I wasn't going to comment on the latest LJ thing. In all honesty I don't care and I'm way too easily swayed by both sides of the argument. I can see why people are upset but I also don't think it's all as malicious as some people are/were making everything out to be. To be even more honest, I don't even think I know everything that people were upset about. Even when I go to IJ or see an LJ page with Firefox when I'm logged out I don't see ads, so that doesn't bother me.
I'm not doing the strike because I can't guarantee I won't post/comment and I don't think it'll do anything for the reasons a lot of people have already bandied about. Rock on if you ARE doing it, though.
I read
this post by
pat_t about LJ vs IJ and found it really interesting. It seems like every time there's an LJ flare up people tend to bring up the idea of running for the hills to IJ. Eh, whatevs. I'll go where the masses go. Yes, I'm one of those people.
In my opinion, SUP can do whatever the hell they want. They can change all the colours to neon pink and green and the font to comic sans. I can leave. It's their business, it's their choice and nothing I and 20 of my friends can say will stop it. Will it irritate me? You betcha. Will I be annoyed if I have to leave? Sure. But I can find layouts to work around that stuff and as long as there are enough people staying that fandom exists, as close to this form as it can be, I'll be okay.
I just want LJ to be honest with us. If they're looking for money, fine. In this day and age who ISN'T looking for money, you know? I really just can't work up the energy to be angry over this thing that likely won't affect me, as long as I can still do the things here I can do every day. I want them to make statements about what they're doing and stand by them. I want everyone on staff, whether they're the CEOs, administrative staff, coders, business, technical, volunteers--WHOEVER--to be on the same page. Even if I don't agree with what they're doing (ethical issues aside) as long as they stand strong on the decisions they make, I'm okay with them.
Maybe that's all short-sighted and naive, maybe I should be more up in arms. *shrugs* But right now all I can see is a business that wants to make money and because they own LJ they have every right to do that however they see fit. We have every right to leave and set up shop somewhere else, but there's no guarantee it'll be like LJ or won't change into what LJ has started leaning towards. We'll find a way through it, I'm sure. They do have a tendency to put their foot in their mouth a lot, though, don't they?
Tonight
theljstaff posted
this entry with an apology for the past few days that is being appreciated by a lot of people. But then at the end they posed two questions about changes that could be implemented. THESE are two things I
COULD NOT BE MORE AGAINST.
Revenue sharing - Should users be rewarded for their content and contributions? and
Subscriptions – Should moderators be able to charge for access to closed communities? Good LORD I'm so against those two things. First off- HI COPYRIGHT ISSUES! I can't see any way to reward some content and contributions and not others to avoid potential lawsuits from all sorts of media creators. I don't really want someone coming along and seeing me getting money for my fandom works, based on their creations, and being slapped with a lawsuit. That's how I'm interpreting all that stuff right now. Please feel free to correct me if you can find anything else that could be worked out as from that one question.
The second one... no. Just no. People already get pissed off when they have to join an icon community or a fic community to see the works, you know? Some people are really freaking weird about having people apply to see their shit to curb bandwidth thieves or to get more comments or WHATEVER. But CHARGING people to see their stuff? A) No one's going to join a lot of those which will inspire long sob posts about how no one wants to join their comm and no one likes them and they get no comments. Only this time it's about money. B) Complaints and whining about popularity contests. "Why does person A have 200 people joining their community but I only have 20? WHAA WHAA WHAA."
This would also make me even more wary about people who bring up stories about needing money to pay rent or to buy food or something. I mean, that happens now, I know, but in this case I'd worry about those instances becoming even more prevalent and trust becoming a very, very precious commodity. And then--THEN--what happens when a case of plagiarism or stealing comes up? Will people be able to differentiate between paying for access to a community versus paying for whatever's in the comm? It might seem like the same thing but if someone's got an icon community, in theory (from the way this question is posed) you'd be paying for access to the community and then everything in it is fair game. But some people would likely be more charging for the things in the journal, rather than access. So if they see someone using, say an icon, without joining the community would they get pissed off and try to file a complaint or something? Then the copyright issue comes up AGAIN.
I also fear that being on LJ becomes a job, a CHORE, rather than something fun and a communication tool. If someone pays to join your community and you don't actually post anything, or enough to satisfy the people that have joined, are they going to get pissed off at you?

They're both just potential questions at the moment to get feedback. So far I've seen one person in favour of one of them but the rest are almost violently opposed to at least paying for closed comms, which is good. Some people are tentatively in favour of revenue sharing but I feel as soon as you introduce any kind of monetary (or even monetary-esque) gain into LJ it gets waaaaaaay too hairy.
I'm glad they're just questions at the moment and people have been speaking out VERY against the second one so far. SO glad.
Thoughts?