The more I think about ads on LJ, the more I hate them.
The ads-as-a-feature announcing post in lj_biz keeps making icks in my brain. The biggest icks come from this:
If I'm a free user, will I see ads on my friend's entry pages once I click off to their journal from my Friends Page?
Yes, if your friend has turned on ads. The way we see it: your Friends Page is just your aggregator of all your journals/blogs/news you read, and people on LiveJournal already read lots of ad-supported websites. So if a new user comes to LiveJournal and enables ads, and you find them interesting and want to read them, how are ads on LiveJournal any less offensive than ads on a remote site?
I'm a paid user. Twice over. And I've been a member ever since maladaptive gave me an invite code years ago. But I've invited and heavily encouraged people to come here because I knew they could get a free account, and I knew ads weren't going to be a part of the experience. Now, those people with free accounts are going to bump into ads if they browse around. I hate that idea. And what if circumstances mean my accounts lapse and then I have to bump into ads? Because if push comes to shove, I'm going to pay the $10 a month for my webhosting first.
And I'm tired of running into ads. (Sorry, bucko!) They're a big reason I don't really watch TV or listen to the radio, even if it means I'm culturally a light year behind everyone else. I spend most of my time on the web on Livejournal because it doesn't have ads.
And sure, I'm paid, so I won't be bumping into them. For now. They're reassuring that as a paid user, I won't have to see ads no matter where I go, but before they were reassuring me that LJ wasn't going to have ads at all.
To a certain extent it's kind of hypocritical--they never allowed users to put up ads on their own journals before, so that popular LJs could earn some money through their own blogging efforts, but now they're going to allow users to put up ads for extra features.
I hate how that post was up for a week and I didn't see it. I hate how there's already an ad person hired even before that warning went up. I hate knowing how suddenly, free users are going to jump from being customers to being products for advertisers.
Not to mention internet ad revenue hasn't always been the most reliable income in the past--there've been dips in its money making effectiveness. So what happens if there's another dip in internet ad revenue, except now there's a bunch of free users getting extra features that require extra resources with insufficient ad revenue to cover them? If you take it away from them, they'll scream bloody murder.
Maybe it's time to face the fact that I have my own webspace. I could implement a journal over there with an RSS feed my LJ friends can subscribe to if they wish, use OpenID to let them comment there, and subscribe to everyone's LJ RSS feeds with the proper permissions.
If I'm a free user, will I see ads on my friend's entry pages once I click off to their journal from my Friends Page?
Yes, if your friend has turned on ads. The way we see it: your Friends Page is just your aggregator of all your journals/blogs/news you read, and people on LiveJournal already read lots of ad-supported websites. So if a new user comes to LiveJournal and enables ads, and you find them interesting and want to read them, how are ads on LiveJournal any less offensive than ads on a remote site?
I'm a paid user. Twice over. And I've been a member ever since maladaptive gave me an invite code years ago. But I've invited and heavily encouraged people to come here because I knew they could get a free account, and I knew ads weren't going to be a part of the experience. Now, those people with free accounts are going to bump into ads if they browse around. I hate that idea. And what if circumstances mean my accounts lapse and then I have to bump into ads? Because if push comes to shove, I'm going to pay the $10 a month for my webhosting first.
And I'm tired of running into ads. (Sorry, bucko!) They're a big reason I don't really watch TV or listen to the radio, even if it means I'm culturally a light year behind everyone else. I spend most of my time on the web on Livejournal because it doesn't have ads.
And sure, I'm paid, so I won't be bumping into them. For now. They're reassuring that as a paid user, I won't have to see ads no matter where I go, but before they were reassuring me that LJ wasn't going to have ads at all.
To a certain extent it's kind of hypocritical--they never allowed users to put up ads on their own journals before, so that popular LJs could earn some money through their own blogging efforts, but now they're going to allow users to put up ads for extra features.
I hate how that post was up for a week and I didn't see it. I hate how there's already an ad person hired even before that warning went up. I hate knowing how suddenly, free users are going to jump from being customers to being products for advertisers.
Not to mention internet ad revenue hasn't always been the most reliable income in the past--there've been dips in its money making effectiveness. So what happens if there's another dip in internet ad revenue, except now there's a bunch of free users getting extra features that require extra resources with insufficient ad revenue to cover them? If you take it away from them, they'll scream bloody murder.
Maybe it's time to face the fact that I have my own webspace. I could implement a journal over there with an RSS feed my LJ friends can subscribe to if they wish, use OpenID to let them comment there, and subscribe to everyone's LJ RSS feeds with the proper permissions.