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Comment by Intermernet | Hacker News Reader

This is probably an unpopular point of view, but:

I actually agree with author (despite his going into a rant in the latter part of the article) about the horribleness of needing a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days (I'm wondering if any clueless fool in their marketing/sales dept. has suggested G+ login for search yet...), but I actually quite like Google+ .

It's, IMHO, miles in front of the competition in regards to large communities, but, admittedly, fails on the actual social stuff (friends, family etc.). But, as I see it, the only reason they fail at this is due to the overwhelming dominance of Facebook.

I now only use FB for communication with overseas (and far away, easy if you're in Australia) friends. Most of my other online community social behaviour is done through G+

Just my 2 cents (with inflation)

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It astonishes me that people don't have an issue with this:

> I need a Google account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

but seem to have major issues with this:

> I need a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

Why do people have such a hard time accepting that Google+ accounts are a natural progression of Google's account management (and eventually will replace the old, fragmented Google, Youtube, whatever account system)? Sure, it has a companion social networking site, and requires a real name (or what that looks like one), but that requirement could have been applied to regular Google accounts as well and I highly doubt we would still see the amount of complaining we see today about Google+ accounts.

I have a hard time accepting it, because it's not a 'natural progression' at all, it's forcing me into a headache I don't want.

Gmail is the best free email, and GTalk was convenient instant messaging. Both great, I used them daily. Using these services doesn't imply that I want a public profile, that I want a social network, that I want to share anything or that I want the constant hassle of setting privacy settings, then resetting them every month when they change or new features are added which I'm auto-enrolled into.

I don't want searching for my name to show a Google+ profile. I don't want videos I've watched, articles I've read or links I've clicked to appear in a stream/wall/circle/feed. I've had to go through facebook's privacy settings a dozen times because they keep changing or adding features which default all users to maximum-sharing. Google is too important for me to have to worry about accidentally broadcasting all my interactions with various google services to the world or my contacts.

This is exactly my confusion about this parade of complaints. Google Account --> Google+ Account. Nothing about that says that you ever have to use a single aspect of Google+ the Facebook-competitor, and your empty profile can sit doing nothing. I do not understand the outrage simply that it exists.

Whatever you say, Mr. Lawdawg. What a great last name; I wish I could have one like that.

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