I went to make a comment on a YouTube video today and was welcomed with the above pop-up from YouTube basically telling me to "Start using your full name on YouTube" with an example of what my current YouTube account appears like ("jimyounkin") and how it will appear ("Jim Younkin III"). It appears in the image above that YouTube (owned by Google) is pulling your "real name" from your Google+ account.
Now, for me, I already use my "full name" on my YouTube channel but judging from almost every other YouTube channel name I’ve ever seen I am severly in the minority. Most people don’t have their "real name" on their YouTube channel.
Read on past the jump for a few more screenshots of the popup dialog boxes YouTube (and by extension Google) is using to try to push "YouTubers" into using their real names.
Privacy? What Privacy!
I find this change especially tone-deaf mainly for the fact that the majority of users are likely to not want to make this drastic a change. Going from something like "skipro865" to "George Jones" sure does remove some of the "distance" that online pseudonyms afford.