Why can't Google understand why I don't want to combine my Gmail and Youtube? | Hacker News Reader

Why can't Google understand why I don't want to combine my Gmail and Youtube?

19 pointshackaflocka9 comments

2 decades ago, a few people told me about how difficult it was to get a job at Microsoft, that they only hired the smartest, most intelligent people. Well, we've seen the result of that. Completely garbage products.<p>I'm afraid, the same movie might be played out with Google now. Once more this morning, Google stealthily tried to get me to create a Google+ page, and to get me to combine my YouTube username and my Gmail username.<p>I use that Gmail address to email people I don't know (e.g., for Craigslist related stuff). If they knew what kinds of videos I watch, it might give them a negotiating advantage, because they know certain traits of my personality (nothing scandalous, I promise ya!).<p>Related: have we made progress on that open source self-hosted alternative to Gmail yet?

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Unpopular personal story time.

I have a Google account, and it is perfect. I use the gmail UI to send and receive email from my own domain name, which I use for work and personal email; I then have a gmail address which I use when I am signing up for sites that I expect to receive spam from - I can use both of these simultaneously just selecting which account I want to send from. I have Google+ which I have set up granular permissions, so that certain people can only see certain content. I have a Youtube page, which is connected to my Google account but uses a separate alias completely separate from my real name, which I automatically become when using Youtube. There is no public facing connection between my real name and my YT alias, and I never have to switch accounts or select which one I would like to use.

I might be missing the problem, but to me it seems straight forward and logical.

And sounds simple too!

It's not about what you want, it's about what they want.

This. You are the product they sell to advertisers.

Google's product is search. They sell ads tailored to searches, but the product is search.

Saying people are Google's product is like saying people are McDonald's product instead of the hamburgers. McDonald's product is the food, not the money they get from selling it and not the people who buy it.

I certainly understand your point. As a developer and power-user, keeping independent components well separated is something pretty obvious for both ethical and technical reasons.

What I don't like about this kind of argumentation is that it comes from an idealistic point of view (that I share), which isn't appropriate at all when analyzing a billion dollar company strategy.

Obviously at some point most big corporations are going to do stuff that completely puts off the elite. "Don't be evil" only lasts for so long (while building hype), and quickly "How much will that earn us" is all that's left (monetizing said hype).

I hope you realize that 99% of the profit of Google or Microsoft comes from masses of people who don't really understand anything that's happening, and click "next" and "accept" hoping they won't hit a wall. Did you ever click an Adword banner (except out of curiosity to see what's behind, using a private tab)? Do you purchase stuff only because it's presented to you as the next thing that justifies getting behind on your credit card payment? Neither do I.

Being the 1% is frustrating at times, but that's what we are. The 1%. Sometimes it's worth doing small things to please us, most of the time it's not.

Because they want to drive traffic to their other sites while satisfying the segment of their users that want seamless identity integration.

The segment of users that don't like this (me and you) they do not care for. They made this painfully obvious with Google+ and YouTube.

Why don't you just link your Youtube account with a pseudonym Google+ page? They give that option so that you can remain anonymous.

Create <N> gmail accounts for <N> YouTube accounts.

Thats it.

Google owns this turf, so just find a way around.

Bitching about it is the way that doesn't work well.

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