After spending a few years plugging Google+ into all of its services,including YouTube- even as users of those services complained, Google is now going to roll that back. It started by breaking out Photos and Hangouts, and now YouTube is going to change back by reverting the system that’s been in place since late 2013.
In a blog post, we learn that "soon" you will no longer need a Google+ account to upload, comment or create a channel, and even if you’re just a viewer, your comments on YouTube won’t appear on Google+ (or the other way around).
YouTube is just one of the first products making this change, so you can expect it to stretch across the rest of Google as well. If you want to ditch your Google+ account now that it’s no longer a requirement, another blog post says it will make doing that easier too.
VP of Photos and Streams Bradley Horowitz says the company will "move some features that aren’t essential to an interest-based social experience out of Google+." As a hint about what will remain, he points to to the Pinterest-like Google+ Collections.