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Published : 5 months, 1 week ago (Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:19:37 PDT)
Searched:
http://insomnius.livejournal.com/297789.html 0 links
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Livejournal (management) has been very stupid lately, and as a result of their various stupidities (most of which most of you will have read about already and I'm not that interested in rehashing here) I've been thinking about letting my paid account expire and just using it to read other people's LJs. Maybe getting some kind of Other Blog for if/when I feel like actually writing things, and continuing to use Twitter to spew random chunks of nonsense whenever they occur to me.
Now it looks pretty certain that that's what I'll be doing.
In the latest post on ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/newsinfo.gif) news, there's an accouncement of a new account type. Isn't that interesting? I suppose the "reasoning" for removing Basic accounts - which was that it is "too confusing" for new users to have three whole account types to choose from - was actually a pack of lies. The new account type will apparently have all the features of a Paid account, but will be "sponsored" by some company or other, with a mandatory branded layout that advertises said company.
This really gets my goat (geddit?), because Paid account holders (and Permanent account holders, I guess) were pacified when Sponsored accounts were introduced by a promise that they would not have to view ads. And that sounded fair enough, too. Now, management are trying to claim that because the branded Sponsored styles can be bypassed by appending ?style=mine to the end of the journal page's URL, Paid/Permanent account holders still do not have to see ads.
This is nonsense. It means that the options are: - Force every journal to display in your style using something like this Greasemonkey script. What do you mean, you want to see the journal styles that your friends have worked so hard on? What do you mean you don't want to use a decent browser? (Okay, that last one is a bad question and you should use a decent browser.)
- Load a journal's page, SEE THE ADS, then add ?style=mine to the end. What do you mean, this means you see ads?
Now, I'm not actually as anti-internet-advertising as many people are. I use Adblock, but only to block stupid ads that make sounds or are really visually intrusive. I think ads should behave themselves, but I get a great deal of enjoyment from lots of websites that are supported by advertising, so I think it's fair enough to give the advertisers a crack at me as long as they behave nicely.
I started paying for my Livejournal account before there were Sponsored accounts, because I was happy to financially support a neat site that I got so much out of. Part of the neatness was the no-ads policy, but even when this started to change it didn't seem too bad and besides, all my friends* were here and if I just downgraded I wouldn't be able to keep all my icons (oh noes!).
*Okay, maybe not "all". Maybe only 80% or so.
However, it's been a long and disappointing road from "We will never have ads" to "You don't have to look at ads as long as you pay us moneys" to "Please be stupid enough that you don't understand what we are actually doing, and here, have some advertising to look at." The continual sneakiness and misdirection are a large part of the reason why my account no longer has the value it once had, and thus I am no longer happy to pay for it.
It would be silly of me to pretend that the horrendous management of Livejournal is the only reason I'm disinclined to keep using it, but it's a pretty large factor as well as providing a sort of catalyst (because I'm far too set in my ways to make changes to anything unless pushed).
I'm not deluded enough to think that Livejournal management will actually care about losing my business, mind you.
Before I take my bat and ball and go home, I can create syndicated feeds for my Twitter account and/or whatever Other Blog Thing I make, if people still want to read them on LJ. Let me know. It's not like I actually stopped wanting attention :) |
