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Comment by boulos | Hacker News Reader

A Google Login isn't as drastic as it used to be. From the FAQ:

> I don't have an existing Google account and I don't want to sign up for Gmail, Google+, or any other Google services. What should I do?

It is easy to create a Google account for any existing email address without tying it to any Google services. It will only be used for identification and login. You can sign up for this "slimmed down" Google account here. You can also create this type of Google account via the existing migration flow on firebase.com.

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> A Google Login isn't as drastic as it used to be.

To be fair, it's been possible to create a Google account without Gmail for a long time now. I remember creating one ~7 years ago, back when I ran my own mail server.

Does this still have the nasty side-affect of meaning anyone using Google email services can't send you regular calendar invites by email any more?

When I made the mistake of creating a google account using an existing email address, they apparently created a google calendar account for me, and then any Gmail/Google Apps email invites sent to my email address, never reached me, because they would get diverted straight to this Google calendar account I had no knowledge of, or desire for.

Same kind of thing happened to me with google chat, years ago, when it was an xmpp service. They turned it into a gmail account and automatically inserted it into the address book of everyone I chatted with, and it was close to half a year of confusion before I worked out why certain people just couldn't seem to get in touch with me anymore.

It's rather difficult to keep a Google account without it growing Gmail, Google+ and so on over the years. My own Google account was forced to gain a Gmail address by Youtube one day (and doing so really screwed it up, as now all my Google-using friends see my Gmail address as my primary email address).

although true now, Google has a bad history of trying to coerce you into other services. Youtube/Voice ?

How, specifically, are you "coerced" into those services? Voice and YouTube are owned by Google. I'd expect a Google account to just work on all Google properties, without me having to sign up for each individually.

If you don't want to use those services, just don't visit them. What's the issue?

You really don't remember what happened with the forced merging/conversion of YouTube accounts into G+ accounts, the forced use of 'real names' on YouTube and the changes to YouTube comments? Before the final forced conversion they spent months and months trying to trick people into agreeing to change their account against their will using a bunch of interface design dark patterns.

>If you don't want to use those services, just don't visit them. What's the issue?

A lot of people did leave YouTube because of it, but that means they lost all their playlists and favourites and comments. Also that can't ever repair things for the people who had aspects of their personal lives suddenly exposed by Google sticking their real life identity on their previously pseudonymous YouTube videos and comments.

the forced use of 'real names' on YouTube

How is that possible, considering I'm still called "icebraining" on YouTube, and I never had to associate a real name with my account?

They ended that effort now.

Are you sure your account is not linked to a Google+ account? Then you'd be part of the very small percentage that successfully blocked all the popup reminders and dialogues and thus never complied. For me, that was only possible by blocking the dialogues via adblock, and over times by not login in anymore.

You weren't forced to do anything. They asked you, do you want to combine your accounts? A lot of people just immediately clicked yes without realizing the consequences. To this day I still have my old YouTube account with a username.

I think you might have missed this part:

> Before the final forced conversion they spent months and months trying to trick people into agreeing to change their account against their will using a bunch of interface design dark patterns.

There was no way for me to say "no, I don't want it, stop asking me". And they kept changing the pop-up locations. And once linked, the accounts couldn't be unlinked.

So no, you weren't "forced", but there was some really shady coersion

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