This post reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Mashable as a publication.
Comments on YouTube, filled as they were with more than their fair share of offense and inanity, were hardly the most beloved part of the Internet. So we cheered a few weeks back when the Google-owned video site announced a major change to its comments system. The aim was to bring more popular and engaging comments to the top, alongside comments from people you actually know.
But as the new system rolled out for most users this week, it became clear that there were a number of trade-offs. You can't reply to old comments, even ones made just hours before the new system kicked in. You also have to sign up for a Google+ account (just as you do for Gmail).
See also: Exclusive: Report Says YouTube Overtakes Facebook Among Teens
That infuriated a lot of people. Some 54,000 users and counting have signed a Change.org petition asking the company to go back to its old comments system. A NSFW song from an irate user with the catchy chorus "F*ck You Google+" has been doing the rounds. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim had only posted one thing on the site — the very first YouTube video, about his trip to the zoo — until Friday, when he added this comment: "why the f*ck do i need a google+ account to comment on a video?"
YouTube, and corporate parent Google, deserve a lot of this vitriol. The video service should have known beforehand that new and old comments were not interoperable. A YouTube spokesperson told me that the company was working on making the two commenting systems talk to each other. But you have to wonder: Was this a deliberate attempt to draw a line under every old conversation? Is this YouTube's Year Zero?
Google is doing itself no favors with its constant pushing of Google+. Internally, there seems to be some sort of evolution in how Google+ is viewed: it's more your one overarching Google account to rule them all than it is a social network. But that hasn't stopped the company from announcing Google+ user numbers every quarter as if it were a genuine Facebook rival.
Sorry, Google, you can't have it both ways. A social network you are forced to sign up for is no social network at all, and it makes the company look like an overzealous, overly desperate cruise director.
See also: Google+: The Complete Guide
That said, I still applaud what YouTube is trying to do here. YouTube comments were filled with more than their share of bigotry, bullying, spam, shaming and trolling, to name just a few forms of mindless discourse. It wasn't something that could be solved with a few tweaks here or there. The entire culture of anonymous commenting on videos needed to go.
You don't actually need to go to Google+ to find out when someone commented on your video. It should pop up under the notifications at the top of every Google page (the bit that looks like a bell). The problem is the perception: If enough YouTube commenters think that Google is trying to push them toward using its social service, they may just prefer not to comment at all.
And that, repeated on a wide scale, may be a worse outcome than we had before. For all their obnoxiousness, YouTube comments were an exercise in free speech. A layer of civility is desirable in any discourse, but unfettered free speech is always better than silence.
Image: Flickr, Mauritsonline