The longer I use youtube while signed in, the more useless it becomes to me. I have a wide range of interests. If I'm watching the Dead Skeletons - Dead Mantra music video, it's not helpful to have 5 Starcraft 2 VODs in the recommended video list (i.e. I enjoy watching professional Starcraft 2). I'd much prefer recommendations similar to the Dead Skeletons. I've found no way to turn off this recommendation bubble and have since decided youtube is best used without an account if you want to actually explore its content.
It's really goddamned frustrating and just shows how hollow google is as a company.
They have search and ads, and an utter inability to actually build anything else or connect with a customer base. For a company this is like having cancer. It's astounding that they can ignore the situation to such a degree.
Youtube is already an amazing force in the world, and that's with google half-assing so much of it. With enough work it could be a multi-billion dollar business and the next generation of media. Instead it'll probably take years while individuals and 3rd parties figure out ways to do what google fails to do (make content more explorable and discoverable, for one, make paid revenue models possible, for another) for them to catch on and build the functionality into youtube directly.
Meanwhile, instead of building improvements they're paying this stupid google plus strategy tax.
Google is chasing facebook when they should be chasing HBO, and amazon, and the discovery channel. It's like they live in a giant mansion with a huge lawn where a bunch of super talented people have been camping out for a while, trying to figure out how to make the next generation of video work. And everyday google gets out of bed, looks out over that scene, grunts, scratches its ass, thinks maybe they should just call the cops to get rid of the hooligans, then goes off to watch Judge Judy.
This is the thing that bothers/scares me the most about this balkanization of the internet that's happening. You end up getting forced into bubbles that someone else has decided you belong in. And if you don't know it's happening, you can't even try to stop it. For me, I have not found utility in the things that have been selected for me, so most of these services are becoming useless. All those "smartest guys in the room" at places like Facebook and Google and Wherever are really fucking up if their goal was to direct me to things I like and might pay money for.
I Agree. I miss the time when I could control what I search and find anything in any part of the world in any language.
Now they believe that because I live in Spain I have to speak Spanish, or be interested first in Spanish stupid things, or be only interested on the topics I searched in the past.
Now while using gmail I search with Bing, so it does not mess anything.
After having deleted everything from my old non-Google account, I decided to stop using YouTube logged in. Everything is so much better, the only thing I hate is how I can't give likes to videos. Everything else is okay, brings back the exploration aspect that made YouTube fun.
A few weeks ago, YouTube started automatically signing me into my Google+ account (which I was forced into getting) rather than my YouTube account -- which has years of favorites and other content. I'm getting sick of it. I only signed up to Google+ because my friend wanted to use Hangouts. Now it's screwed up my YouTube channel and I can't revert it.
The only reason I post on YouTube is to share small clips with people (all my videos are unlisted). Vimeo takes ~40 minutes to encode, whereas YouTube is a lot faster meaning it's far more convenient.
Checking out my Google account, it seems I have Chrome on here. I'm outraged as I never signed in with Google on Chrome. I always clicked "Not Now". What does "Not Now" even mean? Where's the "Never" option?
This is why I hate Google. I probably made the mistake of signing into my YouTube account on Chrome which has been infected with Google+ and that leaked through to Chrome. Apparently that means my bookmarks can be stored without my permission.
The best way is to deal with this issue is to delete my Google Account. Unfortunately, that's very problematic and I've been spending the last few months trying to move to other services. I'm slowly migrating my mail (admittedly to Google Apps but I'll be switching to a different provider soon), once I'm done I'll nuke the account.
That's along with Google Docs/Drive. BitTorrent Sync actually works very well as an alternative.
I can't wait till I get to hit delete on this account. Good fucking riddance.
I've pretty much given up. Google has deleted my playlists and favorites countless times. Every time they try to integrate YouTube with one of their services/account management, I end up losing everything.
My only consolation is that Google+ is accumulating a lot of vitriol and hate across the web. It's shaping up to be the most hated "social" product in the entire Internet.
> My only consolation is that Google+ is accumulating a lot of vitriol and hate across the web. It's shaping up to be the most hated "social" product in the entire Internet.
Maybe a little offtopic: I have multiple GMail accounts that I use. Now (since maybe 2 weeks?) after logging out and trying to log in with a different acc I get a 'account chooser' dialog where I can only select accounts I have linked to my person. To get the 'enter email / password' prompt I have to turn on private browsing or delete all cookies.
Maybe someone from Google reads this: Please add a small link (or a different easy to access way) to completely log out. There are accounts that I don't want to link together. (Hint: Google Apps for Business)
I've never had this happen and I've had a YouTube account for a while. This honestly sounds like a bug of some sort. Have you found other people experiencing this?
"The most hated social product in the entire Internet" is a pretty big claim. I personally have never had a single problem with G+, though I've had plenty of issues with Facebook.
My YouTube and G+ accounts merged just fine, and I've never lost a playlist, favorite, submission, comment, or anything else.
I lost my entire YouTube account that I had for three years and got it replaced with a Google+ account. No favorites, likes are gone, playlists have been removed, and my videos are now on a separate channel that's linked to my Gmail. So when somebody searches my username, they won't be able to find anything.
Seriously, Google, if you're going to make shitty changes to the second-largest website in the world, at the least make sure user data is preserved.
Because YouTube comments were completely useless, and now the company is trying to make them useful / interesting.
If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. That was completely impossible, the old way.
The criticism is a bit thick, but the prompts to join G+ are increasingly manipulative and gimmicky, designed almost entirely to _trick_ the user to into signing up + spamming their gmail contacts.
A requirement to have G+ account to make youtube comments is just one part of a greater trend that includes:
1. Requiring a G+ account to review Android apps in the Play store
2. Cunningly worded join prompts for first-time Android users when they start up their new Android device(s)
You know G+ is an abysmal failure when the Page & Co has to force it on users of google's other services. C'mon bro, what gives?
The moral superiority narrative that the valley likes to perpetuate vis-a-vis more traditional industries like banking, etc. is increasingly laughable and absurd.
Let's be real tech bros and broesses. Bidness is bidness.
The Google Account was already in use before Google+ was created. The difference was that you could have a mixture of services enabled for your account (I only use Gmail, I never use Picasa so I don't have it on my an account).
Now they seem to force you to always have the Google+ enabled even if you never use it. Including for older accounts. I guess this is what makes people angry. It's like being prompted to create Picasa albums every time you try to read your Gmail.
Google has claimed right from the beginning that they want G+ to be a "social layer" across all of their services, which could also be seen as a "social network", but not in the same way Facebook is a "social network.
Tangentially related, my experience with the YouTube/Google plus social network merge has been pretty awful. I opted-out initially to integrate with Google plus, I couldn't have cared less so I just stuck with my original username/account. It seems even though I opted out, Google created a Google plus YouTube profile for me anyway and now chooses to nag me about it every time I go there. I have to pick every time I go to YouTube which 'profile' I want to use (defaulted to Google plus social network) even though I never wanted this new profile, and I have a big banner telling me I am using YouTube as profile 'x' permanently stuck at the top just to rub it in.
This annoyed me enough that a couple of weeks ago I gave up and tried to integrate it into their social network so I could just have 1 profile. Now it appears I no longer have the option to merge my original profile into Google plus, it just isn't there on the account settings. Because I made one decision to opt-out of their social network it seems I will permanently have 2 profiles from this time forward, the Google plus one has none of my history, subscriptions, likes etc it is a completely useless account.
... yeah, I guess the lesson for Google to learn is to just rip off the bandage and accept the pain, because all their "courtesy" has done is prolong things.
"We're migrating to google accounts. Your YouTube account is disabled until you connect it to a google accounts and then we're going to migrate over and destroy your YouTube account. You can have more than one google account if you really want to keep your YouTube stuff disconnected from your main Google Account. Here's how to make that second Google Account and how to manage it".
Boom, done. Bolt a way to have a "casual social-networking alias" for public stuff you don't want publicly linked to your Google account so you can pseudonymously comment on YouTube and Play Store and whatever.
I have a Google account but without G+ and a YT account that was linked to the Google account. The solution for getting rid of the repeated popups asking you to turn your YT account into a G+ account seems to be to delete your YT channel. That way you will only be logged in with your normal Google account. Of course, you still won't be able to comment (or operate a channel), but at least the popup seems to be gone.
In all serious though, I think this just further opens up the door for competing services like Netflix, Instagram and Vine to dig in. With Netflix for my serious video watching, and Vine / Instagram for cat videos, I find myself visiting YouTube much less. Requiring a G+ account for comments is the little extra effort that makes me not engage.
IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video.
>IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video.
Highly doubt it. Youtube is one of the hardest thing to compete with, even Google search is much easier to go after. Did you read that article about Youtube where Google pays local ISPs to act as a CDN? That is the best CDN money can buy. A competitor without matching performance is going to be largely ignore by both consumers and publishers.
Considering that it was nearly impossible to make YouTube's commenting system worse, I'm interested to see if the G+ integration improves things. For whatever reason YouTube has forever had the lowest quality comments of any site I can think of.
My thoughts as well. If you're going to sell out, you should fully anticipate that "the man" will just gut your company & let it bleed out. Maybe they bought it to kill it off, etc.
I get this feeling all the time after following a link from reddit. I just hope they can deduce from the referrer that I am not actually interested in purchasing life-like male self-stimulation products.
Headline is inaccurate, though I can't really blame the submitter. jawed occasionally makes comments on YouTube (example: [1]), but eventually hides everything but YouTube's first video from his channel (presumably so he can "make his first comment in X years" which then gets headlines).
This isn't just to make commenting more social (i.e. pushing friends comments to the top)-- I imagine it's also largely to hold more people accountable for their comments (w/ their reputation) so that there aren't as many nonsense/flame/bigoted comments like there always have been on Youtube, and in turn get higher quality comments (e.g. Quora vs. Yahoo answers analogy)
Because there is probably a lot of overlap between those who think Youtube comments are terrible and those who post terrible Youtube comments.
People might slag it in public, but I think a lot of people secretly enjoy leaving abusive and trollish anonymous comments. It's not like all those comments were the work of a few bad apples. The sheer volume would suggest otherwise.
You're making a very basic logical error. Youtube comments on the whole may be horrible, but that doesn't discount the possibility (in fact, I'd say certainty) that some youtube comments could be good, even valuable. There are many channels on youtube where the comments are fairly high quality, even by HN standards.
The downside is that the people who put in the effort to nurture high quality comments on their channels, and the people who have been high quality commenters on youtube are the most negatively impacted by these changes. And the negative impact on the highest quality of comments might end up reducing the average quality much more than any moderate impact on the volume of the lower quality comments.
I get annoyed by those n stupid popups on every video now. Do I really have to close 15 * overlays before I can watch a video?? really?
Google, how does this add to the experience? How does it make youtube a better product?
I won't even get started on the asinine recommendation system. Backed by one of the largest companies in the world and the brightest employees in the world. And yet youtube gets crappier every year. Scratching my head on this one.
This is a sad, desperate attempt by Google to take on a competitor(facebook). I wish Google showed as much restraint and care in taking on facebook as facebook is showing in taking on google when it comes to search.
[+] [-] mcphilip|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|12 years ago|reply
They have search and ads, and an utter inability to actually build anything else or connect with a customer base. For a company this is like having cancer. It's astounding that they can ignore the situation to such a degree.
Youtube is already an amazing force in the world, and that's with google half-assing so much of it. With enough work it could be a multi-billion dollar business and the next generation of media. Instead it'll probably take years while individuals and 3rd parties figure out ways to do what google fails to do (make content more explorable and discoverable, for one, make paid revenue models possible, for another) for them to catch on and build the functionality into youtube directly.
Meanwhile, instead of building improvements they're paying this stupid google plus strategy tax.
Google is chasing facebook when they should be chasing HBO, and amazon, and the discovery channel. It's like they live in a giant mansion with a huge lawn where a bunch of super talented people have been camping out for a while, trying to figure out how to make the next generation of video work. And everyday google gets out of bed, looks out over that scene, grunts, scratches its ass, thinks maybe they should just call the cops to get rid of the hooligans, then goes off to watch Judge Judy.
[+] [-] naterator|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bambax|12 years ago|reply
I was wondering if it was possible to be accountless on Youtube while logged in in Gmail, in the same browser, or if one needed to use two browsers.
It turns out, blocking all cookies for youtube.com and www.youtube.com does the trick!!
And it also solves the very annoying name change prompt that blocks every other video when logged in.
[+] [-] forgottenpaswrd|12 years ago|reply
Now they believe that because I live in Spain I have to speak Spanish, or be interested first in Spanish stupid things, or be only interested on the topics I searched in the past.
Now while using gmail I search with Bing, so it does not mess anything.
[+] [-] dec0dedab0de|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] typon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunF|12 years ago|reply
Now I'm listening to Spindrift, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Rebel Drones, BRMC, Money...
[+] [-] coldarchon|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ancarda|12 years ago|reply
The only reason I post on YouTube is to share small clips with people (all my videos are unlisted). Vimeo takes ~40 minutes to encode, whereas YouTube is a lot faster meaning it's far more convenient.
Checking out my Google account, it seems I have Chrome on here. I'm outraged as I never signed in with Google on Chrome. I always clicked "Not Now". What does "Not Now" even mean? Where's the "Never" option?
This is why I hate Google. I probably made the mistake of signing into my YouTube account on Chrome which has been infected with Google+ and that leaked through to Chrome. Apparently that means my bookmarks can be stored without my permission.
The best way is to deal with this issue is to delete my Google Account. Unfortunately, that's very problematic and I've been spending the last few months trying to move to other services. I'm slowly migrating my mail (admittedly to Google Apps but I'll be switching to a different provider soon), once I'm done I'll nuke the account.
That's along with Google Docs/Drive. BitTorrent Sync actually works very well as an alternative.
I can't wait till I get to hit delete on this account. Good fucking riddance.
[+] [-] sker|12 years ago|reply
My only consolation is that Google+ is accumulating a lot of vitriol and hate across the web. It's shaping up to be the most hated "social" product in the entire Internet.
[+] [-] kybernetyk|12 years ago|reply
Maybe a little offtopic: I have multiple GMail accounts that I use. Now (since maybe 2 weeks?) after logging out and trying to log in with a different acc I get a 'account chooser' dialog where I can only select accounts I have linked to my person. To get the 'enter email / password' prompt I have to turn on private browsing or delete all cookies.
Maybe someone from Google reads this: Please add a small link (or a different easy to access way) to completely log out. There are accounts that I don't want to link together. (Hint: Google Apps for Business)
[+] [-] ToastyMallows|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bovermyer|12 years ago|reply
My YouTube and G+ accounts merged just fine, and I've never lost a playlist, favorite, submission, comment, or anything else.
[+] [-] kdot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeWaren|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kunai|12 years ago|reply
Seriously, Google, if you're going to make shitty changes to the second-largest website in the world, at the least make sure user data is preserved.
[+] [-] VikingCoder|12 years ago|reply
If I go to a viral video, and I see comments on it from people I actually KNOW, I personally think that would be really cool. That was completely impossible, the old way.
[+] [-] ringdabell|12 years ago|reply
The criticism is a bit thick, but the prompts to join G+ are increasingly manipulative and gimmicky, designed almost entirely to _trick_ the user to into signing up + spamming their gmail contacts.
A requirement to have G+ account to make youtube comments is just one part of a greater trend that includes:
1. Requiring a G+ account to review Android apps in the Play store 2. Cunningly worded join prompts for first-time Android users when they start up their new Android device(s)
You know G+ is an abysmal failure when the Page & Co has to force it on users of google's other services. C'mon bro, what gives?
The moral superiority narrative that the valley likes to perpetuate vis-a-vis more traditional industries like banking, etc. is increasingly laughable and absurd.
Let's be real tech bros and broesses. Bidness is bidness.
[+] [-] OoTheNigerian|12 years ago|reply
Google plus is the "Google account" you need to use any of their social services.
I am frankly surprised that they allowed the login of their acquisitions to stay fragmented for such a long time.
[+] [-] adrianb|12 years ago|reply
Now they seem to force you to always have the Google+ enabled even if you never use it. Including for older accounts. I guess this is what makes people angry. It's like being prompted to create Picasa albums every time you try to read your Gmail.
[+] [-] Angostura|12 years ago|reply
Unfortunately the mistake they are making is in defining every service as a 'social' service.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doe88|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hobs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtgx|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] da_n|12 years ago|reply
This annoyed me enough that a couple of weeks ago I gave up and tried to integrate it into their social network so I could just have 1 profile. Now it appears I no longer have the option to merge my original profile into Google plus, it just isn't there on the account settings. Because I made one decision to opt-out of their social network it seems I will permanently have 2 profiles from this time forward, the Google plus one has none of my history, subscriptions, likes etc it is a completely useless account.
[+] [-] Pxtl|12 years ago|reply
"We're migrating to google accounts. Your YouTube account is disabled until you connect it to a google accounts and then we're going to migrate over and destroy your YouTube account. You can have more than one google account if you really want to keep your YouTube stuff disconnected from your main Google Account. Here's how to make that second Google Account and how to manage it".
Boom, done. Bolt a way to have a "casual social-networking alias" for public stuff you don't want publicly linked to your Google account so you can pseudonymously comment on YouTube and Play Store and whatever.
[+] [-] this_user|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fiatjaf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smanuel|12 years ago|reply
- Google wants more users in Google+
- People don't care about Google+
- This doesn't change the fact that Google is still afraid of Facebook and wants more people to use G+
- Google will try to do everything it can to drag you into this service which you won't use anyway
What's so strange about this?
[+] [-] verelo|12 years ago|reply
In all serious though, I think this just further opens up the door for competing services like Netflix, Instagram and Vine to dig in. With Netflix for my serious video watching, and Vine / Instagram for cat videos, I find myself visiting YouTube much less. Requiring a G+ account for comments is the little extra effort that makes me not engage.
IMO YouTube on its way to be the MySpace of video.
[+] [-] nivla|12 years ago|reply
Highly doubt it. Youtube is one of the hardest thing to compete with, even Google search is much easier to go after. Did you read that article about Youtube where Google pays local ISPs to act as a CDN? That is the best CDN money can buy. A competitor without matching performance is going to be largely ignore by both consumers and publishers.
[+] [-] jonknee|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaxomlotus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshribakoff|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rl12345|12 years ago|reply
the screenshot, just in case.
[+] [-] jiggy2011|12 years ago|reply
Is it just that the costs of serving video require an enormous company or is it that the term youtube is basically synonymous with "internet video".
[+] [-] jrs99|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackinthebochs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spectrum|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hahainternet|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mindless2112|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo&lc=XBr2JHTM1EEDT3...
[+] [-] mlyang|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kylekramer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gph|12 years ago|reply
People might slag it in public, but I think a lot of people secretly enjoy leaving abusive and trollish anonymous comments. It's not like all those comments were the work of a few bad apples. The sheer volume would suggest otherwise.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|12 years ago|reply
The downside is that the people who put in the effort to nurture high quality comments on their channels, and the people who have been high quality commenters on youtube are the most negatively impacted by these changes. And the negative impact on the highest quality of comments might end up reducing the average quality much more than any moderate impact on the volume of the lower quality comments.
[+] [-] ktran03|12 years ago|reply
Google, how does this add to the experience? How does it make youtube a better product?
I won't even get started on the asinine recommendation system. Backed by one of the largest companies in the world and the brightest employees in the world. And yet youtube gets crappier every year. Scratching my head on this one.
[+] [-] zaidf|12 years ago|reply