More ads on the front page biz.

[foxfirefey]

Not many people noticed the ads on news on the post around when they were introduced, but a quite a few have been noticing the new front page ads on the latest news post.

brad posts about being against ads on the front page, as well. But, as we all know, there are some issues you just can't win.

Comments

[insomnia]

I left a long comment to him about how ironic it is that he of all people is complaining about LJ's slow bleeding, since he was the one who opted in to it.

I also appended the story of The Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs to the post, as it seemed appropriate.

I don't really expect he'll unscreen the post, but at least he should get the point.

[soph]

He didn't really have much of a choice... LJ was sucking up his time and energy when he wanted to work on other things. It wasn't that he wanted to get rich off of selling LJ.

[ex_uniquewo]

Honest question: did trying to keep his focus on development and stuff mean that LJ had to be sold? Could there have been management changes or some sort of reorganization or is that completely unrealistic? Anyway, no point in dwelling on what you can't change, imo.

One of the points, if I remember well, is that he/they/LJ wanted to be able to do more, to grow bigger and that required more money, more employees, etc. Well, they did but at what price?

[insomnia]

He had to sell LJ because it was sucking up his time and energy? I just don't believe it. It's still routinely requiring 10 hour working days.

Brad had similar arguments about LJ from the first day I worked with him, back in 2000. The problem wasn't that it sucked up his time. The problem was that:

1> He couldn't let go and delegate.
2> He didn't play well with others, pissing off the great majority of open source developers who came forward to help.

[jesspark]

That's so sad. On the one hand, I'm pleased that Brad still gives a crap about LiveJournal... but, on the other hand, I wish there wasn't reason for that post to prove it

[insomnia]

"Based on the entries on my friends page decreasing, both in number and length -- and those that are left griping about how LJ's gotten "boring" lately -- I'm probably not the only one feeling this way, and my friends list has always been composed of pretty dedicated LJers. It's not a good sign. Will other users start feeling similarly, and will such a great, vibrant community eventually go out with a whimper of apathy?"

What you describe is exactly the kind of symptoms I predicted would happen as a result of LJ's gradual shrinking of regular users. This shrinking is probably even more pronounced for people like you who have a lot of old users on your friends list, and who probably don't add new users to your list at a rate high enough to make up for older accounts going inactive / less active over time.

[elfwreck]

I still post (not as much as I used to, but that's job-related, not LJ-politics-related), still read... but I no longer encourage people to get LJ accounts & join me here.

[ex_uniquewo]

Same here. I would never send an invite or pimp LJ in any way. And I would never encourage anyone to upgrade to a paid account. I used to.

[schnee]

How much decision-making power does Brad still have, anyway?

[insomnia]

Hardly any when it comes to business decisions. It's not his company.

[schnee]

*noddles* :/

[ex_uniquewo]

If I decide not to renew my account (and I've just switched from undecided to 65% against renewing), I think I'll realize this had been the clincher. It doesn't affect me at all but, to me, LJ has now become one of those sites with ads and I don't wanna support it. I've just gotta fight against layout addiction. :)

[matgb]

I've just gotta fight against layout addiction.

Trust me on this one, Wordpress layout theming is just as addictive, and given WP's popularity, is a hobby you could actually make money at. I'm very sold on switching everything to Wordpress now, and now I'm online at my new place I can start catching up on stuff...

(theme Sandbox is my current favourite, it's like Expressive, but more flexible)

[ex_uniquewo]

The problem is that my lj is closely related to fandom - that's why I created it really - so unless 80% of my flist moves elsewhere, I'm stuck here.

[turlough]

I'm in the same situation. I created my journal because of fandom and fandom is the (almost) sole reason I use it, so moving somewhere else isn't an option for me. The more so since my fandom is one of those that's been concentrated to LJ since the beginning and have almost zero presence anywhere else (no central archive(s) at all, for example).

I might also add that so far I haven't noticed any lessening in activity in my flist. On the contrary, the fandom is actually on an upswing for the first time in several years.

[blktauna]

I think the goose and the golden egg is a wonderful analogy here. That and the whole reap as you sow thing.

I didn't renew after the takeover and I come here less and less, usually only to stick my .02 on the news and design etc posts.

But honestly, who really didn't see this?

[ex_shattered767]

Apparently they didn't.

[blktauna]

Well for marketing people, they sure haven't grasped their market...

[ex_shattered767]

No kidding.

Brad's worried that this ads on the homepage thing is gonna make Paid users stop renewing. Hate to break it to him, but people have been deciding to let their time run out for months now, and ads on the homepage is lower on the list of reasons than he thinks.