A closer look at 6A's stance in the the purges; an essay

[stardust_rain]

It's no news that LJ's take on the whole strikethrough fiasco is inconsistent and offensive, but a lot of what they did is also very contradictory - from the long time it took to apologise to the targeted communities, a lot of it didn't seem like a reactionary stances from professionals. So I took a wild guess that 6A has planning something along

Comments

[ficangel]

I nodded right along to all of this, except for one thing: LJ wanting fandom gone. A lot of fandom has paid accounts. A lot of fandom people have multiple paid accounts. And we do something that's fairly legally dubious from a standpoint of civil law. It's right there and it's plausible, while "you guys write kiddie porn!" is absolutely fucking ridiculous. So if LJ really wanted fandom gone, as opposed to just playing nicely and continuing to make up big numbers while not causing controversy, why couldn't they just say, "Look, guys, maybe you're not crossing copyright lines and maybe you are, but our lawyers say that we can't afford to be your test case. The fannish activities stop or you get gone."? A lot of people would freak the fuck out, the mass exodus would still happen, but the paranoia and the frustration that I'm seeing over and over again because we just can't get a straight answer wouldn't be there. 6A, I think, is trying to keep one part of fandom in order to keep the cash and excise the problematic elements, all the while making the exact same mistake that FanLib made: underestimating the social element of fandom. You piss one member off, and pretty soon everyone is going to know about it and be pissed off themselves.

I don't know. Your argument that it just beggars belief that 6A would make the same mistake twice is incredibly plausible and not one that I can quite work around, but I also think that the conspiracy theories are putting too much credit to 6A because people refuse to believe that the people who are going to win this fight (and they are, I do believe that if you stay solely because you refuse to let them win then you're fighting a losing battle) could possibly be just that idiotic. 6A/LJ is definitely gearing up to do something, but I don't think that, given the breakdown of the actual numbers in the 'We have more members than the state of Illinois!' claim, they want to go public. I think that it's more likely that they want to sell. Either way, I think that they're in enough financial unrest that they want to hang onto fandom for fandom's not-insignificant money and keep the sponsors happy, and that a lot of the asshattery is a desperation move.

Or maybe I just want to believe that. I'm not without sympathy to the "I can't believe that we're going to just leave and let the bastards win" POV, either.

[stardust_rain]

I know, it's an extreme that LJ wants to get rid of fandom, but kinda I see it as a sort of 'worst possible scenario' case. But I think that telling all the fans to "fuck off, you break copyright law kthxbai" would cause and even bigger storm; because then it's no longer about website policies but whether we are on the right or wrong side of law. Then I'm guessing there would be more paranoia, because in that case it wouldn't be something limited to LJ, but to other blog services as well. I just find that LJ is trying to remove fandom slowly, piece by piece, to the favour of the sponsors.

LJ hasn't proven itself to be the most tactical in responding to this crisis and while I don't think they'll screw up three times in a row, I don't they're going uphill either. The LJ staff that were with the journal from the beginning seem pretty decent in the thinking area, having developed a huge phenomenon from scratch. But now that the corporate giant has taken over, what they have now is not enough.

I agree with you that 6A wants the best of two worlds, but this has been historically documented to put you on the Grand Road of FAIL. If 6a has realised this, then I'm guessing they're putting one of them on the line. They didn't care for the fact that elaboration (and vikingcarrot and cluegirl) were both holders of paid or permanent accounts. As a lot fandom people (and non-fandom too) for that matter, has vowed to stop payments, it makes me believe that they've got something coming that will outrun the profit of a few hundred paid accounts.

[ficangel]

it makes me believe that they've got something coming that will outrun the profit of a few hundred paid accounts.

Aww, okay, I think that this is the crux of our disagreement. I think that it's going to be more than a few hundred paid accounts: while most of my fannish friends and myself aren't pulling up stakes and flouncing off right this second, we're certainly talking about it and debating the pros and cons of the various alternatives. Big chunks of fandom are already leaving LJ and, social beast that we are, this is going to spur even bigger chunks as people follow the community and LJ keeps pushing. With fandom goes, not just paid users, but the content itself that draws eyeballs to view the ads (and the same with any non-fandom people who are even the remotest bit witty or readable). If LJ has something up its sleeve, then it must have something big. The Pepsi ads have already been hijacked and, given the number of people who think that the trolls are real, seem to be acting far more to the detriment of Pepsi than to its benefit.

Great post, btw. The level of research you've done puts this into context as a slow-moving and long-planned strategy rather than just a burst of mad flailing, and I think that people need to realize that.

[stardust_rain]

Ah, point taken. But, y'see, that pushes me even more in the direction of the IPO-launch-theory, as it literally makes them overnight millionaires; and that, if anything would benefit 6A multiple times in the long run. And I stand corrected re: a few hundred paid accounts; I'm betting it'll be closer to 10 thousand, looking at the current memberships in fandom_counts.

And, heh, thanks. In-the-moment reactionary posts at times like these has always made me frown.