Internet History has shown us one undying truth — people hate change. It’s something Google is dealing with now after they made good on their plan to tie YouTube comments directly to Google+ accounts. YouTuber Boogie2988 posted a rant that’s already broken one million views, and this morning it was songified.
When you’re done jamming out to the remix, you can watch the original video:
We disagree with Boogie2988 about the Google+ integration, and we’ll explain why.
YouTube Is Free
YouTube is a free service Google is providing to let people share videos. There are other sites that let you post videos, so if you really hate having to use a Google+ account to post comments… don’t. This is a point that Boogie all but concedes at the start of the video when says he knows he’ll have to accept Google+ integration on some level, but it’s something we think a lot of people are forgetting.
Character Limits.
Boogie’s first point is that because Google+ doesn’t have character limits, it means people can post mean, sexual, inappropriate comments. People can also post short mean, sexual, and inappropriate comments. Boogie seems to think that limiting characters will somehow limit how offensive people can be on the Internet, but that’s not an argument we understand.
Unlimited Novelty Accounts
People creating an anonymous account under fake names like name Hitler or Obama isn’t new to the change to Google+ comments, and in fact it’s against Google+ policies to create such accounts. Linking YouTube comments to Google+ accounts won’t necessarily stop this, but an account named “Adolf Hitler” is already in violation of the terms of service.
Most of Boogie’s predictions of how Google+ linked YouTube commenters will behave are already in violation of the Google+ terms of service, so they can have their accounts
Boogie makes the argument that people, once banned, can go start another Google+ account and keep commenting, which is already something they can do with the current YouTube system.
Top Comments
Boogie actually has a good point here, Google. The system of upvoting quality comments seems like a much better system than simply featuring the ones with the most replies. You win this round, Boogie.
External Links
Yes, people can link to viruses and other sites you wouldn’t want to click on, but we think that falls on individuals to be smart enough to know not to click them. Boogie’s point here is that he “has” to disable comments because he’s afraid his subscribers (of which he has nearly one million) could end up with viruses from external links. That’s very possible, but Boogie is disabling comments because he wants to — not because he has to.
We aren’t saying the switch from the old system to Google+ comments is perfect, and we think it’s important that power users like Boogie voice their opinions and make suggestions on how Google can improve the experience for everyone. We also agree with what Google is doing to try to improve their comments section, which has long been one of the darkest corners of the Internet.
(via Boogie2988 and John Green)
- Check out other changes Google is making to Google+
- Mr. Rogers got remixed too, and the results are beautiful
- Watch this remix of reading rainbow
