This isn't just to make commenting more social (i.e. pushing friends comments to the top)-- I imagine it's also largely to hold more people accountable for their comments (w/ their reputation) so that there aren't as many nonsense/flame/bigoted comments like there always have been on Youtube, and in turn get higher quality comments (e.g. Quora vs. Yahoo answers analogy)
> hold more people accountable for their comments (w/ their reputation)
This belief has been thoroughly debunked by Facebook comments. There's absolutely no reason to believe that Google+ will be any better, particularly since the ghost-town nature of G+ means people will rightly assume they can flame away and nobody they know will ever see it.
That's true-- although just based on my observations it feels like Facebook comments on popular posts are silly because of how angry/polarized they are, not necessarily how nonsensical they are (relative to Youtube's comments historically).
For example: typical bad Facebook comment = angry rant at Sean Parker from person who seems genuinely angry
vs
typical bad Youtube comment = some nonsense troll/needlessly racist comment.
Perhaps, although I've seen an awful lot of trollish/bigoted Facebook public comments on anything related to politics — it's not as bad as YouTube but increasingly close.
The accountability argument only holds if Real Name is 100% enforced, which so far hasn't happened. (and if Blizzard's Real ID fiasco is any indication, it never will.)
