Google bows to inevitable, stops forcing Google+ logins on YouTubers Google will get rid of any requirement to "use" its tumbleweed-tastic "social network" Google+ from YouTube and others of its popular websites, following mounting annoyance among users. This means people will no longer be forced to use the ghost-town social network: you'll be able to log into YouTube, and other Googley …
Go to
http://plus.google.com/downgrade
Click a check box and boom. Gone. Good riddance. Gmail continues to work as before.
For more detailed information:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-remove-google-your-gmail-account.htm
https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1044503?hl=en-GB
(Looks like this has been possible since at least June 15th)
couched in big warning language, eg
"YouTube
Deleting your Google+ profile will affect your channel XXXXXX. Learn more
If you delete your Google+ profile:
•Your comments and messages will be permanently deleted
•The following will be made private until you re-enable your channel:
◦Your channel name
◦Other people's subscriptions to your channel "
Not really clear if this affects comments made by you elsewhere on youtube.
I don't think that's been updated yet, as that's the same page you used to end up on before this announcement.
As you must have a G+ account to enable your youtube channel, I don't think the new stance has been fully implemented.
Probably worth waiting a bit to see what happens.
If you delete your Google+ profile:
* Your comments and messages will be permanently deleted
This only affects messages and comments that were made using G+. If you made any comments under the old YouTube regime, they stay put.
* The following will be made private until you re-enable your channel:
◦Your channel name
Bullshit. My channel is still alive and well and unlocked.
* Other people's subscriptions to your channel "
Also bullshit. The only possible reason that might happen is where a subscription has been made to your G+ account rather than the YouTube account itself. Basically, this message was an obfuscated scare tactic to keep you on G+.
I've been waiting for Google to pull this pile of crap out of YouTube for quite a few months now, ever since they first announced that they would be removing G+ from YouTube. The only thing they did at that point was to finally stop nagging you every few months but still locked off the comment and flag stuff unless you signed up.
And yes, I just tried it again and yes, it still nags at you.
Emma Blackery's thoughts on Google+ (NSFW) (dates back to the original change a couple of years back)
Interesting how everyone likes sticking the boot into G+ all the time.
I wonder how many of those have actually used it seriously for an extended period?
Personally I've been on there for almost 2 years, and I spend far more time on it that on facebook, or any other social media site come to think of it.
I have circles of friends and contacts on there who share my hobbies and interests. When I open G+ in the morning I invariably see a post that interests me, and I read it. try the same on facebook, and I'd have to wade past all the drama of whatever is bothering my sister-in-law now, and the adverts.
On mobile it's fast, and the app doesn't continually want to eat into what remaining privacy I have left (FB, I'm looking at you!). No invites to candy crush or other mind numbing farm games.
Spam, negligible, chain letters forwarded by brainless sheep, none in my feed (see previous comment regarding sister-in-law).
So if they really were trying to rip off FB and failed, I'm glad they failed. G+ is a better place for it.
I think that is the whole point : nobody did.
Not in any real numbers, that is. And most people did not like being forced to create an account to do the OTHER things they wanted to do.
Forcing people to do something always initiates a negative emotional reaction in people.
Google+ should have been entirely opt-in, with benefits to those who opted in as far as managing their other Google stuff is concerned, but zero consequence for those who did not opt-in. That way, Google would have attracted buzz and people who actually wanted to find out what it was and how it worked. The experience would have been positive.
Instead, Google ran roughshod over people's personal choice, basically blackmailing them into signing up, which ensured that most users were put off by the whole thing and never set foot in + land.
A lesson harshly learned, for sure, but deserved nonetheless.
"Forcing people to do something always initiates a negative emotional reaction in people."
Which is exactly why I never embraced it. That and Google's dismal track record in pulling the plug on useful services after people get used to using them. The loss of the iGoogle portal page with its neat little widgets, which had been my startup page for ages, convinced me never to let myself become reliant on Google services again.
I used it for 2 years as well. I had very little of note to say, so I made only about a dozen posts in those 2 years.
About the only reason I stayed is they didn't bitch about my name, unlike FB.
The mobile app might not eat your privacy, but I found it sure as hell ate my battery, even when not in use.
Who could have foreseen that forcing users to do something many say they do not want will not be popular with them. (also looking at you Win8 desktop)
Plus it if you ever find yourself coding a dialog that effectively says; I noticed you chose not to switch the last time you were asked but would you like to now. Then you might as well not bother after 3-5 time since the user has are their decision, either accept what they want or admit you are not joint to continue to do so, because after that repeatedly asking is not a service to them.
Larry Page likes killing other people's pet projects a lot more than his own, so Plus may hang around a long time.
This whole debacle was caused by his obstinate support for Plus in the face of poor design, obviously inadequate features, terrible launch numbers and even worse reactions to the various subsequent forced integration efforts. The entire company's bonuses were linked to its success for a while. Plus may well have been the first Google product ever to hide its usage figures from Google staff, which generally have broad access to corporate data.
People need to want to circle you. I would suggest the emptyness is not a symptom of the network, but a symptom of the user...
I find Google+ an incrediblly successful social network, there are no adverts, no spam, and the content and discussions there are relevant and interesting.
Classic quality over quantity. I'm glad its not full of Facebook plebs.
I class Google+ as the waitrose of supermarkets, and Facebook as the Asda.
Actually, I have to agree. I'm in now way an active user of G+, but when I do check it out, it is very low-key and uncluttered. I subscribe to the Raspberry Pi account, and all the posts are interesting. No JPEGs with schmaltzy quotes, bloody minion memes or pictures of kids from friends of friends cluttering the timeline.
Saying all that, though, I think it's definitely doomed.
"...its tumbleweed-tastic "social network" Google+..." with active user numbers close to those for those other dismal failures Skype, Instagram, Twitter and not very far behind LinkedIn.
"I class Google+ as the waitrose of supermarkets, and Facebook as the Asda."
With the associated jokes (or are they?) "I like Tesco because it keeps the riff-raff out of Waitrose" and "I like Waitrose because it keeps the snobs out of Sainsburys".
The bottom line is that G+ is for the grown-ups. Teenagers would class it as boring (along with just about everything else anyone over 30 appreciates), of course they're happier with the shallow trivia Facebook provides.
Have to disagree slightly - I seem to remember reading that teens are abandoning Facebook in droves, and a large proportion of active users of FB are women over 35 (I wish I could remember the source). I have amle friends who post stuff about retro games or tech stories, not a sausage; female friends post yet another minion meme or kid pic, likes and comments galore!
This post has been deleted by its author
People that didn't want to use Google plus but wanted to post on YouTube no longer have to create a Google plus profile that they weren't going to use..
How does this change anything for the millions of Google plus active users??? Answer, nothing has changed. People that weren't planning on using it still aren't, this that are will continue to do so .
It's not rocket science....
I think you missed the part where it was said that it will no longer be REQUIRED to have a G+ account in order to comment on YouTube, or do other googley stuff.
One day, long ago, I had an account on YouTube and I saw a vid that I really felt like responding to. Went to the comment section and got blocked by this Google+ nonsense. Never went back.
Now that I know that Google is going to be removing the forced G+ login, I just might feel like going back to my fav vids in YouTube and putting a comment on them. When they actually get around to relaxing that G+ requirement, that is.
"...One day, long ago, I had an account on YouTube and I saw a vid that I really felt like responding to. Went to the comment section and got blocked by this Google+ nonsense. Never went back...."
Think yourself lucky. Imagine the shame if you'd succeeded and ever after were known as a "YouTube commenter"
"But we’ve also heard that it doesn’t make sense for your Google+ profile to be your identity in all the other Google products you use."
That's an . . . interesting spin.
The implication being that the people complaining use and like Google+ but want to be able to use other Google sites (like youtube) through a separate, dedicated account. I.e. that the feedback from users is that Google+ is good but they don't want it to be used on youtube.
Unhappily for Google, a more honest statement would read:
"But we’ve also heard that it your don't want to be forced onto Google+ just to comment on Youtube videos."
Good riddance GOOGLE+. You forced yourself upon me like rapist. I hated you and wanted you dead. I began to intensely hate GOOGLE after GOOGLE+ was a mandatory requirement for YOUTUBE commenting. Then GOOGLE decided to force me to add in all of my email accounts to GOOGLE+. Then GOOGLE wanted me to share everything with a world of mostly strangers.
GOOGLE is good at search. GOOGLE is grossly incompetent in morality, social networking, and humility. I find FACEBOOK to be a Jewish MOSSAD spy network for perverts and idiots, and I don't want GOOGLE+ either.
"With this latest move, Google+ will now be put in a position to sink and swim once and for all. Without other services feeding users into its ranks, Google+ will have to establish itself as a social network in its own right."
It is time for Google+ to move into the niche it was created to fill. The social media platform for people whom post photos of what their cats are eating for dinner.
Which one of you left this tuna in my coat?
If that's what you're seeing, you must only be looking at the What's Hot feed.
Try following:
Winchell Chung
Buddhini Samarasinghe
David Brin
Charles Strebor (Rantz)
Peter Edenist
Ubuntu
Jon Masters
Zenoss
Arthur "TheAlchemyst" Gwynne
Jürgen Hubert
Thomas Baekdal
SpaceX
Neil deGrasse Tyson Fan Club
Electronic Frontier Foundation
European Commission
So when will they bring back Latitude? The only functionality of Google+ I use is that of Latitude that was ported into it.
I also see they have nicely broken the Maps Location History by bringing back the Dashboard view they killed off a while ago as Timeline but not keeping the Location History separate as was historically. So now when my phone decides to plot the location of a cell rather than a GPS or WiFi based fix, I can't remove it.
Genius.
Personally I don't see the issue of a One sing-on for those that wanted it.
I don't necessarily want to sing on with my real name to comment on youtube - not that I'm a troll, but if I'm being flippant or silly i don't want a label that might be the same as a more bespeckled comment on another site. I've managed to keep my old youtube name, by keeping aware enough to say 'no' when invariably asked if I 'want' to use my google+ profile.
Perhaps they should have allowed the setting of some sort of 'minor' or 'alternate' profile from the real-name one.
You're touching on a question I had at the time that I really didn't have a method of checking: did Google harass, stalk and lie to, you? There seems to be a component of anger missing from your post.
I have a montage of screen prints of Google pulling one stunt after another to trick, entice and steer me into dropping my original, pre-Google nick. It was so over the line, I half-wondered if I could obtain a Temparary Order of Anti-Harrassment against them. It spanned product lines to the point of them literally de-linking my two email accounts and linking a "suggested" nick/account to my primary email account. I suspected only users in the US were treated this way as other countries have laws on the books prohibiting these behaviors.
(on top of that was the flat-out lie about not being able to import or - at least statically link -your old comments to your new, G+ account. It was the same lie they burned the Orket users with.)
Google have a monetisation model that works for them, we may not like it but at least we have some idea what the deal involves. Most(?) other social networks are loss making and we have little idea what they'll do to fix that but what we do know (as with Google) is if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
The control you get over who sees what you post and what you see that others post is much better with G+ whereas some others are a phishers paradise.
I still think it would be fun to continue to badger Google about G+ until they turn it into something more worth while. Rather than get them to drop it, push them to keep making weird and wacky changes to it and trying to force people to use it or sneaking it on them or tricking them into using it.
The only question that nobody seems willing to answer is when. The news that G+ is going to be unbundled has been around the web for a couple of weeks now - I have never linked my YT account to G+ and after checking I found a couple of G+ accounts for me which I killed off but the site is still asking for me to set up a G+ account even now if I so much as touch any of the comment section beyond reading it (yeah, sometimes it's worth reading. Not very often, but...)
According to the help article titled "Your channel and Google+" here is the official word up to this minute:
"You'll soon be able to comment, upload, and create channels without Google+. The comments you make on YouTube will appear only on YouTube and not also on Google+ (and vice versa). Check out our blog post for more information and keep an eye on this article for updates."
If only there were a website on the Internet that would let you search for webpages. You could confirm what I posted here. If only.
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