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Who wants this? Are Google so hopeless in strategy that they have to borrow from Facebook?

Do you have a better solution for unifying identity across Google accounts? If your opinion is that separate products should have separate accounts and credentials then we will just have to agree to disagree. I can understand why that would be someone's preference, but I can't understand why someone would bash a company that has the desire to utilize a single profile/account for all of their products.

Many services do not require an "identity", and in fact are of less value when associated with an identity, or when using them while not so associated is more difficult. "Credentials" do not contribute to the act of reading a map. ("Location" might, but not in all circumstances, so that shouldn't be required either.)

I probably misunderstand you, but are you saying that a user should not let her own preferences guide her choices? If she is allowed that small concession, should she not share her preferences with others on HN? I'm not bashing Google, but I am bashing this "desire" that you've articulated more explicitly than most. This user doesn't want to use that sort of suite of services. That's one reason I'm not on Facebook. If there are important strategic reasons to ape Facebook in this fashion, I don't see them. If the reason is more a perception that they have to do something, that's sad.

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