The LJ Strike

[annathepiper]

I'm feeling fairly ambivalent about the LJ strike on Friday. Here's the thing--I'll wind up participating by default, because I try to stay off LJ at work (it's difficult to monitor my Friends list when I sit in an open work area rather than a cube, after all), and I'm heading down to Norwescon with spazzkat as soon as we both get off work. So I won't be around to read LJ on Friday night regardless, or for Saturday or Sunday for that matter. To this, I will add that since I do monitor Google Reader at work, I'll go ahead and see about temporarily disabling the LJ content I pull in via there.

But when it comes to my actual feelings about the situation, I am of two minds.

One mind says that SUP is not establishing a good track record so far at being any better at handling LJ than SixApart was, certainly at least in the PR department. I very much disapprove of making major functionality changes without a news post--and then, when called on it, spinning the most unconvincing load of spin I've heard outside political elections as to why. I would have respected this a lot more if they'd simply said, "Look, we're a business, we need to make a profit, the Basic accounts aren't cutting it, we have to drop them. We're doing it as of date X."

Instead, though, we get the spin. And Mr. Nosik getting quoted as well as describing the protesting userbase as "resistant forces" and throwing around words like "blackmail".

This same mind also feels solidarity with those who feel betrayed not only by the whole violation of brad's original "LJ will have no ads ever" policy, but by the huge shift away from the LJ culture a lot of us long-time users have come to appreciate so much. When I see LJ in the hands of a company that not only doesn't seem to get that but seems actively disinterested in getting it, I can't help but feel a pang.

The other mind, however, feels this: like it or not, LJ is a business now. And I can't get too worked up over their decision to stop offering a service that isn't making them any money.

Moreover, I also have read two different translations of the Nosik interview that people are up in arms about: this one vs. this one. I've seen people pointing out that we've got cultural differences between the US and Russia going on here as well as just differences between the LJ userbase and the business that now owns the servers we live on. I still feel as though his throwing around words like "blackmail" doesn't speak well of Mr. Nosik's interest in making nice with the userbase he's inherited... but I'm also aware that there's a language divide here, and a cultural divide, and I'm not entirely convinced that he's as hostile as a lot of the users out there seem to think he is.

Long story short, I feel like if people really want to get LJ to listen to them, there are one of two routes to follow here: either communicate your concerns to them, rationally and responsibly (comment-bombs and cat macros on the news or lj-biz communities do not qualify, no matter how funny they may be), and hope that hearing from rational users will get them in a more receptive frame of mind. Or, take your business--and your content--elsewhere.

If you're considering that latter route, worry not. I've got Google Reader; I can follow you. And if you happen to be on IJ, GJ, or JF, I'm annathepiper in all three places as well.

In the meantime, though, I'll take Friday off with you. We'll see what happens.

ETA 9:01pm: Also, and I should have included this before: here is a post from the LJ staff in which an apology is in fact issued for how they didn't announce the removal of Basic accounts. Important to note, this.

ETA 10:20pm: Hrmm, interesting, Mr. Nossik gives his side of the story. Also important to note.

Comments

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of these problems have to do with the general people-cluelessness you get with a lot of technology-focused companies. I've worked for a lot of companies that were like that, full of smart people, but people who looked down on "soft" area like UI/usability or PR or marketing, and didn't understand the importance of talking with customers or potential customers.

Things like - "Well, if customers don't like the fact that we're changing the entire user interface they can simply edit their registry." That kind of attitude.

[annathepiper]

I don't know if I buy that. Based on the last several news posts out of the SixApart staff as well as the SUP ones, I'd say that the exact opposite problem is what's in play here--to wit, that the userbase is full of geeks and who are expecting to be talked to on those terms, whereas the staff is operating from Planet Business-speak and posting corporate-flavored nonsense that doesn't actually mean much. SUP's been better about this than SixApart has, from what I've seen so far. But not by much.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

Of course, the problem with clinging to Brad's no ads policy is that, once Brad decided that 'hey, I've got myself a successful, sellable commodity here that I can't keep running out of my apartment', it was inevitable that he would lose the governing say as to what did or did not happen with regards to ads.

The other problem, which people on the internet in general seem to have a really hard time grasping is that running a site this large costs money. Giving it away free to all and sundry (even though some do opt in to pay) is not a long term, sustainable business model. Especially if the bulk of your user base continues to remain the non-paying sort. But I understand that I'm a lot more prosaic about things than a lot of internet users. If I'm getting a service for free, I don't actually feel that I have the right to complain up a storm when the company thus providing the free-to-me-but-not-to-them service tries to find ways to recoup their investment. :)

Plus, I like LJ (even if I sometimes go 'wtf, have you ever been on the internet' over some of their public relations. I never expected, once Brad started muttering about it being a Real Business (tm), that it would have to be made into a profit making scheme to keep living.

(P.S. In other less long winded words, it was terribly naive of Brad to make that statement in the first place. And especially naive to not point out to the userbase that no one could reasonable expect it to be kept up once he involved corporations in the running of LJ.)

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I'm pretty much with you on all of this. Like I said, I can't get terribly worked up over the idea that people might not be able to create Basic accounts at will anymore.

'Cause sorry, Internetz, no, you're not automatically entitled to half a dozen Basic accounts, with bunches of icons, just so you can RP all over LJ and occupy its server space and take up its bandwidth.

[ellerisse.livejournal.com]

LJ is a business now. And I can't get too worked up over their decision to stop offering a service that isn't making them any money.

Other people have said it better than I, but basically: free accounts do make LJ money. Free accounts produce the majority of the content and permit trial of services.

Now, majority of content will eventually be provided by ad-supported accounts under the new scheme. Fine. However, anyone who wanted the service provided to be free of ad support, or who dislikes the way the ad support works, will stop or not begin offering LJ the content that LJ gets viewers as a result of having. Seriously, no one comes to LJ to read news.livejournal.com!

However, I have to admit that chances are good that new users will just go ahead and sign up for ad-supported accounts, either because new users know no better or because they see no options, and LJ will keep getting heaps of content for free so that they can attract additional users.

Which brings me to the part where I think their logic falls down. Assuming that LJ makes any significant amount of money from paid accounts - and that's probably a flawed assumption* - offering a free service that is a good service, not crappy, ad-infested, broken service, is very smart. New users signing up for ad-supported accounts now will have no experience with LJ 'as it should be' and feel little compulsion to buy into the thing. I expect that 'more userpics' is going to play a part in the decisions of those who do, but 'layouts aren't stupidly broken by ads' isn't going to be as obvious to these users as to those of us who've had the option of trying it both ways free of charge.

* In the periodicals model, subscriptions produce so little revenue as compared to advertising that giving away product for the cost of mailing is not just smart, but common.

[annathepiper]

Free accounts produce the majority of the content and permit trial of services.

I've seen this argument expressed elsewhere, yes: that the Basic-level users are the ones producing the content that the Paid-level users are here to look at in the first place.

And that's all well and good up to a point. Given that I'm fairly certain that the Basic accounts on the system far, far, FAR outnumber the Paid ones, I'd be willing to bet that the cost of maintaining the Basic accounts on the system counterbalances the revenue from the Paid ones. And if the cost of maintaining the Basic accounts is more than the Paid revenue, well, yeah, the Basic accounts become a deficit and I can't exactly blame LJ for yanking them. Server space and bandwidth do cost money, and LJ's resources, while assuredly vast, are not infinite.

But this is supposition on my part; I haven't looked at any actual numbers, or announcements from LJ staff on same. I also don't know how LJ's other sources of revenue such as ads, perks like extra userpics, the virtual gifts, or T-shirts or other such physical merchandise match up against Paid account revenue.

[ellerisse.livejournal.com]

Agreed, actually. And this also points to the model of a product for which subscription revenue is insignificant as compared to advertising revenue - basically, the cost of presenting the 'free' material (that would be the news in your newspaper, if you continue this model, although of course in a newspaper the writers are generally paid) is so great that history indicates there will never be a great enough number of subscribers to support it.

[ellerisse.livejournal.com]

And to actually add a thought with meaning - I guess where I'm disappointed is in LJ's adherence to this model. I can't say much about this, though, because it and straight product-for-cash are the only models I know well.

[gilroycullen.livejournal.com]

Okay, maybe I'm missing the point of all this strike.

Why?

This protest may get 1% of all Livejournal users to follow it. That means less than 2 million people in a sea of over 15 million.

So if the vocal minority actually control Live Journal, why should the other 13 million pay attention? OR perhaps I am translating this to so many other things. (US government anyone? The Vocal Minority votes, thus putting who THEY want in office. Wait, this is a different post. I shouldn't get started.)

Considering how infrequently I post in the first place, or the fact that they are saying that basic accounts that exist are not being changed, or the fact that I don't see this as any more than a service I am being permitted to use (albeit by paying my cash willingly.), I am lost that people have such a knee jerk reaction to a business trying to get itself established...

[annathepiper]

Why is a very good question--and it's exactly why I'm ambivalent about the whole thing, as I have outlined above.

In the last few days there have been new developments that render a lot of the original objections moot--such as admitting that the filter on popular interests was a coding error and correcting it, and announcing that oops, yeah, maybe yanking the Basic accounts without actually, y'know, warning the userbase first wasn't so brilliant an idea.

And I think that latter is really the primary beef people have--it's certainly the primary beef I've had, not only in this incident but also in all the various fiascoes during the SixApart ownership--is not necessarily what actions the owners decide to take, but that they don't show much respect at all for the users that are the lifeblood of the site. And getting coherent, non-spin communication out of them has been like pulling teeth.

I don't know how much good it'll do to have a one-day strike, like I said. And although I'll be offline for most of the weekend regardless, I do have some sympathy for the frustrations people are expressing.