It's making me not want to use Youtube altogether now. I now have to sign out of my gmail before I go on Youtube, or else I will get a pop-up demanding I use my real name and establish a G+ account and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't care less about. Why would it be a good idea for my real name to be floating out there? I know youtube wants it thus so they can make more money from advertising this way, but there's not a chance in a thousand years I want my real name out there for all the wackos to see. Also I don't want people/clients I know from work to be able to see that I commented rather heatedly on some obscure Morrowind Mod video or something. Or any other video. I am not a big-time commenter, but for example there are several great LP'ers I want to support and now can't without my real name being under it. I HATE IT. Before, youtube gave me the option of keeping my youtube name and e-mail name separate, but when I selected 'separate' it would cynically say "ok, we'll ask again later." Why should we be pressured into proclaiming some sort of cross-the-net singular identity linked to our real names? Google's trying to pin everyone down under a single google +, gmail, chrome apps, android contacts penumbra.

The pop-up used to happen every other week or so. Now it happens every.single.time I sign on. The main page. My channel. A favorite video. Anything. There is no option to maintain my original Youtube name either. Some friends of mine haven't had it this bad yet, so maybe my unlucky dance card came up earlier than others...but be warned, it's coming.

Internet anonymity is slowly dying. At least I can say I grew up during the Wild Wild West of the internet. What a ride it was.

I keep telling it to go away. That and those unskippable ads are getting really annoying.

Thanks for the reply.

I haven't had an unskippable ad on Youtube in seven years. Are you sure your adblock is updated fully?

They will eventually will on the whole forcing the real name

they want to use it as a means to get more ad revenue. Compiling information about your search history to specifically tailor ads just for you, that way they can charge more for their advertising services on the theory that ads based on user profiles will produce a higher CTR percentage.

All it really is doing is alienating people, when i am forced to watch an add all i can think of is how much I WONT be buying that product. Then again I am a man who knows what I want, and don't need to be informed.

adblockplus to remove the ads. I haven't seen a youtube ad since....ever?

The only problem with this is if you want to support a youtuber and use adblock that youtuber will not receive money that they otherwise would from their partnership. Which can make it harder for them to produce content.

i don't bother with ad block. its very rare to get youtube ads longer than 15 seconds, that you can't skip. so i just refresh my other tabs while that is happening. That way i still get free websites and am not inconvenienced.

When they make it a must, I'll be bowing out of the internet for good..

but until then; tip your waitress, I'll be here all week

Yeah, but I believe you can deactivate it on certain URLs if you wish so as to avoid this problem.

I could list about 10 things that Google is destroying YouTube with (not destroying as it no longer existing, destroying as it no longer being YOUtube), but I'm to tired to go into all the details. I'll just c/p what I recently posted on SPUF.

Umm, ignore the stuff that's out of context.

to be honest, I couldn't care less about that, it's my browsing experience that's being encroached upon. If I want to see commercials/ads, I'll go turn on the tv.

I loathe this, and now I hardly go on YouTube. I have absolutely no idea or inkling of what could give anyone that asinine idea that having our real names on the Internet, an anarchic society that could potentially kill you if you say anything about your real name or address, would be better than what we use now. Completely moronic, I say.

I don't really care whether I'll have to display my real name or not on YouTube. I spend so much time on the Internet already that not hiding behind usernames isn't that much of an issue for me. I still haven't done it on YouTube though, because I'm lazy and I haven't had them asking me for it in many months.

Considering that I use same name everywhere on the internet, it practically is my real name. They don't need the one on my ID if they want to bombard me with ads.

The video URL doesn't contain the channel's name in it so a whole channel cannot be unblocked, just individual videos.

It has stopped asking me, but when I sign in there is the option to sign in as my email address for some reason. As others have said if and when they force us to use our real name, that is when I will leave. But I can't see how they would inforce that. What if people have the same name? How do they know the name you are giving them is your real name?

Another thing that is bugging me lately is the overwhelming amount of spam on the popular channels. 9 out of 10 comments are just spam "click on this link to make big money from home" type crap. WTH is up with that?

One of the PR reasons is simply the assumption that most commenters will behave if they are signing it with their real name.

~Of course one must never forget that Google is an advertizing company, and linking real names to real browsing habits equates to lots of value when they sell ads and marketing profiles.

That and there's might be some pressure from anti-internet people/countries who want to know who if posting videos so they can go after them, rather than following IP trails..