![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On the recent LJ controversies
[I was responding to a posting by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liamstliam on the current LJ uproar. Reading through it, I think it deserves a top-post, so here's a slightly tweaked version.]
I kind of fall in the middle, between the outraged and those who think it's all a big over-reaction. I wasn't particularly upset by the free-account change (which I think is a perfectly reasonable business decision, and not likely to make such a big difference in practice), and while I was concerned about the interests filter, I was more worried about it driving people away than anything else. (It was a stupid and rude change, but really mattered mainly on the symbolic level: in *concrete* terms, I think it was pretty marginal.)
That said, I do think the hullaballo is perfectly reasonable and appropriate. At its heart is an important question: who really owns LiveJournal as a social entity?
I mean, it's not that different from the controversies surrounding the SCA, Inc -- or even some of the ones around the federal government. In all cases, there is a legal entity that has all the formal power, but in a sense its *moral* authority flows from the relatively powerless people who comprise that entity. The legal entity has the *power* to change things, but it is less clear whether it has the *right* to do so.
In all of these cases, the "citizens" mostly have one recourse if they disagree: making a big stink about it. It's really a rather decent market-based solution to the problem. If enough people to matter object loudly, the "government" tends to recant unless there were damned good reasons for the change. (Certain recent shameless US administrations being the exception that proves the rule.) If the citizens don't object all that loudly, the government takes their silence as consent, and assumes that it is following an appropriate course.
(Of course, there are often harsher options, including violence against the government or moving out of the entity entirely. Those are sometimes necessary, but usually have all sorts of unfortunate side-effects, so they're generally best not used as a first option.)
So I don't have a problem with the big stink. It caused a very quick revocation of the interests filter, which doesn't surprise me: I suspect that that was a fairly casual stupid decision on somebody's part, and the company wasn't deeply invested in it. They haven't reversed the decision to remove Basic accounts, which also doesn't surprise me: I'd bet that that was a cold-blooded business decision, made with full knowledge that people would be cranky about it, and they're not going to back down.
All of this strikes me as the correct responses of an active citizenry, and I think that's healthy: it indicates that many members of LJ regard themselves as part of a community, not just consumers of a service, and that's important in any meaningful social entity.
(And mind, I say all of this knowing full well that, if CommYou succeeds, I'm going to be on the receiving end of some of those stinks down the road. Best to figure out my philosophy now, so that I can react more consistently and sensibly when the time comes...)
liamstliam on the current LJ uproar. Reading through it, I think it deserves a top-post, so here's a slightly tweaked version.]I kind of fall in the middle, between the outraged and those who think it's all a big over-reaction. I wasn't particularly upset by the free-account change (which I think is a perfectly reasonable business decision, and not likely to make such a big difference in practice), and while I was concerned about the interests filter, I was more worried about it driving people away than anything else. (It was a stupid and rude change, but really mattered mainly on the symbolic level: in *concrete* terms, I think it was pretty marginal.)
That said, I do think the hullaballo is perfectly reasonable and appropriate. At its heart is an important question: who really owns LiveJournal as a social entity?
I mean, it's not that different from the controversies surrounding the SCA, Inc -- or even some of the ones around the federal government. In all cases, there is a legal entity that has all the formal power, but in a sense its *moral* authority flows from the relatively powerless people who comprise that entity. The legal entity has the *power* to change things, but it is less clear whether it has the *right* to do so.
In all of these cases, the "citizens" mostly have one recourse if they disagree: making a big stink about it. It's really a rather decent market-based solution to the problem. If enough people to matter object loudly, the "government" tends to recant unless there were damned good reasons for the change. (Certain recent shameless US administrations being the exception that proves the rule.) If the citizens don't object all that loudly, the government takes their silence as consent, and assumes that it is following an appropriate course.
(Of course, there are often harsher options, including violence against the government or moving out of the entity entirely. Those are sometimes necessary, but usually have all sorts of unfortunate side-effects, so they're generally best not used as a first option.)
So I don't have a problem with the big stink. It caused a very quick revocation of the interests filter, which doesn't surprise me: I suspect that that was a fairly casual stupid decision on somebody's part, and the company wasn't deeply invested in it. They haven't reversed the decision to remove Basic accounts, which also doesn't surprise me: I'd bet that that was a cold-blooded business decision, made with full knowledge that people would be cranky about it, and they're not going to back down.
All of this strikes me as the correct responses of an active citizenry, and I think that's healthy: it indicates that many members of LJ regard themselves as part of a community, not just consumers of a service, and that's important in any meaningful social entity.
(And mind, I say all of this knowing full well that, if CommYou succeeds, I'm going to be on the receiving end of some of those stinks down the road. Best to figure out my philosophy now, so that I can react more consistently and sensibly when the time comes...)
no subject
See, I'm out here in the wilderness crying, IT SO IS NOT ANYTHING LIKE A REASONABLE BUSINESS DECISION THEY'RE GOING TO BANKRUPT THE SERVICE AND WE'RE/OUR JOURNALS'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!
Seriously, I am flabbergasted how many people have been nodding their heads saying, "Ayup, must be a sound business decision to try to increase revenue by putting ads on things." Yeah, right, because add supported content has always been so wildly successful a business model on the internet. *rolls eyes*
Here's a hint: Google? Is not Livejournal. Tripod? Is. Geocities? Is. Salon.com? Is.
You can put billboards on the side of superhighways and turn a profit, but not in residential neighborhoods. Putting billboards up in residential neighborhoods only depresses property values and turns the neighborhood into one without the population you want to advertise to.
no subject
But like I said: I'm biased, and this is food for thought -- fairly scary food at that. I mean, I have to monetize CommYou *somehow*, and absolutely from the word go -- I can't afford to run the system if it isn't bringing in enough money to at least pay me a salary in the reasonably near term. Given that LJ's original shareware sort of model has at *best* a very shaky record in the mass market that I'm targeting here (a few big successes, a lot of utter failures), I'm more than a little nervous about depending on it.
So I *hope* you're wrong. My plan has been to have advertising, albeit at a very low and highly targeted level -- far less than the ambient advertising already present in Facebook. (Essentially using Gmail as my model.) I don't *think* that is going to drive away the bulk of the audience; heaven knows, a significantly larger advertising presence doesn't by and large seem to have driven most people away from Facebook itself. But we'll see: this is certainly one of the aspects of the project that I am most concerned about, and one that I'm lavishing more than a little fretting on...
no subject
Oh, and in response to the previous comment, last I checked my gmails have ads. Silly, context generated ones (which largely cause me the giggles) from the text of the mail. And gmail is my favorite platform so far for email.
One of the strange things about ads on the internet...they are everywhere, and we strive to ignore them. Just like on TV. There's a huge social disconnect there somewhere, does internet advertising work? I'd say I click on an internet ad about twice a year.
no subject
I'm actually hoping to make it *less* -- my attitude is that I'd rather have many people paying a little bit that they scarcely notice, rather than a few paying a lot. I won't know the actual numbers for quite some time yet (indeed, paid memberships are at least a few months off), but I'd really love to be able to pull it off for something on the order of $10/year. We'll see.
Oh, and in response to the previous comment, last I checked my gmails have ads. Silly, context generated ones (which largely cause me the giggles) from the text of the mail. And gmail is my favorite platform so far for email.
Right, exactly. I like the Gmail approach: small number of ads, not *too* intrusive, and highly context driven. If I go the ad route, I'd like a pretty similar approach -- indeed, it's pretty likely that I'd use Google as the ad provider.
I'd say I click on an internet ad about twice a year.
Yep. But that's why I'm keeping the company lean: so that I can still function on a low clickthrough like that. I don't know how it will actually wind up working (or even if there will be ads at all), but my mental model was to show just three ads per user session, only in conversations where there is enough content to stand a chance at getting something *useful*, on the theory that I'll get a few bucks worth of click-throughs per user per year.
If I can get a few million users (and heaven knows, if Superpoke can have millions of users I ought to be able to do so), that just might work...
no subject
*grin* Did you ever notice that when you click on your Spam folder, you get spam recipes? :)