I guess Google couldn't resist tapping into one of their only successful social media (Youtube) to promote G+.
This is a common sentiment, but doesn't simple platform pragmatism make it obvious why they want to merge disparate identities and systems? Why should YouTube have an island comment system given that it's a Google property? Of course the replacement should be ready for prime time (it sounds like some basic features are missing right now, such as channel owner moderation), but the eventual move to that is something that under virtually any situation anyone would recommend.
My Flickr account got turned into a Yahoo account. My Skype account is now a Live account or whatever. Of course these things come together, and I'm not quite sure why every narrative about things like this (not necessary your post) has to be "G+ needs to take on Facebook so this is how it's doing it", when the more obvious explanation of "Company homogenizes systems" fits so well.
Further one annoying aspect of this whole drama is that to demonstrate that there is a problem, people become the problem. It seems like the vast majority of abuse in YouTube land right now are people desperately trying to demonstrate that the Google+ migration was a mistake (e.g. copy pasting tanks an other inanities). This demonstrates that people resist change more than any fault in the new platform.
"Why should YouTube have an island comment system given that it's a Google property?"
That's a very Google-centric way of looking at it. From their point of view, merging everything may be a big convenience and make them more money through more detailed profiling of users.
But my end user point of view is the opposite. The fact that one company with a product I use bought another company with an unrelated product I use, because it happens to create efficiencies on a balance sheet, doesn't magically create a desire within me to use those products together.
I don't need some stupid cat video I clicked on and watched for 10 seconds affecting my searches and ads I see. My choice of what videos to watch is by default disjoint from my other online activities. If I want to share a video, I'll do it explicitly and don't need any integration to make that happen. Having my actions tracked across unrelated sites and reported to everyone I know, and a labyrinthine scheme of privacy settings I would need to constantly monitor to stay configured the way I want, just keeps me off social networks altogether and using adblock/ghostery everywhere.
That's a very Google-centric way of looking at it. From their point of view, merging everything may be a big convenience and make them more money through more detailed profiling of users.
It's a very every company ever way of looking at it -- if you have multiple systems that do largely the same thing, you take the better or more encompassing of the two (or three, etc) and let it win. This is 90% of the purpose of companies acquiring systems and companies.
As to tracking, do you think Google didn't already track you with complete accuracy and knowledge? I don't think this does anything at all to improve their profiling of you. Literally nothing. They probably have some hopes about engagement, but I would wager the primary motivation is simply rationalizing systems.
And let's be clear -- YouTube's comments before this debacle were a garbage dump of noise. They represented the most notorious, least signal manifestation of comments on the tubes. Now, apparently, distaste for Google+ is enough for people to black that out of their memory?
The problem with merging identities is that people don't want them to be merged.
I want a firewall that separates identities. The identity that I use to connect with my mom and in-laws should be separate from the one I use to post on tech forums. The identity where I share baby pics with my wife's friends should be separate from the identity where I comment on deathmetal videos. If Google requires them to be the same - I'd rather delete some of those identities and stay anonymous/logged-out, not merge them.
Wrong question: why shouldn't Google merge systems?
(as you say, there's no compelling reason for them not to)
Right question: Why did they release it in the current state, which is, I think it's fair to say, 1) a disaster and 2) technically rubbish for all the reasons in the OP.
You should be asking: Why, when building a cross-site system to leave comments, are their clever engineers ignoring the established discipline of spam protection, which they know how to use, and building a system optimized for social peer ranking, sharing cat videos and trolling?
Point. Google needed a good competitor to Disqus far more than they needed a competitor to Facebook. Sadly, Plus is obviously a better Facebook than it is a Disqus.
But either way, it makes the Real Names Only thing more obviously false: you're making a general-purpose reusable platform and not a specific social network of your own. It's a "Social Layer", right?
In that case, forcing the users to adhere to a real-names policy instead of providing an official supported path for anonymity or pseudonymity sticks out as trying to push your users into a pattern that they might not find a natural fit for them. And by "users" I don't mean the commenters, I mean the pages to which the comments are attached - if I want to allow anonymous/pseudonymous comments attached to my channel or page or whatever I have a Plus thread associated with, why doesn't Google support this?
Really the underlying problem here is that "Google+, the unified platform/identity system" has the same name as "Google+, the social network which lives at plus.google.com". People just blank out anything they do/say due to the assumptions which arise from conflating the two.
Let's say I have an anonymous pseudonym used on a number of other sites. I can now have it on Google+, with one big difference: it's no longer anonymous. Google will know who's using it because of their real name policy, and can then put two and two together across sites they don't own.
Anonymity means no-one knows who you are, not "no-one except Google."
You don't need a G+ Profile on your @gmail address to create G+ Page pseudonyms for Youtube. Your main address will continue to go plus-less, and other services which strictly require a Real Name/G+ profile (like Places/Play reviews) will continue to nag you to create one.
... I did not know that. Obviously, from my post above. Yay, I have a Plus page with a nickname! So, can I comment as Pxtl? Can I do that on Android play store reviews?
Additional point: Google's now chasing Facebook's stupidity--on Android. Facebook put out an idiotic failure of a launcher based on Facebook messaging. Well, now Google's following suit with an idiotic failure of a launcher called Google Experience Launcher on the Neuxs 5. Everyone's still crowing over it (because few people actually have it or have experienced it's uglyness), but it's truly atrocious.
Flickr doesn't make me use my real name. Nor does tumblr, nor does Skype. If Google wanted me to merge my YouTube and G+ accounts, and didn't try to force me to use my real name, I would have much less of an issue with it - indeed when other services merged identities, I didn't complain. But merging combined with real name policy is poison as far as I'm concerned.
Some of us belong to minorities that are actively discriminated against, legally and illegally. If services start forcing us to use our real names for discussion, we are opening ourselves up to potentially dangerous situations, all in the name of allowing Google to monetize us better. Wow, sounds like a great deal.
It's true but until now it doesn't seem that google have been in much of a hurry to merge Youtube into their platform, at least brand-wise. They've acquired the site in 2006, less than two years after it was created. Go to youtube.com and search for the mention of Google anywhere. Can you find it? I couldn't.
They could have merged Youtube and Google video early on but never did. They only gave an option to link your google and youtube accounts if memory serves. There's no link to youtube on the Google Search home page the way it has links to gmail and other services. It's always been an island so far so the fact that Google seems to have rushed a G+ integration into youtube says something IMO.
This is a common sentiment, but doesn't simple platform pragmatism make it obvious why they want to merge disparate identities and systems? Why should YouTube have an island comment system given that it's a Google property? Of course the replacement should be ready for prime time (it sounds like some basic features are missing right now, such as channel owner moderation), but the eventual move to that is something that under virtually any situation anyone would recommend.
My Flickr account got turned into a Yahoo account. My Skype account is now a Live account or whatever. Of course these things come together, and I'm not quite sure why every narrative about things like this (not necessary your post) has to be "G+ needs to take on Facebook so this is how it's doing it", when the more obvious explanation of "Company homogenizes systems" fits so well.
Further one annoying aspect of this whole drama is that to demonstrate that there is a problem, people become the problem. It seems like the vast majority of abuse in YouTube land right now are people desperately trying to demonstrate that the Google+ migration was a mistake (e.g. copy pasting tanks an other inanities). This demonstrates that people resist change more than any fault in the new platform.