My memory is fuzzy about this, but at that time, the mpaa/riaa/etc had been coming down real hard on YouTube. Without the G or another big boy coming in, their ship would have been in a precarious situation with all of the lawsuits rolling in.
I agree. Google doesn't seem to understand that the way in which a thing is expressed is important. It's like they don't understand the difference between something announced at a press conference, and something mentioned in passing to a friend. My inability to reason about the social context of online interactions tends to seriously discourage me from expressing much in an non-(semi)-anonymous way.
so google can claim higher google+ subscriber rates. i just wonder if investors, ad men will be that idiotic when comparing user counts betweent say Fb and G+. real vs. forced users.
A bit of an overreaction, considering the quality of YouTube comments has notoriously been below acceptable levels for quite some time.
While I can't agree that Google is doing the right thing by forcing +, they are mitigating the problem by doing so. We'll know in a week if the quality of comments goes up dramatically or stays the same in a few days.
The Android Market, erm, Google Play Store, has made the switch to Google + reviews only as well. As far as I have noticed, this switch has not improved the quality of comments (although the quality was never as bad as with Youtube).
In the context of Google diminishing online anonymity for commercial gain, it is potentially relevant to HN. Likewise as the spark for a discussion of the costs and benefits of the larger trend of which it is a part, it also has potential interest to HN readers.
The post is funny because it cuts right to the heart of the issue.
[Meta] Complaining that HN is turning into Reddit is Google+ material.
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups."
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link."
