mdlbear | Entries tagged with greed

This post by siderea voices many of the LJ users' concerns over recent developments very well, and a supposedly-reassuring post by bradfitz is not really very reassuring. I think I know the reason:

We users are not LJ's customer base.

LJ's true customers are the corporations that are selling ads and sponsoring communities. People with paid accounts are paying money not to see those ads; as soon as paid accounts become a sufficiently small fraction of their revenue stream, they won't have to listen to you. Permanent account holders are already insignificant. As far as LJ's corporate sponsors are concerned, we're just a big pile of eyeballs and a source of free "content" that serves as the bait that attracts more eyeballs.

LJ has a lot of momentum; it's a huge site, host to millions of people and lots of great communities. At one point I was happy and proud to be part of it. Now I'm just another user, sticking the needle in my arm three times a day for another fix.

I still like the community -- my community, of friends and family and people who share my interests, and all their friends and family. It would take a long time and a lot of work to replace all that, and it's not likely to happen. I'll still have a place here. But it's not going to feel as much like home anymore. I'll miss that.

In my last post I mentioned planning. I want to think about what it would take to build a community like LJ out of millions of personal blogs and websites -- including LJ blogs. I want to think about ways to use sites like LJ and Blogger and Myspace, instead of having them using us. I want to figure out ways for us to take back the ~~blogosphere~~ ~~web~~ Internet, damnit. There are tools out there we can use, but no good way to integrate, not the tools, but the people. It'll happen, though.

This announcement about "sponsored content" on LJ is just one more instance of LJ's downhill slide into corporate greed since it was sold out to Six Apart.

I have a paid-up permanent membership that I bought back when there were no ads on LJ; the reason I bought it was to have more features. I'm the beneficiary of a free community, mdlbear_albums, that my daughter started for me to discuss my CDs-in-progress. It doesn't have ads on it, and I like it that way. The header line of my LJ links to my website, where my commercial activities (such as they are) are carried out. So does my profile. My profile doesn't have any advertising in it, unless you consider an undecorated text link to be advertising. I don't. When I have CDs to sell I'll undoubtedly make a few links to the corresponding pages where they're offered for sale.

So far, "sponsored content" is just a potential annoyance: I don't have to look at any sponsored communities if I don't want to. I don't really have a problem with businesses buying paid memberships for their communities. Hell, I might even buy one myself when my album comes out. But not if it's more expensive than an ordinary paid membership.

But here's where I'm going to pack my bags and leave: if LJ starts demanding that I pay extra to link to my own damned products -- not banner ads, which would be against the terms of service that I'm ok with, just links. If LJ starts taking down fan communities because they conflict with some sponsor's message. If LJ starts putting somebody else's ads on my profile page, my LJ, or my friends page. If corporate marketing droids start trolling through interests and putting spam in my comments pages to promote their sleazy sponsored communities. And most importantly, if LJ stops being a community and starts being a pipeline for corporate crap.

This post by theclamsman proposes a protest on November 5^th that seems appropriate, and points off to GreatestJournal as an alternative (which it may be; I don't know).

Personally, I like the community aspect of LJ. I like having a friends list, and having a place where I can follow the blogs of many of my friends, acquaintances, and just plain interesting people all in one place without having to waste bandwidth running my own feed aggregator. I like having my blog on a well-connected, popular, high-bandwidth site, and don't mind paying for it. I especially like the fact that anyone who wants to follow my blog can create an LJ for free, put me on their friends list, and become part of a wider community without having to be a computer expert or run their own server. But I recognize that LJ is not being run for my benefit, or my friends' benefit, but for 6A's profit. Eventually they'll get greedy, and make things so bad that many of us will want to leave.

I think it's time to start planning. I don't think the world needs another huge site like LJ or even GJ. I like what ohiblather and a few other people do, making their LJ a mirror or a comments page for their "real" blog somewhere else. I may look into that. I rather like the idea of having a blog I control completely, on my own site, but that can still participate in a wider community of connected blogs on other sites. But not today. Not even this year -- I have other priorities. But it'll happen, if society doesn't collapse first.

Thoughts?

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Entries tagged with greed

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