If they build a profile based on your browsing and social graph to show you ads, what does it matter who you actually are, so long as you have those interests? Like a node in a graph being distinguished only by the arcs connecting it.
Cargo culting at its finest. Google is really smart about a lot of different things, but they know fuck-all about social. They were just going through the motions.
Real Names policy was the brainchild of a 40-yr-old multi-millionare who was an expert in cultivating his personal brand and image, and knows not donsay anythig embarrassing online.
Why would you care to use Google+ in any other way, he thought.
Yeah they forgot that people only used real names on Facebook because it was extremely private (only people in your university could see you). Google+ on the other hand is full of public actions - Youtube comments, app reviews, etc.
A few days ago, +David Brin shared a post about GamerGate, in which he opined that this is a problem which would be solved by greater transparency: "It is only anonymity that lets bastards like this operate," he says, "Accountability is the light that sears most kinds of badguys, whether they operate in criminality or in high places."
I disagree with his analysis, and this disagreement is rooted in part in my experience of information-revelation policies on social networks. (e.g., name requirements) While there was an expectation that people would behave better when their activity was tied to their own identity, as that identity is presumably a highly valuable and non-renewable resource to them, the evidence weighed against it: people seem quite willing to be jerks under their own identities....
In practice, the forced revelation of information makes individual privilege and power more important. When everyone has to play with their cards on the table, so to speak, then people who feel like they can be themselves without consequence do so freely -- these generally being people with support groups of like-minded people, and who are neither economically nor physically vulnerable. People who are more vulnerable to consequences use concealment as a method of protection: it makes it possible to speak freely about controversial subjects, or even about any subjects, without fear of harassment.
If they build a profile based on your browsing and social graph to show you ads, what does it matter who you actually are, so long as you have those interests? Like a node in a graph being distinguished only by the arcs connecting it.