Striking Out

[vovat]

Since I don't keep up with LiveJournal news (well, unless the server is down), I'm sure I wouldn't have heard of the proposed strike for today if a few of my LJ friends hadn't mentioned it. Based on what I've read, the main reason for it is that LJ is no longer offering Basic accounts to new members. You can either pay or host ads. And yeah, that sucks, but it really seems like it was inevitable. When Web space is theoretically offered to everyone on the Internet for free, it doesn't take an economic wizard to realize that that model can't last indefinitely. Besides, the ads are really pretty easy to ignore. Now, if they were switching over to pop-ups, I could certainly see complaining about it. That's why I abandoned Geocities, after all. Granted, I can't understand how the LJ ads make any money. Most of them appear to be for services on LJ itself, and even the ones from actual sponsors never seem to advertise anything anyone would actually want. But really, that's not something I have to worry about. Ads suck, but it could be a lot worse.

The other issue I have with the whole thing is, even if you do think the changes are something worth protesting, how is not posting or commenting for a day going to demonstrate this? This is especially true for people with paid accounts. If you've already paid for something and then choose not to use the service provided to you, how is that teaching LJ a lesson? Isn't that actually advantageous to them? Refusing to renew your paid account would make more sense, but since everyone's accounts expire at different times, I doubt think LJ would notice a pattern.

Also odd is that, on a few of the entries that I've read regarding the strike, some people recommended using Blogger if you don't like the changes LJ is making. But didn't Blogger start putting ads on free accounts long before LJ did? Or was that just for Blogspot blogs? I know there was one on my blog there, back when I used it. Besides, I used Blogger for a few years, and no one read it. As I've mentioned a few times before, I think the biggest advantage to LJ is that you don't have to remember to check other people's journals periodically, because you can see everyone's new entries on your friends page.

By the way, when I was cleaning out my wallet earlier today, I found that I have a $25 Borders gift card that I'd totally forgotten about. That's a pretty cool discovery, no?

And hey, I've finally caught up on my friends page for the first time since leaving for Disney World! I also cleaned up and vacuumed my bedroom floor. That's cool, but I'm not sure what I should do now. There's a lot of other stuff I could do online, but I don't know that I feel like doing any of it. I sort of want to play The Sims 2, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to stop. I should probably go back to bed, but I probably wouldn't be able to get back up. Why do I wake up so early even on days when I don't have to? I'm sure I'll be ready to sleep again right around when bethje gets up.

Comments

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

My protest is in not paying for a service that I used to pay for :/ Though my issues aren't related to LJ no longer offering basic accounts so I doubly don't care about the strike.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

What are your issues, then?

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

This makes me sound like a perv, but whatever. Mostly because they cracked down on anyone posting stories/roleplay communities that feature characters under 18 engaged in sexual situations. Despite the fact that it's completely legal to write erotic fiction involving underage characters. On top of that, anyone posting erotic art where the age of one or both characters looks AMBIGUOUS also may get a complimentary ban from LJ without warning. I know it's their site and they can set any TOS they want, but that's pretty much why I'm not paying for it any more.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think I'd heard of that before. It wasn't something that had any impact on me, but I'm not too keen on any kind of censorship. I guess LJ's management could have been trying to cover their own asses in case of legal trouble, but what I read indicated that it was primarily done at the behest of some busybody fundamentalist group. Or am I thinking of something else?

Of course, since I've never paid for LJ anyway, I don't exactly have any recourse even if I don't like their policies.

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

I didn't know there was a strike. Huh. Guess I'm totally out of the loop. I don't really care if they add ads to basic accounts.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I didn't know there was a strike.

Neither did I, until I saw a few offhand mentions of it in other people's entries. I'm definitely out of the loop, but I'm not sure why I'd want to be in it. The people who are seem to spend most of their time complaining about things that have no effect on the majority of LJ users.

[petie-s.livejournal.com]

I heard about the strike a few days ago. This feels like the "don't buy gas on Day X to stick it to the oil companies" strikes that you hear about every so often in your Spam folder.

I'm not going to post much today, because I'm going to be out of town. If not, I'd be posting like a fiend, just because.

[petie-s.livejournal.com]

If I were feeling spiteful, I would spend some time today, leaving comments on journals whose owners were participating in the strike.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

This feels like the "don't buy gas on Day X to stick it to the oil companies" strikes that you hear about every so often in your Spam folder.

Which I'm sure are totally effective, considering that the participants are probably going to buy just as much gas the next day.

[petie-s.livejournal.com]

Or the day before! So indeed, it totally works!

Your point about not using a paid account is very good. Also, not posting is not the same as not reading. People will still read LJs, and the ads will still be served.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

You posted this at 10:30 and are complaining that you got up too early and should go back to bed? What? Freaky night-owls.

Lately I've been stalking author blogs, and am disappointed how many of them are Blogger and whatnot because they're just NOT as easy to keep up with as a nice LiveJournal friends page. I found this great kidlit-related blogreader called Jacketflap, which is great only in that it lets me keep up with a wide variety of such blogs, but is not great in that it NEVER SEEMS TO WORK CORRECTLY. Apparently you can get feeds of a lot of other blogs on your friends page, but you have to have a paid account to add a blog unless you already find it on somebody else's lj (or that "Top 1000 Feeds" ad that is at the side of this page as I type this), then you can add it just like you add a friend. But all that goes to prove is that lj is just that much cooler for usability. I wish it was as popular as stupid Absolutely-Not-As-Easy-To-Use MySpace.

And yeah, the ads are stupid, but usually easy to ignore. Oh, the other day I clicked on that "customize" underneath the ads to see if I could make it play some new more interesting ads and I wouldn't have to look at the stupid Gwen-Stefani-apparently-drew-stuff-for-HP-or-something ads anymore, but what "customize" meant was that you just click the five (OR MORE!) categories that interest you to show ads about, so I suppose we could just add more categories and we'd see a wider variety of ads. If we really wanted to.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

You posted this at 10:30 and are complaining that you got up too early and should go back to bed?

I posted it at 10:30, but I'd been up for two or three hours before that, and hadn't gone to bed until after 1.

Apparently you can get feeds of a lot of other blogs on your friends page, but you have to have a paid account to add a blog unless you already find it on somebody else's lj (or that "Top 1000 Feeds" ad that is at the side of this page as I type this), then you can add it just like you add a friend.

Yeah, I have a few of those added, but most blogs don't seem to have this option.

I get the impression that a lot of people like to use sites other than LJ because they allow for more customization, and hence more of a sense that the blog is truly their own. This isn't really a factor for me, since trying to customize a web page any more than changing a color or two generally just gives me a headache.

I wish it was as popular as stupid Absolutely-Not-As-Easy-To-Use MySpace.

But would you even WANT to read the journals of the majority of MySpace users? I didn't think so. {g}

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

But would you even WANT to read the journals of the majority of MySpace users? I didn't think so. {g}

Not in general, no! But because everyone's HEARD of MySpace, it's like That's the kind of account everybody gets, and in the kidlit business lately everybody's like "Get a MySpace page to market your books! You can even blog!" but it's so sucky I wish more authors would get LiveJournals instead. I'm tracking a bunch of them that do down, though, gradually.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think MySpace has basically developed into an advertising site, while LJ hasn't.

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

That strike sounded like the most stupidest thing ever. People whine like WAY too much about petty shit.