To Pay or not to Pay...
That is the question.
My paid account expires on July 10th. I am really starting to wonder why I have a paid account. Back in the day I actually supported Live Journal when it was independently run and needed the money. Now, it seems like the current owners just don't give a fuck about the membership here.
Case in point, I just went to make a voice post (I haven't done one in years) and discovered that the "local" Canadian number is out of service. On the LiveJournal FAQ / Known Issues Page it says:
Additionally, VoicePost access numbers outside the United States are currently unavailable. LiveJournal Staff are investigating.
Uhmmm, wanna bet they never paid their bills?
I mean what do I get for my paid account? Extra User Pics - wheee! The Ability to post Polls (About the only thing I would miss), and their SCRAPBOOK which never worked properly in the first place. I am sure there are a lot of other minor features that I forget are Paid Members only, but off the top of my head those are the big ones that I think of. And of course voice posts (which are broken).
I know lackofendorphin purposely let his Paid Account expire a couple of years ago when the Russians took over and I don't think he has missed it any. Have you?
I guess there is always Dreamwidth for a site alternative if I get desperate.
All Paid Accounts can access these features:
* Styles:
o Ability to have exact control over your journal's layout by creating S1 custom styles and S2 custom styles;
o Access to additional S2 styles: Component, The Boxer, Expressive and all themes for The Style Contest;
o Access to all options in the S2 customization wizards and the Advanced Customization area;
o Access to 50 links in your S2 link list, rather than the 10 allowed to Basic Account users;
* Userpics:
o Access to 30 userpics, rather than the 6 allowed to Basic Account users.
o Ability to purchase add-on userpic space for an additional 70 userpics.
o Ability to browse and search through your userpics when posting or commenting by clicking the "Choose userpic" button next to the userpic selection option.
o Note: Although communities with Paid Accounts are given more userpics and can have add-on userpic space, neither maintainers nor members can select the userpics when posting entries;
* Ability to create custom mood themes;
* Ability to insert polls into your LiveJournal entries.
o Maintainers of all account levels can post polls to their Paid community .
o Basic members and moderators of a Paid community cannot post polls in the community.
* Access to the complete range of options for embedding your journal into your home page and the reverse ability to set up domain forwarding, so that your domain points to your LiveJournal;
* A @livejournal.com email forwarding address;
* Access to the text messaging feature;
* Ability to see up to 100 recent comments, rather than the 10 allowed to Basic account users;
* Ability to expand collapsed comment threads, and to have Basic, Early Adopter, and Plus users expand collapsed comment threads in your Paid journal or community.
* Access to your Friends of Friends list (http://sooguy.livejournal.com/friendsfriends/);
* Ability to filter entries according to security when viewing your journal, as well as when viewing other journals.
* Ability to notify Weblogs.com of (public) updates to your journal.
Poll Paid Account Renewal
My paid account expires on July 10th. I am really starting to wonder why I have a paid account. Back in the day I actually supported Live Journal when it was independently run and needed the money. Now, it seems like the current owners just don't give a fuck about the membership here.
Case in point, I just went to make a voice post (I haven't done one in years) and discovered that the "local" Canadian number is out of service. On the LiveJournal FAQ / Known Issues Page it says:
Additionally, VoicePost access numbers outside the United States are currently unavailable. LiveJournal Staff are investigating.
Uhmmm, wanna bet they never paid their bills?
I mean what do I get for my paid account? Extra User Pics - wheee! The Ability to post Polls (About the only thing I would miss), and their SCRAPBOOK which never worked properly in the first place. I am sure there are a lot of other minor features that I forget are Paid Members only, but off the top of my head those are the big ones that I think of. And of course voice posts (which are broken).
I know lackofendorphin purposely let his Paid Account expire a couple of years ago when the Russians took over and I don't think he has missed it any. Have you?
I guess there is always Dreamwidth for a site alternative if I get desperate.
All Paid Accounts can access these features:
* Styles:
o Ability to have exact control over your journal's layout by creating S1 custom styles and S2 custom styles;
o Access to additional S2 styles: Component, The Boxer, Expressive and all themes for The Style Contest;
o Access to all options in the S2 customization wizards and the Advanced Customization area;
o Access to 50 links in your S2 link list, rather than the 10 allowed to Basic Account users;
* Userpics:
o Access to 30 userpics, rather than the 6 allowed to Basic Account users.
o Ability to purchase add-on userpic space for an additional 70 userpics.
o Ability to browse and search through your userpics when posting or commenting by clicking the "Choose userpic" button next to the userpic selection option.
o Note: Although communities with Paid Accounts are given more userpics and can have add-on userpic space, neither maintainers nor members can select the userpics when posting entries;
* Ability to create custom mood themes;
* Ability to insert polls into your LiveJournal entries.
o Maintainers of all account levels can post polls to their Paid community .
o Basic members and moderators of a Paid community cannot post polls in the community.
* Access to the complete range of options for embedding your journal into your home page and the reverse ability to set up domain forwarding, so that your domain points to your LiveJournal;
* A @livejournal.com email forwarding address;
* Access to the text messaging feature;
* Ability to see up to 100 recent comments, rather than the 10 allowed to Basic account users;
* Ability to expand collapsed comment threads, and to have Basic, Early Adopter, and Plus users expand collapsed comment threads in your Paid journal or community.
* Access to your Friends of Friends list (http://sooguy.livejournal.com/friendsfriends/);
* Ability to filter entries according to security when viewing your journal, as well as when viewing other journals.
* Ability to notify Weblogs.com of (public) updates to your journal.
Poll Paid Account Renewal