superior product.
______________________
-CWuestefeld (November 14, 2013, 04:15 PM)

I'm not sure that's necessarily a true/provable statement - e.g., in my case, it wouldn't be.
It's presumably based on the assumption of consumer choice and ease of switchability.
However, there are likely to be cases where, at the time one started using a Google product/service, Google might have been the only provider of such a product/service of its type, so there would have been no option/alternative - until maybe later, that is. If that is what happened, then one might currently be stuck using said Google product/service - e.g., waiting to migrate to some better option that might be currently available but which one feels one cannot access due to lock-in or time/effort invested in the said Google product/service.
Banks, which are always p#ssing off their customers by milking them through the use of usury and of extortionate practices, have a whole marketing strategy that relies on this - it's called "customer inertia"; "The devil you know" for example.

There's a thing called "Brand Loyalty" that they teach in Marketing 101. It's a combination of two concepts:
(a) "Brand".
(b) emotional bias/loyalty/attachment to a specific brand.

I would suggest that Google could have managed to offend/p#ss off so many users by now (especially post SnowdenGate) that there could probably be minimal or no brand loyalty amongst the greater majority of them.
The product/service might be regarded/used as just a utility now, and there are others/alternatives out there - and utilities don't engender brand loyalty.
Microsoft arguably led the way in this offending - e.g., I wonder how many people recall that admitting to having a "hotmail" address could often be something of a social embarrassment? No wonder the "hotmail" brand has been quietly expunged. A lot, if not most people would probably have regarded it with distaste at one time or another and probably would not have touched it with a bargepole.

wraith808 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 14, 2013, 08:37 PM »

So where you're using Google, it's because, in one way or another, you believe they've got a superior product.
-CWuestefeld (November 14, 2013, 04:15 PM)

Wrong answer.

At one time gmail was superior. Now, not so much. But when all of your data is with a service, it's hard to change. Especially when its compatible with work, because they've bought into the google platform. Youtube? It wasn't google... now it is. Same with several other services.

Basically, google has done a lot of what Microsoft did. They were just more subtle and were able to ride the anti-microsoft side of the wave.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #19 on:** November 14, 2013, 10:49 PM »

-wraith808 (November 14, 2013, 08:37 PM)

At one time gmail was superior. Now, not so much.
...
[/quote]

Going all Weakest Link here...

"Is gmail superior? Maybe not. But it's the Votes that count"

That's the devastating news of 2014.

I've been using Yahoo Mail for a decade. Sure, it's had a couple hacks. But as an Anti-Google thing for a decade, not bad for a "newbie"! I won't discuss any superiority of anything. It's terrible. Only LAST WEEK did Melissa Mayer (new head of Yahoo) roll out the first new changes in three years. But it's Not-Google.

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #20 on:** November 15, 2013, 01:12 PM »

At one time gmail was superior. Now, not so much. But when all of your data is with a service, it's hard to change.
-wraith808 (November 14, 2013, 08:37 PM)

That's part of the point. It may not be superior in the list of features it supports, or in the responsiveness of its UI, or things like that. But taken as a package, the total product they offer, is demonstrably better than others. We know this is true, because if it weren't, you would have switched.

Apparently for you (and for most of us), the convenience of having our old emails in there is a compelling feature.

(And from a technical perspective, it is possible to download all of your email history from Gmail. You could, if this need was greater than your disdain for other parts of the service, do this. But apparently your disdain is less than the convenience factor derived from not having to go to the trouble.)

wraith808 · « **Reply #21 on:** November 15, 2013, 01:43 PM »

At one time gmail was superior. Now, not so much. But when all of your data is with a service, it's hard to change.
-wraith808 (November 14, 2013, 08:37 PM)

That's part of the point. It may not be superior in the list of features it supports, or in the responsiveness of its UI, or things like that. But taken as a package, the total product they offer, is demonstrably better than others. We know this is true, because if it weren't, you would have switched.

Apparently for you (and for most of us), the convenience of having our old emails in there is a compelling feature.

(And from a technical perspective, it is possible to download all of your email history from Gmail. You could, if this need was greater than your disdain for other parts of the service, do this. But apparently your disdain is less than the convenience factor derived from not having to go to the trouble.)
-CWuestefeld (November 15, 2013, 01:12 PM)

Historical use is not demonstrative of superior ability. If such indicators were indicators of anything other than a placid userbase or historical entrenchment, then IE has been the superior browser for YEARS.

You're conflating superior attributes with a lack of a willingness to do anything else.

CWuestefeld · « **Reply #22 on:** November 15, 2013, 02:10 PM »

No, wraith. You're just insisting that the only things that should be considered are technical specifications, and I'm trying to point out that the quality of a product encompasses the entire user experience.

Consider that many people are willing to spend $1000+ on a purse, just because it has a certain name on it. There is no objective measure that makes it better - it's not more versatile, more durable, more comfortable to carry. It just confers on the owner a certain status. Just that cachet of status is a feature of the product that people consider when deciding which product to use.

Similarly, the convenience in the ability to keep a repository of historical email is a factor when deciding to keep using gmail or change to, say, Outlook.com. The fact that Google has seen fit to hold onto your email for you is a benefit of their product. And that benefit is tipping the scales, making it so that all things considered, you want to keep using Google. For your needs, using it is superior to using an alternative.

And if Outlook.com, etc., were smart, they'd make it easy for you to upload the repository that it's possible for you to download from gmail.

wraith808 · « **Reply #23 on:** November 15, 2013, 03:11 PM »

The fact that you have used something before is emphatically not a feature of the software. It is a consideration in your choice to move, but it is not a feature that would indicate quality of the software or features thereof. This is one of the things that people complain about when they talk about cloud solutions- the ability to port those solutions to other platforms and the ownership of data.

Countercase 1:
One reason that Microsoft Office has become the defacto standard is not because of anything that is a feature that is qualitative in the software. It is because of a historical monopoly in that arena, and the fact that others utilize it- so interoperability between itself and others that use that software. Is that a feature of Microsoft Office?

Countercase 2:
Google reader. Many people used google reader as an aggregator, if not the interface, because of the fact that Google was a large player, and able to aggregate from different sources. When google reader died, so did a lot of RSS readers that had nothing to do with Google other than they used its API. Their software was built around an infrastructure that was not their own, so collapsed when that lynchpin was removed. This is because Google Reader was not a feature of the software, but rather a dependency.

Gmail is not superior to other alternatives. And I know this. My laziness in moving to something else has nothing to do with Google as a platform, but rather my own choices not to be proactive on that front. That is not a feature of gmail, and therefore has nothing to do with its superiority as a platform.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #24 on:** November 15, 2013, 04:54 PM »

And if Outlook.com, etc., were smart, they'd make it easy for you to upload the repository that it's possible for you to download from gmail.
-CWuestefeld (November 15, 2013, 02:10 PM)

If by Outlook.com you mean the hosted Exchange, then yes they have many rather exceptional import options.