Discontent Strike

[rowyn]

Discontent Strike

If I didn't post for a day, would anyone actually notice?

Nonetheless, I'm going to participate in the content strike on LJ tomorrow. I won't be reading or posting to LJ on March 21, 2008.

I'm aware that LiveJournal is run as a for-profit business. So far as I know, it's been one since I signed on six years ago. I don't object to companies making sound business decisions to promote their own best interests, even if those actions are at my personal expense. That's life. TANSTAAFL and all that.

What bothers me about SUP's decision to stop offering Basic accounts is that it's a stupid business decision. If this move were going to allow LJ to grow and develop as a community and a business, I'd be fine with it. But it's not. It's going to hurt their profitability and cause their user base -- basic, paid, and ad-supported -- to shrink. Because people like me who pay for our accounts want our writings to be read by our friends, and we really don't care whether our friends pay or not. We just want the service to be available and easy to use by anyone with Internet access. Eliminating Basic accounts makes it a little harder to use, and a little harder for people to decide they like it and they want to pay for it.

It's not the collosal stupidity that OpenDiary pulled off, where they ultimately drove off the service literally everyone I knew except Krud. Unpaid "Plus" accounts are still available -- they're ad-supported versions of Paid, essentially. LJ isn't forcing conversions of existing Basic accounts to Plus (yet). As stupid business decisions go, it's pretty minor.

But it's still a mistake.

I don't know if seeing a one-day dropoff in site traffic will help SUP realize that it was a stupid decision and fix it. Probably not. But it might help, so I'll go along with it.

*

In unrelated news, I started exercising again on Tuesday, after three weeks of enforced time off due to illness. I'm still a teeny bit sick -- Diet Coke still doesn't sound good, and I'm still dragging a little more than usual -- but I'm mostly healthy.

It was tempting not to start again. To give up exercising entirely and get back that hour or so of my life that exercise takes up. There's a symmetry in it: John inspired me to exercise in the first place, so it would make a certain amount of sense to quit now that we're not together any more.

But I didn't. I don't really know why. Even for the last two weeks while I was recuperating, I've been doing long walks of one to three miles, just to do something a little active. It's not that easy a habit to break, I guess.

So I jogged on Tuesday night. I only managed my neighborhood circuit of 1.2 miles, but I was happy to get that. Last night I did 20 minutes on the exercise bike and then walked the neighborhood circuit afterwards, because it was a nice evening.

And stretched.

I've been doing very little stretching lately and I notice my lessening flexibility more than anything else. How long and how hard I exercise is often a matter of willpower as much as physical difficulty, but not being able to hold a split for 30 seconds is purely a matter of how flexible I am.

I can still manage sidesplits, but they're harder than they had been. And sitting crosslegged is uncomfortable. What? What's up with that? Hopefully it'll improve again as I get back into the groove.

Hopefully I wil get back into it, and not use the long break as an excuse to give up. So far, so good.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

New accounts created can still be free. They simply become ad supported, like everything else on the web. So you can still tell friends and family that they can sign up for free, because they still can. And accounts that existed before this can still drop to basic, with no ads and limited function. All that's changed is that nobody creating a new account has the option anymore.

I don't see the change as that big of a deal, not if you can still have a free account by watching some ads. Now if they ramp up the 6A war on fandom again, then I'll be dropping back to that basic model and withholding my money from them until they straighten up. I just reupped because I believe their lunatic banhappy days are behind them. Hopefully that's the case.

how

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

I wonder how,without looking
over the company books, one can
be quite sure that no longer offering
ad free free accounts is a stupid
business decision?

Re: how

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I wonder how looking over the company's books would help you tell?

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

because I am not an accountant
or because you assume they are dishonest
books?
I dont know...I do not understand this
feeling about lj but it may be that a lot
of people go around with a chip on their
shoulder to start with and then this
becomes a kind of conditioned response
to assume they are being cheated...
by everyone probably in life.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

No, because the reasons people think that it's a bad business decision wouldn't be reflected in the books -- they think it'll make it less attractive to existing and new paying members. Really no way to tell what effect that would have on the books without trying it, right?

Statistics exist that might help make the decision though, things like 'how many free users choose to upgrade on their own?' and stuff like that. That's more market research than accounting, though.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well Ive said enough on it
likely a tad too much
let each feel it as they will...

Re: how

[rowyn]

I think this for pretty much the reasons Terrycloth cited. LJ built a site with, what, 1.8 million active members, and which was valuable enough that SUP paid $30 million for it. A big part of why it's so popular is that it offered a nice service for free, and an even nicer one if you paid. Changing this business model to one that discourages new accounts is a mistake, because it's the new free accounts that turn into paying members and that grow the customer base.

Now, this isn't the disaster OpenDiary made of it: you can still get a new ad-supported free account. So they'll probably be okay. I'd just like a way to signal to businesses that often the best way to make more money isn't as simple as "raise prices".

But you are quite right: I was much too forceful in my opinion in this post. I think it's a mistake, but "stupid" is an overstatement. And we'll probably never know who was right, me or them, because in the real world there are so many other variables that come into play that you can't really isolate which ones were the critical factors.

annoyances

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

I have many annoyances today and likely will
pass them on to someone or even in a small percent
in these responses here which were unnecessary
so I cannot without ,maybe not hypocrisy which is
too strong a word, I cannot without a certain
failure of imagination and sympathy criticize anyone
else for taking "it" out on livejournal.

for example today a travel agents error set me back
500 on my jerusalem trip

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Excercise is just good in general, I think it's worth doing just for oneself. I bet you'd miss it if you completely gave it up.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I had a horrible cold over 'winter break' and stopped exercising because I couldn't go outside. It was really, really hard to get back in the habit again, not exercising just feels so much better, and you have so much more time.

If there was a pill I could take instead of wasting time and effort exercising... stupid illogical stone-ago biology.

[rowyn]

It was really, really hard to get back in the habit again, not exercising just feels so much better, and you have so much more time.

Y'know, I hate that you wrote this because it's so true. Don't you know that people who exercise are supposed to lie to themselves and others about how wonderful it is and how it fills you with energy and all that other nonsense? You can't just go around throwing out the truth like this!

[krud42.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly frank, you're the only reason I still ever come here. I don't think anyone actively reads me here, so I'm not eating up site bandwidth (other than when I read you), and the storage space I'm taking up on the site's hard drive may be a whopping 600k at best (plus whatever space my notes take up over the years), so... in that sense, I'm glad they're not forcing me to pay, 'cause then you'd only be able to get Anonymous notes from me. Which means no more copyright-infringing clipart of Satchel. :P

I'm somewhat amazed that I'm still at OpenDiary, considering all the various crap that has transpired there over the years. It probably has something to do with it being my first (permanent) online voice. [Not counting the numerous forums and message boards on random websites. Which is kinda how I treat LJ, sadly.]

I wish I liked it here better. Or that I felt more comfortable here. Or both. I don't know what it is. There's nothing wrong with the site, than I can tell. In fact, there's a lot I like about it that is superior to OD. So, who knows what my deal is. And I just realized this is WAY too long for a comment....

RYN@OD: Loved the GM analogy!

[krud42.livejournal.com]

Oh, btw... your diary still exists on OD.

(And no, that's not an April Fool's joke.)