Livejournal jumps the shark?

[matgb]

Livejournal will now be selling adverts. Only to those who want extra features for free and don't mind adverts, but they're still going to be selling adverts. daweaver isn't at all impressed, and I'm, well, confused.

Y'see, the LJ business model made sense to me. There are free riders and paid users. Those of us that pay do so because we value the service so much we pay for our account, thus subsidising the free riders. The benefits of a paid account are strong (although not as strong as they were), but we also acknowledge that we're supporting LJ, keeping it ad free, and encouraging others to use it in the knowledge that some of them will like it so much that they will also pay, thus keeping LJ going. The Rational Choice theorist in me respects this business model.

Now? We are to have another level of user, that disrupts the business model. No longer does my contribution support the rest, ads are sold to support the company, the free riders aren't just supported by the paid users. I don't know how to react to that. Still, it will give me another decision to make in August, free, paid or ads? Thing is, the ad revenue isn't mine. It's LJs. Given we have Open ID, I may switch away completely and just use my typekey open id login. Get all the benefits of LJ friends pages without the drawbacks of the Six Apart business model. We'll see.

Summary. Oh yeah, they want feedback. Go give it.

Comments

[vodex.livejournal.com]

Given we have Open ID, I may switch away completely and just use my typekey open id login. Get all the benefits of LJ friends pages without the drawbacks of the Six Apart business model. We'll see.

How does that work, then? Does Typekey allow aggregation of various Wordpress- based blogs and Open ID sites, then?

[matgb]

No, sorry, I meant using OpenID as a LJ account.

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?userid=9187746&t=I

Is me, logged in under typekey open ID. I friended myself so I can, if needed, log in differently (but mostly so I could keep the url somewehre easy).

If I LJ-syndicate a new 'blog', people can friend that and also my typekey openID. I still get a friends page, etc.

Of course, I have an LJ account, but currently I'm not promoting the idea of them elsewhere, I'll just tell people to log in using typekey (most bloggers in the UK have a typekey account, you need one to comment at bloggerheads. I used to pimp LJ to everyone. Now I don't.

[fearmeforiampink]

As a paid user, your payment still supports the site and subsides the free users. It's just that the ads will too.

If they do reasonable ads, ads that don't dominate the page (google ads are a good example in terms of visibility), and that you can make work with the look of the page, then I will likely go for it.

I have not all that much problem with ads unless they're huge, painful, or popping up at me. Indeed I've even clicked on them for more information on something occasionally. Though I've yet to buy something from one of those click-throughs.