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Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

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181–190 of 282 posts

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#181

In addition to what other people have said: Googlers love Google Plus. I haven't met a Googler (and, I know many) that doesn't love it. After all, for them, it's not a barren wasteland. They have a very active network (coworkers/friends). I don't think this answers your question, however most Googlers like G+.

Many hated it and left the company because of it.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#182

I don't get what all the fuss is all about. Why would you want to hide your identity unless you are writing something crappy or being a troll on Youtube or Play Store. A single sign-on service is a great decision and that't the way things should be when you have multiple services from same company. You guys don't mind using all services like Spotify, Quora etc that are so closely tied up with Facebook login. But when…

Try thinking this through. If necessary try to imagine what it's like in others' shoes. Please try to grant this the critical evaluation it deserves.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#183
I guess the real reason could be that they try to sell ads on YouTube to advertisers with a competitive rate (compared to popular episodes) because they now can reach the targeted audience directly. The integration is somehow a "solid" evidence to advertisers.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#184
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the difference? All they are doing is giving you a different way of accessing them. It's the same bloody company! It's not like they've created and passed the photos on to someone else, they're just in a bucket with "picasa" written on it.

The difference is that the user never knew anything about the Picassa service. It should be their decision (not Google's) to add photo attachments to Picassa. It is unsettling to find your photo attachments in email (which most people consider private) suddenly placed in a photo app you've never accessed or may never have even heard of. The feature might be fine if you ask users for their permission. Doing it silentl…

> Google needs to make it much clearer that signing up to a Google account gives you access to all Google services.

Perhaps this comes from different expectations. When I signed up with google this is exactly what I expected, to have access to every service they offered at that time and all future services.

> (i.e. don't create an empty Google+ site for me unless I opt-in to using that service).

This one I can see more (although I'm not sure quite what happens here, I'd need to create a new account and have a look).

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#185
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's equally silly to force users who'd established and clearly indicated they wished to maintain separate accounts for separate services, to integrate these. Doing so where the user had clearly indicated they didn't wish that to happen was even worse. Forcing users to not be able to independently toggle whether or not services were enabled for an account is another. I neither want my pseudonymous G+ account ("Edward…

> It's equally silly to force users who'd established and clearly indicated they wished to maintain separate accounts for separate services, to integrate these. [...] > I neither want my pseudonymous G+ account ("Edward Morbius") nor my personal Gmail account(s) (unspecified) to have any association with YouTube. I disagree: in principle , making services and identities orthogonal is clearly the right thing to do. Ha…

If Google wanted to offer combined accounts going forward, that would be fine by me. Though I'd also prefer the option of disaggregated accounts, and of disabling specific services on accounts.

If they wanted to offer the option of merging existing accounts for which there was an underlying connection, that would also be fine. Though I'd really prefer they not do it with interstitials.

Merging identities in express violation of stated intent, or simply not offering the option to decline, is simply wrong, and will inevitably turn into a major PR disaster, as this is.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#186
post #14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turn on showdead then scroll down to the bottom.

I see, I've heard Vic is notorious for forcing his own products. But if it's truly an issue, why does Larry allow Vic to exercise so much control? It sounds like the entire executive staff is to blame.

Vivek is from India. Vic is his American name. Just sayin'.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#187
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? It's the same sodding data, passed to the same company, how does merging two accounts that they already know are linked change anything? Also, you can search without logging in, and sign up for as many different email accounts as you want. Are you honestly saying that google asking you to make a G+ account is a serious problem for activists?

I take it you missed this: https://plus.google.com/u/0/115668950429167517685/posts/hTe4...

I'm entirely confused by this. I have my G+ account linked with youtube. Just now I unlinked them, and changed the visible name from one that was obviously mine to a more anonymous name and posted a comment with absolutely no issue.

No picture, no name, no link to me. And this is from after linking the accounts and then unlinking them (which took under a minute to do and was pretty easy to find).

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#188
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think it's a first-world problem, ask yourself what the situation in a third-world or repressive government would be where all search and email traffic would be individually assignable and identifiable as it passed through the national firewall and surveillance systems.

What? It's the same sodding data, passed to the same company, how does merging two accounts that they already know are linked change anything? Also, you can search without logging in, and sign up for as many different email accounts as you want. Are you honestly saying that google asking you to make a G+ account is a serious problem for activists?

The accounts weren't "already linked". They shared some metadata. I was asked if I wanted to link them. I responded "no". Multiple times.

Persisting when someone says "no" is at best, disrespect, at worst abuse and, in the right contexts, rape.

Oh, did I mention I'd organized an ad-hoc anti-harassment policy discussion on G+ at the suggestion of Yonatan Zunger? Irony, it's got an enduring entertainment value.

Oddly enough, I was fine with a G+ account, in fact, that's pretty much the only part of Google I'd been using any more. The YouTube account was just to access videos, and I'd pretty much gotten used to purging its history regularly.

The actual harm to me? Pretty little. Both accounts were pseudonymous. For other people, not nearly so little.

And the message on Google's respect for its users and trustworthiness? Loud and clear: nil and nil.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#189
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's equally silly to force users who'd established and clearly indicated they wished to maintain separate accounts for separate services, to integrate these. [...] > I neither want my pseudonymous G+ account ("Edward Morbius") nor my personal Gmail account(s) (unspecified) to have any association with YouTube. I disagree: in principle , making services and identities orthogonal is clearly the right thing to do. Ha…

If Google wanted to offer combined accounts going forward, that would be fine by me. Though I'd also prefer the option of disaggregated accounts, and of disabling specific services on accounts. If they wanted to offer the option of merging existing accounts for which there was an underlying connection, that would also be fine. Though I'd really prefer they not do it with interstitials. Merging identities in express v…

No argument from me there, except that I think we'll have to see how big and consequential the PR fallout really turns out to be.

Re: Ask HN: Google employees, why is G+ more important than your users?

#190
post #24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite the opposite for me. I've started moving my stuff off of Google as this was one of the last straws in my book. I'd already switched to using DDG and Startpage for my searches and am currently in the process of moving my Google apps email to my own server. When that's done I plan on deleting my Youtube and Google accounts. This latest Google+ push has made me realize just how far Google is willing to go to…

You are not a target user for google products and services, thats why they are not too worried about how you or users like you feel about it. See also: Facebook. A lot of noise was made about facebook privacy (inside the HN and other tech eco chambers) and a lot of noise was made about people quitting facebook because of privacy. But in reality probably only .00000001% of facebook users probably quit because of priva…

Except Facebook is losing users in developed economies now. The recent talk has been about them milking the property for short term profitability, because they know it's doomed in the long term.

Anecdata: I know that a LOT of my friends have quit Facebook (or just stopped visiting) over privacy concerns and dissatisfaction with the UX.

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