Only ten per cent?

Dear Google,

I’ve heard it said that when you decided on the names policy for G+ you thought it wouldn’t be bad for your profits because you’d only lose about 10% of the population – because only about 10% of the population wouldn’t be able to fit in with your names policy.

I guess what you didn’t factor in is that those 10% have friends too, and that their friends would naturally want to have them there if it’s going to be their online platform for social interaction. And that their friends would be very upset when you throw out people who are dear to them, all because of some bizarre regulation you’ve set up saying people should use the name they’re normally known by but if that name happens to include unusual characters or not to fit the anglo-saxon first name+last name pattern or have too many initials for your liking or whatever then they aren’t allowed to use the name they’re normally known by.

You also don’t seem to have factored in the possibility that some of those people you actually invited to G+ could be part of that estimated 10% of the population. And I’m sure that even if you aren’t good at social, you can still see that it is extremely bad manners to send someone a personal invitation to a party and then get your bouncers to throw them out.

I don’t know what that 10% estimate is based on. Was it meant to include only those people who, for reasons of personal safety, need to avoid disclosing their full real name online? or was it meant to include all those whose names wouldn’t fit in with the pattern you’ve set? I haven’t researched the numbers, so I don’t know how many people there are in the world whose culture uses mononyms, but hey, you might not be good at social but you’re good at data, and this is the sort of data that it would be pretty easy to come by.

I’m not sure how one would go about estimating the other part of the equation though – people who need to protect themselves by using pseudonyms online. After all, many of them are naturally going to keep that quiet, right?

Like I said, I haven’t researched the numbers, but I must say 10% sounds very low to me, considering all the different reasons why people need this protection: political dissidents and oppressed religious minorities in the many countries without freedom of speech, people who need to hide their sexuality from family/employers/neighbours, victims of abuse who need to hide from their abusers, whistle blowers, people in the public eye who can’t risk chatting freely and having their every word quoted in the press the next day, etc etc etc.

But even if the people directly affected, those you are effectively shutting out, are only 10% of the population – here’s the thing about doing social: people want to have their friends there. That’s how Facebook grew to the size it is now – through people inviting their friends. I’m on FB not because of any love for the platform – I hate Facebook, but I’m there (using a pseudonym, and FB don’t seem so intent on enforcing their real name policy) because so many of my friends are. Now on Google Plus I’ve got the opposite situation – in technical terms it’s a really good platform with fantastic potential, with great privacy settings built in (as opposed to FB); but because of this names policy, I don’t dare invite all my friends. How can I invite people and risk them being thrown out? How can I invite people when I keep looking over my shoulder and expecting to get thrown out myself?

It’s such a waste! You guys have put so much work into building such a great tool, I’d hate to see it gather dust in the corner of the internet. But you see, the way you’re going about the names issue, you’re putting off not just those people who can’t fit in with your policy but also people whose friends can’t be there, or people whose conscience won’t let them get comfortable and enjoy a party if those who are vulnerable and marginalised can’t be there too.

I’m not expecting you as a company to care about the vulnerable and marginalised people in this world. I understand that your aim is first and foremost to make a profit, and I don’t hold that against you – I happen to believe that the capitalist system is the best humans have so far come up with, and that it can work pretty well as long as those who hold great wealth and power don’t completely lose touch with their conscience. You showed signs of having a conscience in your dealings with the Chinese authorities. I don’t think you’ve become evil, and I don’t think trying to make a profit is evil. But here’s the thing: if you want to succeed at doing social, if you want to make a profit out of Google Plus, then you need to review your estimate of how many potential users you’re going to lose if you carry on with your names policy: far from just losing 10% of the population, it seems to me you’re on the road to losing a very large number – all those who do care about those who are vulnerable and marginalised.

You may or may not have underestimated the number of people who would be directly affected by your names policy. It seems clear that you underestimated how many of those would be included amongst the early adopters and even amongst those you invited personally. But more importantly for your profit & loss sheet, you seem to have underestimated human kindness and concern for fellow humans, you seem to have underestimated the number of people who, though not directly affected, would care about those who are directly affected and would stand up for us. I’ve seen people who have no problem using their real names speak out passionately for those of us who can’t, I’ve seen people like that publicly announce they’re leaving Google+ because of the way you’re treating their friends, I’ve seen people blogging about it and tweeting about it and I’ve seen articles in the press about it – it has been truly uplifting to see this positive side of human nature in action. Have you seen it? Have you understood what it means for you as a company seeking to make a profit?

If you carry on the way you’re going, you will be left with a very small number of people using Google Plus – only those who are callous and shallow enough not to care about all the people who would like to be there but have been turned away by the bouncers at the door. Do you really want your “fancy restaurant” to cater only for the callous and uncaring part of the world’s population? Maybe that’s the real ten per cent. At least, I hope there aren’t too many more of those. I certainly wouldn’t want to do social with that sort.