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Goodbye Livejournal, eventually.
Apr. 1st, 2008 11:30 amSo, along with a number of other people, I'm going to start migrating away from LJ, onto a different service. SUP, the new owners of LJ, are even worse than Sixapart was, and really screwing things up in a bad way.
So, along with many others, I'm beginning to slowly migrate over to InsaneJournal. I don't know if I'll stay there, since I haven't really used their site yet, and don't know how good it is; but that's where most others seem to be ending up. So I'll check them out as well, in there interests of maintaining some sort of cohesion. I'll keep up my LJ account as well, since I know there are people here who won't bother moving until they get really screwed, but I probably won't be posting here much anymore (not that anyone reads my posts anyway, so no one is really going to miss anything). If things get worse here, I'll move faster, if things get better, I won't bother moving.
Anyone who is already on InsaneJournal can either friend me there, or comment here with their username. I'm luchog there as well.
Why I'm doing it:
I'm fine with them adding advertising to unpaid accounts, and getting rid of completely free acounts entirely. They're a business, businesses make money. And as far as I'm concerned, people who bitch about something they get for free, on someone else's dime (these systems cost a huge amount of money to run), are just assholes, plain and simple. But when you're paying for something and getting screwed, that's a different issue entirely (I'm not paying for my account, but I am paying for a couple others).
No, what gets me are three things:
1) SUP is selling LJ users' info, including browsing histories, to advertisers. I practice I find highly objectionable. Anything you do via LJ, can be sold to targetted marketters, and there isn't squat-all you can do about it. They didn't bother to inform anyone, and they don't have an "opt out" option. And some of their "sales partners" are based in places outside the US, such as Russia, where they tend to engage in advertising practices which are, let's say less than entirely ethical. They can also take your content and spam it out to other LJ users. This may or may not include "friends only" posts, they're not real clear on that.
2) Inappropriate Advertising. Their targetting advertising is often turning up highly appropriate adverts, particularly for underage users. And they apparently disabled the feature that enabled you to easily complain about a particular advert.
3) Censorship. Like Sixapart, SUP is censoring content. Not just "illegal" or "borderline" content, but controversial content as well. They've apparently backed off on some of their censorship, due to a large outcry from their paid userbase, but not all, and appear to be slowly expanding again. In particular, anything regarding homosexuality seems to be getting the axe. I've also been hearing rumblings from other regions that they're starting to do more than that. Some news from the Russian branch seems to indicate that they're quietly pushing to censor content critical of the Kremlin (some of SUP's execs have friends and business connections in the Russian government). There are also indications that they're starting to censor stuff that's overtly critical of SUP themselves.
So, along with many others, I'm beginning to slowly migrate over to InsaneJournal. I don't know if I'll stay there, since I haven't really used their site yet, and don't know how good it is; but that's where most others seem to be ending up. So I'll check them out as well, in there interests of maintaining some sort of cohesion. I'll keep up my LJ account as well, since I know there are people here who won't bother moving until they get really screwed, but I probably won't be posting here much anymore (not that anyone reads my posts anyway, so no one is really going to miss anything). If things get worse here, I'll move faster, if things get better, I won't bother moving.
Anyone who is already on InsaneJournal can either friend me there, or comment here with their username. I'm luchog there as well.
Why I'm doing it:
I'm fine with them adding advertising to unpaid accounts, and getting rid of completely free acounts entirely. They're a business, businesses make money. And as far as I'm concerned, people who bitch about something they get for free, on someone else's dime (these systems cost a huge amount of money to run), are just assholes, plain and simple. But when you're paying for something and getting screwed, that's a different issue entirely (I'm not paying for my account, but I am paying for a couple others).
No, what gets me are three things:
1) SUP is selling LJ users' info, including browsing histories, to advertisers. I practice I find highly objectionable. Anything you do via LJ, can be sold to targetted marketters, and there isn't squat-all you can do about it. They didn't bother to inform anyone, and they don't have an "opt out" option. And some of their "sales partners" are based in places outside the US, such as Russia, where they tend to engage in advertising practices which are, let's say less than entirely ethical. They can also take your content and spam it out to other LJ users. This may or may not include "friends only" posts, they're not real clear on that.
2) Inappropriate Advertising. Their targetting advertising is often turning up highly appropriate adverts, particularly for underage users. And they apparently disabled the feature that enabled you to easily complain about a particular advert.
3) Censorship. Like Sixapart, SUP is censoring content. Not just "illegal" or "borderline" content, but controversial content as well. They've apparently backed off on some of their censorship, due to a large outcry from their paid userbase, but not all, and appear to be slowly expanding again. In particular, anything regarding homosexuality seems to be getting the axe. I've also been hearing rumblings from other regions that they're starting to do more than that. Some news from the Russian branch seems to indicate that they're quietly pushing to censor content critical of the Kremlin (some of SUP's execs have friends and business connections in the Russian government). There are also indications that they're starting to censor stuff that's overtly critical of SUP themselves.
