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Using Google without a Google+ profile

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Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#31

Post by throwaway16384 »

chc wrote: post #17
msandford wrote: post #9

Google's new motto: "Don't be evil, but only after trying really hard to be so, and then grudgingly accepting that perhaps your users have alternatives that they might avail themselves of, and capitulate" It's not as catchy, but perhaps a little more honest.

Your system of morality has an astonishingly low bar for "evil" if "requiring a Google+ account for access to a service" qualifies. I don't think something that harmless would go past "somewhat dickish" for most people. If that's evil, what's the word you use for people who kick puppies or otherwise cause harm to the world?

When you operate at Google scale, thinking about morality means trying to anticipate and aggregate the total effect of your actions. Requiring a unified publicly visible and "real name" discoverable identity associated with all (Google-owned) online activity can have huge chilling effects on significant demographics - generally not the demographics deciding these policies, building these systems, or even the most profitable advertising demographics - but large groups of people nonetheless.

Whether that qualifies as "evil" is semantics, but excusing it with a comparison to puppy kicking isn't valid. It's a fundamentally different kind of issue and requires a fundamentally different kind of reasoning.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#32

Post by netrus »

mkozlows wrote: post #29
bad_user wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nymwars is why Google+ lost, but they'll never admit it.

Facebook has, and has long had, a real name policy. If you want a reason why Facebook succeeded and G+ didn't, you'll need something that's actually different between them.

Less than half of my friends use their (full)real name at facebook

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#33

Post by TillE »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #13

A surprisingly large number of FOSS developers (though mostly Linux developers in particular) use G+ and post interesting status updates on it. That's the extent to which I care about it.

Also tabletop RPG people for some reason. It's a quick substitute for a blog, with better comment support than Tumblr.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#34

Post by function_seven »

chc wrote: post #17
msandford wrote: post #9

Google's new motto: "Don't be evil, but only after trying really hard to be so, and then grudgingly accepting that perhaps your users have alternatives that they might avail themselves of, and capitulate" It's not as catchy, but perhaps a little more honest.

Your system of morality has an astonishingly low bar for "evil" if "requiring a Google+ account for access to a service" qualifies. I don't think something that harmless would go past "somewhat dickish" for most people. If that's evil, what's the word you use for people who kick puppies or otherwise cause harm to the world?

The word "Evil" in Google's motto doesn't refer to puppy-kicking or kitten-drowning or armed robbery. It was a reaction to the typical bad behavior of corporations trying to squeeze another couple of points out of their profit margins in customer-hostile ways; to monopolies throwing that monopoly power around; to companies bundling crapware with their goods. Things like that.

Requiring a Google+ account probably still doesn't rise to those levels, but it's a lot closer.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#35

Post by bittercynic »

chc wrote: post #17
msandford wrote: post #9

Google's new motto: "Don't be evil, but only after trying really hard to be so, and then grudgingly accepting that perhaps your users have alternatives that they might avail themselves of, and capitulate" It's not as catchy, but perhaps a little more honest.

Your system of morality has an astonishingly low bar for "evil" if "requiring a Google+ account for access to a service" qualifies. I don't think something that harmless would go past "somewhat dickish" for most people. If that's evil, what's the word you use for people who kick puppies or otherwise cause harm to the world?

I think chc has a good point. The G+ debacle was greedy, annoying, and user-hostile, but _evil_? Really?

The launch of Buzz was definitely somewhere on the thoughtless-evil spectrum, though. A major breach of trust, at the very least.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#36

Post by JoshTriplett »

pachydermic wrote: post #23
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think the sticking point on most of it was the Real Name policy. Had they stopped the delusion from the outset that they could be a Facebook competitor and simply made Google+ a correlating landing page for your online persona, rather than your real identity, I think it would have worked. I wouldn't necessarily mind everyone knowing that AdmiralAsshat likes Black Sabbath music videos on Youtube, hangs out…

Eh I'm not sure about that. I think the real problem is that it was clunky and made people mess with something that they had no interest in using. It was a weirdly forcing move which reminded everyone how much power Google wields in this kind of user/company relationship. People are probably generally okay with how that works, but only if they aren't made painfully aware of it (kind of like DRM - just look at Steam f…

Right. If they'd made it an option to tie together all of your accounts and combine activity across everything, some people would love it and adopt it. But make it mandatory, and even some of the people who might otherwise like it will reject it just because they're being forced.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#37

Post by JoshTriplett »

mkozlows wrote: post #22
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think the sticking point on most of it was the Real Name policy. Had they stopped the delusion from the outset that they could be a Facebook competitor and simply made Google+ a correlating landing page for your online persona, rather than your real identity, I think it would have worked. I wouldn't necessarily mind everyone knowing that AdmiralAsshat likes Black Sabbath music videos on Youtube, hangs out…

G+ has not required a real name for a while now. The problem with a profile that spans unrelated services is that your persona on one shouldn't necessarily be tied to your persona on another; Google Accounts with different public-facing per-service personas are okay in a way that a single public-facing persona spanning all services isn't. But it's still an underlying single Google Account, so Google gets its unified…

> The problem with a profile that spans unrelated services is that your persona on one shouldn't necessarily be tied to your persona on another; Google Accounts with different public-facing per-service personas are okay in a way that a single public-facing persona spanning all services isn't.

G+ tried to solve this with Circles, but as far as I can tell, everything related to YouTube was assumed to be public on G+ because it was public on YouTube.

G+ integration with everything seems like a massive failure of the Geek Social Fallacies: http://plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html .

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#39

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

mkozlows wrote: post #29
bad_user wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nymwars is why Google+ lost, but they'll never admit it.

Facebook has, and has long had, a real name policy. If you want a reason why Facebook succeeded and G+ didn't, you'll need something that's actually different between them.

What you post on Facebook, however, is not visible to the public unless you explicitly make it so. There's a world of difference between what John Smith writes on his Facebook wall and is visible to only people whom John Smith has explicitly deemed to be friends of John Smith, vs. a public Youtube comment that was once authored by user LordofPants, but thanks to G+ real name policy is now known to the public world as John Smith.

Facebook was designed from the outset to be an online platform for your real-life friends. G+ should have been an online platform for your online friends, but then it mandated that all of your online friends must now need to know your real-life name.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#40

Post by cbr »

mkozlows wrote: post #29
bad_user wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nymwars is why Google+ lost, but they'll never admit it.

Facebook has, and has long had, a real name policy. If you want a reason why Facebook succeeded and G+ didn't, you'll need something that's actually different between them.

G+ actively enforced this policy in a way that made people angry. When FB does similar things [1][2] people are similarly upset, but when they were going through early adoption they didn't force this.

[1] http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/04/3676529/truth-be...

[2] https://www.facebook.com/chris.cox/posts/10101301777354543

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