Using Google without a Google+ profile • Hacker News Board

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#101

Post by ljk » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #97

marbletiles wrote: post #5

It's incredible how lightly they have thrown away the Google+ Account For Everything stance given how merciless they were in imposing it at the time. The wails from YouTube in particular have only just died down. Kudos to them, but a lot of pain could have been avoided if they did all this listening back then, instead of waiting until their thing was clearly dead.

I'm not sure. Admitted, I'm not a fan of Google and maybe a bit grumpy, but I read this blog entry as "Now everyone will need a G+ account, but it won't have a public profile". That said, the distinction between Google account G+ Account Google Profile is lost on me, I'm genuinely confused about the past and present state of these things. It feels like "G+ Accounts" are supposed to be the new "Google Accounts"? Like…

yeah.. kind of feels like they forced something so outrageous and now backed up a little and everyone's high-fiving each other...

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#102

Post by greggman » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 6:53 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

marbletiles wrote: post #5

It's incredible how lightly they have thrown away the Google+ Account For Everything stance given how merciless they were in imposing it at the time. The wails from YouTube in particular have only just died down. Kudos to them, but a lot of pain could have been avoided if they did all this listening back then, instead of waiting until their thing was clearly dead.

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…

You might be right but Facebook succeeded dispite the exact same real name policy. It's hard to look at Facebook's success with that policy and then claim it was obvious google would fail with it. The better question is why did Facebook get away with it?

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#103

Post by rayalez » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

I actually love g+ and was always rooting for it. Too bad it received so much hate for youtube commenting system and mandatory accounts and such. I always hoped people will turn around and switch to g+ - functionality and interface are so much nicer than in fb.

I hate facebook and can't use it, but g+ is really nice, and has all the best features of fb/twitter/tumblr. I'm still rooting for it.

This sounds like a sensible decision though.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#104

Post by ldng » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #45

netrus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are you from Europe, out of curiosity? Anecdotally that seems to be way more common there than in the U.S., for some reason.

I think we European might care a bit more about our privacy. Just a bit, not that much more, but a bit. That way you're less "discoverable" by a complete stranger. I guess it's cultural. And I'm pretty sure that if FB tried to enforce real name in Europe they would loose quite a lot of accounts.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#105

Post by osconfused » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 6:59 PM UTC

greggman wrote: post #102

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…

You might be right but Facebook succeeded dispite the exact same real name policy. It's hard to look at Facebook's success with that policy and then claim it was obvious google would fail with it. The better question is why did Facebook get away with it?

IMO. The problem for Google with real names was people who didn't want to be associated with their real names and already were deeply dependent on Google for the their phone / email. I recall the transgender outing articles [1]. Regardless of whether is was user error or not, it highlights that Google had a different hill to climb than Facebook regarding real name policies.

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-outed-me/

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#106

Post by lmm » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 7:01 PM UTC

alwaysdoit wrote: post #77

exodust wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it's frustrating. Youtube comments really are hopelessly broken. Re-shares are not good reading. They are written by users for their followers, not for the people on the actual video page. As you said, they have zero value. When I first noticed this way back when Google started publishing re-share comments under the videos, I would reply to those comments with remarks such as "I already knew that; yes I know wha…

To be fair, it's not like YouTube comments were ever working well.

They were never great but they were better before.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#107

Post by lmm » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

greggman wrote: post #102

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…

You might be right but Facebook succeeded dispite the exact same real name policy. It's hard to look at Facebook's success with that policy and then claim it was obvious google would fail with it. The better question is why did Facebook get away with it?

That wasn't Facebook's policy. Facebook removed fake name accounts when users complained, but "The Friendly Monster" was around my university for a good six months, and a friend with a less obvious fake name has kept her account to this day. Google+ aggressively and preemptively went after fake names, and even caught some real names by mistake.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#108

Post by a3n » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

I'm not even sure I have a G+ profile, things were so confusing during the Name Wars (at which point I all but abaonded my G+).

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#109

Post by balladeer » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 7:05 PM UTC

It was with such extreme frustration that I had deleted everything on my Google+ profile after trying for 30 minutes to get the G+ URL of either , or my , , or . I stopped using it, made everything private - what I couldn't remove (at that time).

All were available.

Close to 2, or at least more than 1 year later - all those URLs are still available.

But no, Google still thinks I must add a digit or two to that URL. I had forgotten that I have a G+ profile. I don't know anyone who uses this. I mean I don't know about others but why would I even want to use such a tool that is this effed up. While some might defend or even be kinder to G+ (well...) but I personally just can't accept a service this broken.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#110

Post by lmm » Mon, Jul 27, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #69

eevilspock wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is them finally admitting they were being evil. They put their empire and monopoly ambitions (defeat Facebook and dominate social networking as they do search and ads) ahead of the actual interests of their users.

I see this as them admitting "hey, we tried to bring our users we thought was something really great, as it turns out, they didn't agree with us so much, so now we're not going to do that anymore."

I think Google were smart enough to know users would hate it. They just underestimated quite how much.