Karim Speaks

Jawed Karim co-founded YouTube before Google bought it, and then he basically vanished. Eight years of silence, and then he posted something simple: Why the fuck do I need a Google+ account to comment on a video?

Google had forced YouTube users into Google+, trying to build some unified social network to compete with Facebook. It didn’t work. Everyone hated it. You couldn’t comment on a video anymore without a Google+ account—they made it mandatory.

What hit me was how direct he was. No careful diplomatic language, no I have concerns about platform direction. Just pure frustration at something that clearly never made sense to him. Looking at the comments, Karim wasn’t alone—people were furious about being forced into Google+ just to participate. It was such an obvious mistake, the kind where you wonder who signed off on it in the first place.

This is what happens when you’re big enough not to care what your users think. Google had the platform. They had the reach. Why would they need permission? They forced it. They assumed people would accept mandatory integration because where else would they go. Except it didn’t work, because you can’t make people want something by making it the only option.

There’s something perfect about Karim showing up after eight years just to say what everyone was already thinking.