Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me
I think Google is choosing a particularly terrible point to start alienating users of YouTube. It seems like everywhere I go online these days, the YouTube hatred is universal. It's regarded as uncool, boring, obnoxious, and just generally yesterday's news. This is merely an observation, however a few years ago I rarely saw the kind of negative sentiment toward YouTube that is now very common.<p>If I were a betting person, I'd say that YouTube's days as the champ of their segment of the online video world is nearing an end. They'll straggle on with massive volume, courtesy of the barrier to entry that is the cost of streaming zillions of petabytes, but their product will be strongly disliked, and competitors will flourish. I believe users are desperate for a <i>high quality</i> alternative at this point.<p>I personally don't see that YouTube presents an overwhelming value proposition any longer, compared to the hassle that it's becoming. As it is now, I use a separate browser, in incognito mode, to view YouTube because they're scumbags about trying to force a connection.