Google admits defeat and guts a key part of Google+

Google's been slowly dismantling its struggling social network Google+ for months, and executive Bradley Horowitz just announced another big change: You'll no longer need a Google+ account to use YouTube or any other Google sites. 

Essentially, Google's admitting defeat for its original goal of using Google+ to give users one identity across all of its services.

People had long been skeptical of Google's mandatory integration of its social network, feeling like it mainly functioned to help Google get more information on users for ads purposes. 

"While we got certain things right, we made a few choices that, in hindsight, we've needed to rethink," Horowitz writes. 

When Google first started forcing YouTube users to have a Google+ account if they wanted to comment on videos or share content, many hated the fact that it decreased the ability to be anonymous.

Moving forward, you'll only need a Google Account - no Google+ profile -  to use Google's services. 

Already, people are celebrating this change online:

 

 

 

"As always, your underlying Google Account won't be searchable or followable, unlike public Google+ profiles," Horowitz writes. "And for people who already created Google+ profiles but don't plan to use Google+ itself, we'll offer better options for managing and removing those public profiles."

Google says that the changes will be rolling out in stages.

"While they won't happen overnight, they're right for Google's users-both the people who are on Google+ every single day, and the people who aren't."