I disagree. Promoting leaves an option for functionality. This would be like Comcast saying that you watching X program doesn't count toward its ratings because you are watching it on DirectTV instead. (IE, IF they pushed this change through, non-Google+ members would be completely unable to up-vote videos. If they don't get up-votes, then all these series that Google/YouTube just spent $100m launching run the risk of utter failure due to a large portion of their viewer base being unable to vote without being forced into having a G+ account.)

What's worse is this - I have separate email accounts for separate activities. I did not tie my YouTube account to my G+ account - why? Because why would I want the douche-nozzle crowd on YouTube to be able to find their way back to my G+ account - which is supposed to use My Real Name Only. And then? You aren't supposed to have more than on G+ account (since you are supposed to only use your real identity and then you are only supposed to have one of those). So. Wtf? Even if it is just in testing for "<1%" of people looking at it, it's still a bullshit move. It was bad enough having to tie my YouTube account to my gmail account (apparently just because I had one and used that email to sign up on YouTube), but why... This is like that Internet Explorer/Microsoft thing all over again.