(no subject)
Apr. 19th, 2006 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eruthrosDear LJ,
No love.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eruthros
I just reupped my paid account a week or two ago, and now look: it turns out that I wasn't, as I thought, paying for some extra features and to support a site I love, but to be able to do three whole things more'n a "sponsored+" (*rolls eyes*) user and ... avoid ads. Had I but known. (People keep complaining about their paid accounts being devalued, to which pro-ad people say "yes, but you're paying not to see ads!" Except that wasn't what I paid to do; it's just what my account's doing now.)
One thing that bugs me about this is the misdirection going on. 6A/LJ keeps saying "lala, no one will see ads if they don't want to! ever!" ... unless, of course, you're a paid user and don't keep yourself signed in permanently, in which case you will see same every time you log in, or if, of course, you're a free user and visiting a "sponsored+" user's page. Which 6A/LJ says doesn't happen often, which I suppose is true... if you never click on an lj cut or leave a comment. (Two things I, for one, don't want to discourage.) (Oh, and technically using something like the firefox adblock extension is against the TOS and you can be suspended for it if they catch you.)
And, of course, I've been an lj user for years and years: I came here for the community, and the sense that lj was a blogging space in which one could develop a community, and this is really messing with that conceptualization. Peh.
(Also, I predict Rifts and Tensions around sponsored users, further messing with lj communities. I mean,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
no_lj_ads has already posted a greasemonkey script that'll put a nice little "+" on someone's userinfo page if they're using an account with ads. Since opting in is also opting free users in, I bet you dollars to donuts that sponsored users will see less commenting on their journals. (If y'all haven't seen what these ads look like yet, log out and check out this or this. Obviously some free users won't care, but some will; were I a free user and opened up that reply page, I'd be out of there in seconds. In fact, no_lj_ads has, in development, a greasemonkey script to warn you before you go to a comment/lj-cut page with ads. Watch that sponsored-level person's friends-list and readership dwindle! And I also predict that sponsored users will get a lot of comments about how no one wants to see that crap, blahblah etc -- who would want to deal with that? And then there will be defensive comments about how, hey, it's all my choice, or there will be communities that prohibit links back to journals with ads, or there will be people who talk about sponsored users as just not as cool not "real" users, and we all love some good social fragmentation!)
ETA this, from the new privacy policy: "LiveJournal does not share any personally identifiable information with advertisers. LiveJournal may share general demographic information (such as information about members' aggregate interests and occupations) and non-personally identifiable information (such as browser type and IP addresses) with advertisers and partners. If you have a Sponsored+ account or are a Free or Early Adopter account viewing a Sponsored+ account's journal or other content, LiveJournal shares your voluntarily-provided public profile information (such as sex, age, location and interests) and your voluntarily-provided advertising preferences information with advertisers." Emphasis mine. Please note that there is not, as yet, an opt out for this: if you are a free user and you click on the lj-cut or read/post comments link of a sponsored user, lj is reserving the right to share your information with the advertiser.
In short,eruthros=crankypants.
No love.
eruthrosI just reupped my paid account a week or two ago, and now look: it turns out that I wasn't, as I thought, paying for some extra features and to support a site I love, but to be able to do three whole things more'n a "sponsored+" (*rolls eyes*) user and ... avoid ads. Had I but known. (People keep complaining about their paid accounts being devalued, to which pro-ad people say "yes, but you're paying not to see ads!" Except that wasn't what I paid to do; it's just what my account's doing now.)
One thing that bugs me about this is the misdirection going on. 6A/LJ keeps saying "lala, no one will see ads if they don't want to! ever!" ... unless, of course, you're a paid user and don't keep yourself signed in permanently, in which case you will see same every time you log in, or if, of course, you're a free user and visiting a "sponsored+" user's page. Which 6A/LJ says doesn't happen often, which I suppose is true... if you never click on an lj cut or leave a comment. (Two things I, for one, don't want to discourage.) (Oh, and technically using something like the firefox adblock extension is against the TOS and you can be suspended for it if they catch you.)
And, of course, I've been an lj user for years and years: I came here for the community, and the sense that lj was a blogging space in which one could develop a community, and this is really messing with that conceptualization. Peh.
(Also, I predict Rifts and Tensions around sponsored users, further messing with lj communities. I mean,
no_lj_ads has already posted a greasemonkey script that'll put a nice little "+" on someone's userinfo page if they're using an account with ads. Since opting in is also opting free users in, I bet you dollars to donuts that sponsored users will see less commenting on their journals. (If y'all haven't seen what these ads look like yet, log out and check out this or this. Obviously some free users won't care, but some will; were I a free user and opened up that reply page, I'd be out of there in seconds. In fact, no_lj_ads has, in development, a greasemonkey script to warn you before you go to a comment/lj-cut page with ads. Watch that sponsored-level person's friends-list and readership dwindle! And I also predict that sponsored users will get a lot of comments about how no one wants to see that crap, blahblah etc -- who would want to deal with that? And then there will be defensive comments about how, hey, it's all my choice, or there will be communities that prohibit links back to journals with ads, or there will be people who talk about sponsored users as just not as cool not "real" users, and we all love some good social fragmentation!)ETA this, from the new privacy policy: "LiveJournal does not share any personally identifiable information with advertisers. LiveJournal may share general demographic information (such as information about members' aggregate interests and occupations) and non-personally identifiable information (such as browser type and IP addresses) with advertisers and partners. If you have a Sponsored+ account or are a Free or Early Adopter account viewing a Sponsored+ account's journal or other content, LiveJournal shares your voluntarily-provided public profile information (such as sex, age, location and interests) and your voluntarily-provided advertising preferences information with advertisers." Emphasis mine. Please note that there is not, as yet, an opt out for this: if you are a free user and you click on the lj-cut or read/post comments link of a sponsored user, lj is reserving the right to share your information with the advertiser.
In short,
eruthros=crankypants.
