I've had an @gmail.com account for many years now. At some point, though, I realized that if Google went all Skynet on us, I would lose control of my incoming e-mail account. So, I used Google Apps to create an @maxcantor.net account, and forwarded it to my main gmail account.
This has led to confusion.
Since my @gmail.com account has always been my "primary" account, I use it for Google Talk. I use it on my Android phone. I use it to get into Hacker News. It's my primary OpenID account.
Obviously, this means that 90% of my friends & family send e-mails to both accounts, because (unsurprisingly) no one can remember which one is the "right" one. Of course, the punchline is that neither is "right," because they both end up in the same inbox.
In my darker moments, I have dreamt of phasing out my @gmail.com account entirely, using the @maxcantor.net account for logins, for Google Talk, for OpenID, etc. However, the tenebrous depths of Google's "account" architecture are both mysterious and sinister to me. Will I lose 5 years of e-mail history? Will a non-gmail account lead to unexpected behavior with Google talk or OpenID or any of the other billion places I use my Google account? Will Google Apps go the way of Buzz & Wave the day after I make the transition, forcing me to either put up my own mail servers @maxcantor.net or switch right back to @gmail.com? My heart is filled with terror, comrades. I see the path of simplicity before me, but it is beset on all sides by the bloodletting hellhounds of You Get What You Pay For.
the fault is ultimately yours for not remembering the correct account.
Except I know my YouTube account and password. That account name is what YouTube displays on every page when I'm logged in. Why Google doesn't let me in is beyond me.
I usually go by the belief that blaming the user is the wrong attitude, no matter how "technically justified" you may be.
Once you merged your YouTube account with your Google account the separate entity of the YouTube account ceased to exist. For everybody that realizes this it is a security risk to leave the YouTube password enabled since all of those users will never think to change or security going forward.
I was thinking this exact thing earlier today. Someone sent me a link to a Youtube video that wanted me to sign in to see risky content. I signed in with my Google account, which apparently wasn't enough, because I had to also have a Youtube account to link it to. I already have a Youtube account so I entered that info, but apparently it was already linked to a different Google account. So I clicked on the 'create Youtube account' link and was sent to an absolutely massive signup form which doubtless required some sort of email confirmation and my mother's maiden name. At that point I just said 'Fuck it, I don't want to see that video that badly' and left.
This kind of thing actually keeps me from using a lot of Google services. I had accounts on a couple before Google Accounts was around, or at least became mandatory. I was never a Gmail user, so when I was forced to create Google accounts, I'd sometimes use different e-mails having forgotten which I used before. Now I have to go through a login/logout cycle multiple times to find out which Google accounts will log me in to which site.
But I swore it said "login" right there in the dialog box :-)
How can they tolerate such a poor system? They have known about these issues for at least 2 years. If it were any other company, I would accuse them of mediocrity. But it can't be the case at Google, so what is going on?
This has led to confusion.
Since my @gmail.com account has always been my "primary" account, I use it for Google Talk. I use it on my Android phone. I use it to get into Hacker News. It's my primary OpenID account.
Obviously, this means that 90% of my friends & family send e-mails to both accounts, because (unsurprisingly) no one can remember which one is the "right" one. Of course, the punchline is that neither is "right," because they both end up in the same inbox.
In my darker moments, I have dreamt of phasing out my @gmail.com account entirely, using the @maxcantor.net account for logins, for Google Talk, for OpenID, etc. However, the tenebrous depths of Google's "account" architecture are both mysterious and sinister to me. Will I lose 5 years of e-mail history? Will a non-gmail account lead to unexpected behavior with Google talk or OpenID or any of the other billion places I use my Google account? Will Google Apps go the way of Buzz & Wave the day after I make the transition, forcing me to either put up my own mail servers @maxcantor.net or switch right back to @gmail.com? My heart is filled with terror, comrades. I see the path of simplicity before me, but it is beset on all sides by the bloodletting hellhounds of You Get What You Pay For.