Should I give Six Apart more of my money?

[matgb]

OK, it's that time of year. My paid LJ account expires in 12 days. I like livejournal, I like the community, I like the functions, I like the filtering and the privacy options.

I strongly dislike the management and owners, who, it seems, don't actually like Livejournal, and most certainly don't "get" it. So, should I give them more of my hard earned? Should I switch back to Sponsored? Should I go all FreeBasic?

I'm tempted to pay for a 3 month renewal, but, well, I'm not at all sure. It's the old ethical market consumer in me, I don't like giving money to companies I disapprove of. But I really love the product. Opinions?

Oh, Circus types and a few others would probably be very interested in this post on livejournal_uk...

Comments

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

Point the first: My renewal is September the first, so I have a little longer to think about it. Doesn't mean I actually will though. I don't know as I'll bother with it really. Except for the whole, losing a lot of icons thing.

Point the second: You suck.

[matgb]

Well, you did go overboard.

The main thing for me is feeds and layout, I think I'd lose a lot of my links list as well, which might me needing to relearn how to navigate Livejournal to the bits I use regularly...

Besides, I did (really) like the old business model.

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

What do you mean overboard? I like having 104 userpics to choose from. Admittedly, I use some more regularly than others, but occasionally, it's nice to have an ace up one's sleeve... like so...! :p

[recursived.livejournal.com]

Aside from icons and polls, I don't see what the advantage of a paid account is anyway (self interest declaration: apart from subsidising all us free-loaders)?

[matgb]

Syndication feeds, more layout choices, setting up syndication feeds, more storage space in scrapbook (I don't use it muc, but the option is useful for when I do), syndication feeds, never (ever) seeing any of the annoying adverts and, well, did I mention setting up syndication feeds?

[vodex.livejournal.com]

You seem to know loads about LJ feeds - is there some sort of aggregation/searching/intelligence tool so I don't end up trawling through a feeds freinds page of 300 entries? I doubt it, but you never know...

[matgb]

How d'you mean?

I set up a lot of filters and read them in different groups (see links to the right under Interesting).

But to find if a feed already exists, only way to do it is try to set it up.

[silentgreeneyes.livejournal.com]

You do indeed suck

[(Anonymous)]

LJ does seem to make it exceptionally complicated for comments and commenters. Blogger might be crap, but at least it is good crap. Or I might be talking crap.

[matgb]

Actually, for a logged in user, LJ's comments system is much better than bloggers, across the board. But for a non logged in user, it sucks, that I'll give you.

Alternately, log in using the OpenID thing; a TypeKey identity or a ClaimID identity is very good for that, don't think Blogger supports it yet but it might. Logging in using OpenID is good, as then people can let you read filtered posts that aren't open tot he general public, etc...

[(Anonymous)]

I dont think you should be giving munny to people you dont like. Either give it to me and cope with the hardships of blogger, or pay your dues, matey.
LordHutton