matgb | Automatic Payments Turned Off (Reply)

I got my renewal notice from LJ a few days back, and managed to actually compose my reply-the below has just been sent to Accounts @ LJ:

FAO Livejournal/Six Apart senior management,

I have taken the decision to switch off automatic payments while I decide whether I wish to continue giving money to your company. I have two, specific, current concerns regarding Livejournal and the services it offers that are forcing me to rethink my status as a paid user.

1) Datacentre security.
Competing blogging platforms such as Wordpress.com and Blogger.com have a multiple redundancy system for its hosting, so that if one centre fails there are backups elsewhere; specifically, they do not trust all their data security to one location situated the wrong side of a major fault line.

2) Lack of clarity regarding abuse procedures and protocols--I accept the Terms of Service, and understand that the law regarding what is acceptable content is not clear. What I am not happy with is the unclear manner in which the TOS are applied and the perceived inability to explain procedures to your userbase.

Both are significant concerns for me; I like my content and have been using the Livejrounal service as a store for my thoughts for some time, I would not like to see this service suddenly cease due to inadvertent breach of TOS or the loss of the datacentre on a more permanent basis.

I would like to see a public statement from senior Livejournal management, especially on my first point; Anil Dash has already acknowledged my datacentre concern,s if Six Apart intends to remedy this lack it would substantially assist me in making my decision.

Regards,

Mat Bowles (MatGB)

On Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:36:16 UT, LiveJournal.com <accounts@livejournal.com> wrote:
/> Automatic payments have been turned off on your account, matgb.
/> Your current paid account item(s) will expire on the following date(s):
/>
/> Paid Account: expires Aug 22, 2007
/>
/> To reactivate automatic payments, please visit:
/> http://www.livejournal.com/manage/payments/
/>
/> To renew your paid account manually, please visit:
/> http://www.livejournal.com/shop/view.bml?item=paidaccount
/>
/> You may reply to this email with any payment questions.
/>
/> Thank you for supporting the site,
/> LiveJournal Team
/>

Renwal date 22nd August. I'm torn. I still hate that LJ has an ad supported level, ir destroys the effective business model and removes part of my impetus to actually pay them money. In addition, the presence of these very adverts was a specific cause for 6A to overreact and mess up in the initial strikethrough debacle.

But now, the main reason to continue paying is to not see the damn things (I don't use adblocking software--the web does need to be paid for). Secondary reasons include access to userpics (I've sort of got used to having 110 of the things), easy syndication of other blogs, post pages in my style (which while it's not finished I'm still uite happy with), etc.

But can I, in all conscience, continue to give money to an organisaton that is as incompetent as this one blatantly is? Is it possible to continue to support the site (which I love) without supporting the current management style (which is crap)?

I may go for a monthly renewal or similar, or I might just suck it up and pay the tenner it'll take. But I did feel I had to express my opinion to them, so thought I'd share the letter openly.