I suspect the outrage had more to do with signalling than the specific issue of pseudonyms.
I also suspect that signalling will become more important for web companies than most hardware companies, because I am more directly affected by what happens behind the scenes with web companies than say, a skateboard manufacturer. It's difficult to infer behind the scenes - what are they doing w/ my data, etc - without using some signals, like not allowing pseudonyms.
I imagine that startups face this most dramatically, because their product is so fragile and indefinite that signalling is used to forecast where things are headed before I invest significant time and money. This goes for all kinds of signalling - how likely are they to end the product, to lose funding and shut down, to dramatically increase prices, etc.
Is this true, or did most outraged (or just indifferent, but not excited) users really dislike the pseudonym policy itself?
I disliked the pseudonym policy itself, I found it to be a puzzling policy considering how immigrant-filled the tech industry is, and Google too.
I was born in a different country, with a different name. I operate with an anglicized name, which took years to become my legal name. There was a long period where the name everyone knew me as wasn't my legal one. Nowadays my legal name isn't the same name used by family members on a different continent.
Names are fluid, they're significant but ultimately just identifiers to tell us apart. I find the notion that there is a One True Name to be laughably geocentric and completely out of place in a social network (as opposed to say, the IRS).
For me the pseudonym policy was a minor annoyance, making me wonder just how culturally homogenous a team of product people have to be to cook it up. For others it has been much more damaging - trans people outed being probably the most memorable one, though not the only case where an idiotic policy has had unexpectedly severe consequences.
It puzzling also because in a tech company, surely there would have been a large number of people with experience from various communities who would know people primarily by a handle, and realise that in many sub-cultures people would be unable to connect with people they know very well if they were forced to use real names.
There are people who have known each other for decades that know each other by e.g. demo-scene handle only. In which case their real name has an anonymizing effect to the people they want to connect to online.
The pseudonym policy combined with Google's attempts to integrate G+ into every service they offer was a real threat to the safety of at-risk individuals. There was genuine outrage.
Removing the pseudonym policy and disentangling G+ from other services will both help protect people.
Boston Review published a series of essays on pseudonyms in May 2014, from Reed Hundt (former FCC chairman), with responders including Bruce Schneier, Richard M. Stallman, Jennifer Granick and Evgeny Morozov.
"designing infrastructure for large-scale use of pseudonyms"
This doesn't require much design effort at all. It just requires not building an anti-pseudonym enforcement system.
(I'm not sure it was ever made clear how Google searched out and determined pseudonyms - reports from users? Statistical techniques on "improbable" names? If you used "John Smith" as a pseudonym how likely was it to be discovered?)
> Is this true, or did most outraged (or just indifferent, but not excited) users really dislike the pseudonym policy itself?
I actually nuked my G+ account explicitly because of their pseudonym policy. When they started allowing pseudonyms a couple years back, you had to 'apply' for permission to use one. I tried adding mine, and it was denied with zero explanation or recourse. "Fuck you, Google!" I exclaimed...then I realized I was getting upset over an account on a worthless me-too that was probably not long for this world. Calmed down, nuked account, nothing of value was lost.
There were people who lost accounts that were critical to their business because Google didn't believe that their unusual real name wasn't a pseudonym. They and the people they told this story to were outraged about the policy itself.
A significant portion of disgruntled users disliked the pseudonym policy itself, either due to its direct effect on them, or its indirect effect on them due to its effect on one or more of their friends.
I am so used to using a pseudonym for every site; I didn't
even realize Goole plus didn't allow it. I disliked Google
plus when they went into my Ipad and stole a profile picture. I still
can't figure out how they did it. They didn't scrape it
off the Internet; they went into a folder and stole it.
I wish now I didn't delete it so fast. I tried to recover the picture for evidense, but to no avail.
I also suspect that signalling will become more important for web companies than most hardware companies, because I am more directly affected by what happens behind the scenes with web companies than say, a skateboard manufacturer. It's difficult to infer behind the scenes - what are they doing w/ my data, etc - without using some signals, like not allowing pseudonyms.
I imagine that startups face this most dramatically, because their product is so fragile and indefinite that signalling is used to forecast where things are headed before I invest significant time and money. This goes for all kinds of signalling - how likely are they to end the product, to lose funding and shut down, to dramatically increase prices, etc.
Is this true, or did most outraged (or just indifferent, but not excited) users really dislike the pseudonym policy itself?