Google is starting to collapse under its own weight, as all behemoths eventually do.
Nonplussed
21–30 of 250 posts
Re: Nonplussed
#22I am mostly for the ostensible cleaning up of YouTube comments, but what got me was that any time you share a YouTube video on Google+ proper or comment in a thread where someone shared a YouTube video, it automatically cross-posts what you said back to the comments underneath the video on YouTube. And that's not just for shares/comments going forward: it's everything you've ever shared publicly, ever. I'm now getting inane YouTube-level comments on stuff I shared months ago because I happened to share a popular YouTube video on Google+.
As part of the rare breed of people actually using Google+ proper, it's really turned me off from the whole thing. Even though I shared YouTube videos publicly and commented on publicly-viewable Google+ posts with YouTube videos, I intended to only post my comments and shares on Google+, not syndicated everywhere at a later date without additional consent[1] and especially not the cesspool that is the YouTube comment section. I don't really understand why anyone thought that'd be okay. And anecdote isn't data, but talking to other Google+ users I know, nobody seemed to be aware that this was going to happen: they all just thought the identities would be merged, but if you post on Google+, it'd stay on Google+.
[1]: I'm aware that there's probably some clause in their privacy policy that gave them the legal ability to do this, but Google is usually pretty decent when it comes to informing of changes to privacy/visibility options.
Re: Nonplussed
#23I'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 i…
How has this solved the problem? My youtube account is still attached to a throwaway Gmail account. So what if it's now also attached to a throwaway G+ account that I never use?
Re: Nonplussed
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where is the proof that "real names = better quality." That argument gets paraded everywhere but I've yet to see an actual study or proof of this.
So does that mean Google should not even experiment with the idea, just because nobody else has published data about it yet? Why does there need to be "proof"? It is Google's choice, just like it is your choice to use Google products.
I'm not saying they shouldn't "experiment" - experiment all they want.
It's when they parade out the idea that "real names = better quality" as the reason for a change - without citing it. Especially since it's such a cross-product change that effects literally every single one of their products.
Re: Nonplussed
#25I 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+.
No, but Buzz was a horrible metadata leak. It's not like there's a guarantee no data will ever leak.
Re: Nonplussed
#26I 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 am a 22 year old kid and I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. It even happens with snap chats actually, because of the apps that allow you to save a snap. I am noticing however that there seems to be a strong correlation between household income and internet behavior. My wealthier friends all have pristine online images, while the poorer ones tend to share more.
Re: Nonplussed
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
I'm honestly not sure how your email address would be leaked, vanity URLs are name-based and at least one of the reasons Plus uses ID strings was in order to prevent leaking any account details through the URL. I'm sorry that other people are figuring it out, that sucks. If you remember what happened and think that G+ has had a hand in the leakage, please feel free to ping me (my URL is in my profile) and I'll try to…
> If you remember what happened and think that G+ has had a hand in the leakage, please feel free to ping me (my URL is in my profile) and I'll try to follow it up
Thanks for the offer - I really appreciate it. I think it had something to do with group contacts in Gmail, but I can't remember. If I have some time today I might take a look.
To clarify: I'm not exactly mad at Google in this case, because I'm a developer and I know how tricky it can be to get these things right even in small, standalone products[0]. And unlike some people on HackerNews, I don't think this is a result of bad intentions. It's just that, every time I see something like this happen (beagle3 points out the example of Buzz below), I can't help but notice that users' trust is both fragile (easily broken) and unforgiving (no benefit of the doubt).
These things are tough to get right, but they're very critical for the long-term success of a product.
[0] Also, the consequences for me happened to be pretty mild, thankfully.
Re: Nonplussed
#28[deleted]
Re: Nonplussed
#29I 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…
I though the option of using "G+ page" instead of your G+ profile name was there to preserve the Youtube pseudonyms.
Re: Nonplussed
#30Experiences like this led me to leave Facebook, then LinkedIn, a while ago. I haven't deleted my Google+ account only because laziness and fear of an experience like the article's author prevent me from going to the site. People describe leaving as trendy, as if leaving had something to do with other people as opposed to the sites' own repellent behavior. For me leaving was easy and fun -- http://joshuaspodek.com/lea…
Facebook was already doing a good job driving its own users away.
All Google had to do was go under the Facebook tree, and pick up dropped users off the ground. It really didn't need to go climbing up the tree to pick them off the branches.
As they're climbing the ladder, their own users are falling out of the baskets.
Corny analogy aside, they're not even doing a good job integrating mail, youtube, google, google+. I can't count the number of times I meant to click "Settings" for youtube, and ended up going to either Google+ or Google setting.