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So, the only reasonable interpretation of my position is to carry it to the ridiculous extreme?

Or do you acknowledge that there's clearly a balance of benefit and pain, and Google is merely slightly to the wrong side of where you'd want them to be?

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How is that a ridiculous extreme? People have different persona and personal facets in real life that the prefer to keep separate for various reason. That can be as simple as "Work" and "Home" to political views, lifestyle choices etc. The simplest solution online is to use multiple accounts, Google (and others) desperately want you to use only one and do their best to force it. Yes, this way they can provide/extract "value" by being able to collect every thing about you. The flip side is that they have everything about you all linked, personally I view Google et al or the Government doing it just as creepy.

I wouldn't say Google desperately wants you to have one. I use three separate Google accounts and switch between them with ease. YouTube is the only one that hassles me to merge, but given the quality of YouTube comments I can understand them wanting to tie your account to your real name.

Your justification for tying everything together, not only a single method of signing on but a single pervasive identity, was just that ... it's a single person using the things. That's not a very good justification. And your example of a Good Thing that comes from it, by way of contesting my claim that youtube and gmail (or g+) are conceptually distinct, used something else entirely, involving email and planes. (And actually I would prefer those things not to be done automatically!)

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