Nonplussed
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Nonplussed
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Re: Nonplussed
#2I wonder how much engagement Google/Facebook/et. al. lose from people who are about to make a comment/post a status/etc., and then thing 'Hm, no - this is private now, but what about in a year when they automatically change my privacy settings without asking me?'
Put another way, imagine I am a teenager or college student who uses Facebook.
1. Start to upload a photo from my phone of me and my friends doing shots
2. Try to figure out how (on my phone!) to set privacy settings so that my younger brother (who is my Facebook friend) and my parents (who aren't, but use the Internet and sometimes Google my name) can't see it.
3. Remember that Facebook has a history of "expanding" privacy settings retroactively
4. Think "Ah, fuck it", and send a Snapchat to my friends instead.
In reality it's probably not that common right now, but hopefully that may increase in the future. You can only pull the rug out from under your users so many times before learn to walk along another path.
Re: Nonplussed
#3It’s not that I find Google or even Google+ itself bad. But the connections between the account, the Google+ profile, the Google profile, the various websites and contact lists
This is totally it for me. I have a few Google accounts (an 'original' one and two Apps For Your Domain ones for e-mail and work) and it seems Google has made Plus accounts for each and I have things spread around them all. I've seen stories where people tried to "merge" accounts and ended up losing access to their mail, etc.. so rocking the boat doesn't seem worth it to me.
I don't mind Google's (usually great) services but it's the binding together that makes me wary.
Re: Nonplussed
#4It’s not that I find Google or even Google+ itself bad. But the connections between the account, the Google+ profile, the Google profile, the various websites and contact lists This is totally it for me. I have a few Google accounts (an 'original' one and two Apps For Your Domain ones for e-mail and work) and it seems Google has made Plus accounts for each and I have things spread around them all. I've seen stories w…
How do we reconcile Google Only Hires Geniuses with their executional incompetence across multiple (dozens of?) products?
Is it a pride of ego fallacy? They think they are the best and they can do no wrong, so they just keep doing things without thinking results through?
Too many logical programmers trying to have input on end users/UI/UX decisions where visuals and emotions are more important?
Too many 24 year old bro managers running around trying to make a name for themselves by manipulating people in flashy ways instead of quietly making the world a better place?
Re: Nonplussed
#5I wonder how much engagement Google/Facebook/et. al. lose from people who are about to make a comment/post a status/etc., and then thing 'Hm, no - this is private now, but what about in a year when they automatically change my privacy settings without asking me?' Put another way, imagine I am a teenager or college student who uses Facebook. 1. Start to upload a photo from my phone of me and my friends doing shots 2.…
I don't really want to dive into this conversation in any real depth, but I do want to point out that Google+, with old features or new, has never violated the ACLs that users set. If you set something to private, it remains private forever.
To do otherwise would be corporate suicide.
Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not on G+.
Re: Nonplussed
#6I was going to use Google Code for hosting my projects, but, after this fiasco, I think I'll just use Github instead.
Hey, at least I'll get to use a DVCS. :P
In all honesty, though, while this won't hurt Google right now, it's going to come back and bite them in the rear end soon enough. If they keep making these kinds of changes, what's next? Having to sign in to Google+ to use Android? A Google+ feed on the Chrome OS deskop? Requirements for Google+ account with "Developer Privileges" to download Go?
Again, this doesn't matter much now, but it's going to hurt them later. It happens to the best of everyone: Microsoft. Apple. Google.
Re: Nonplussed
#7I'm probably in the minority here, but I'm all for this change, largely because of the crappy anonymous comments you see out there on YouTube, which was the point of this transition in the first place.
However, forcing Google+ onto people does have me wary as well. I don't mind using Google+, but it seems like Google's way to slowly worm their way into people using its social component. I admittedly am not sure why it affects me, but something about that does rub me the wrong way (although not enough to ditch using Google services). It's not quite insidious, but it does feel like it gives off the vibe that we are the product, even more than usual.
Re: Nonplussed
#8I was going to use Google Code for hosting my projects, but, after this fiasco, I think I'll just use Github instead. Hey, at least I'll get to use a DVCS. :P In all honesty, though, while this won't hurt Google right now, it's going to come back and bite them in the rear end soon enough. If they keep making these kinds of changes, what's next? Having to sign in to Google+ to use Android? A Google+ feed on the Chrome…
GitHub is better anyway :P
Re: Nonplussed
#9I may be mistaken, but I think the entire point of this recent change was to force people to use their real names and faces rather than commenting anonymously (due to the fact that youtube comment sections are typically the worst things ever), and if so it seems like google has actually achieved it's goal.
Now, whether it's a good decision to make it difficult/impossible to anonymously comment on youtube videos is an entirely separate discussion that I'm not taking a side on (yet), but I'd be interested in seeing a discussion about that here.
Re: Nonplussed
#10I wonder how much engagement Google/Facebook/et. al. lose from people who are about to make a comment/post a status/etc., and then thing 'Hm, no - this is private now, but what about in a year when they automatically change my privacy settings without asking me?' Put another way, imagine I am a teenager or college student who uses Facebook. 1. Start to upload a photo from my phone of me and my friends doing shots 2.…
I don't really want to dive into this conversation in any real depth, but I do want to point out that Google+, with old features or new, has never violated the ACLs that users set. If you set something to private, it remains private forever. To do otherwise would be corporate suicide. Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not on G+.
> I do want to point out that Google+, with old features or new, has never violated the ACLs that users set. If you set something to private, it remains private forever.
I know that, which is why I used the example of Facebook.
However, Google+ does make it incredibly easy to leak information that I would otherwise consider private accidentally.
For example, I can't use Google+ with my primary email address, as it's a Google+ account. However, because it's linked with my Gmail account (which does have a Google+ account), some people who have added me on Google+ have been able to figure out my Gmail address (which I haven't used for email purposes in years[0]).
I can imagine all the technical reasons for this, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels a bit wrong for a service to hand out my old email address (which I never give out anymore) to people I've met recently and who have added me on Google+ using my current email address.
Imagine your Google+ email address is something that you can't change, but don't really want people to see anymore - this isn't uncommon; it appeared in a New York Times piece just yesterday, in the context of college admissions[1]. Thankfully, my personal email address is much more tame than that student's, but that still doesn't mean I want anybody to know or use it nowadays.
Furthermore, it's incredibly easy to sign up "accidentally" to use Youtube with Google+ and your "real name" instead of continuing to use your pseudonym.
As for the distinction you point out - I know the difference, and you know the difference. But most users don't.
> To do otherwise would be corporate suicide.
Apparently not completely - Facebook's gotten away with it for years![2]
[0] This may have been fixed, since it was a while ago that I last noticed, but it was still the case for quite a while.
I would have to go through my inbox to remember the details of why this happened - I remember debugging and tracking it down. But the fact that it took that much effort to discover why my new acquaintances suddenly knew my old (personal) email address, and that I can't remember anymore, speaks volumes as to how easy it would be for a less savvy user to accidentally leak information that they wanted to keep private.
[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/business/they-loved-your-g...
[2] http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/ - this graph doesn't distinguish clearly between those which were automatically retroactive and those which weren't, but that's a topic that's been well-reported and is easy to search for.