(really, i'm just noodling around here)

[synecdochic]

A couple of conversations I've had tonight have solidified some more of my thinking about how I've been thinking about Dreamwidth-the-business (as opposed to Dreamwidth-the-project), and a couple of things connected in my head about why, precisely, things felt familiar, and I guess it's time for some drugged-up rambling through my own personal life

Comments

[azurelunatic]

*nod*

That's the sort of internet place I think I'll like very much, yes.

[synecdochic]

I most certainly hope so. :)

[wearemany]

this is the kind of capitalism i enjoy. this, especially, feels so true: a lot of how I'm building it, in my head and in all the processes we're designing, is sort of an internet-version replication of the diner I grew up in. and good for you.

eta: and the former communications consultant in me would like to STRONGLY recommend you take the two sentence version of this and make it part of your corporate bio, or whatever is your equivalent. a version of this, actually: I want to be one of those businesses that my parents owned. I want to be one of the businesses that knows it's never going to be a Wal-Mart or a Google, but is perfectly content to be what it is: the mom & pop store on the corner that's trying to do awesome things as cheaply as possible and is looking to earn enough cash to keep the business afloat and pay the operators a living wage.that's the part that made me eye my budget and think which month of the year this could be my designated investment/gift. people who want to support that kind of business don't do it because

[synecdochic]

It wasn't perfect, you know? But it was where I grew up, and it was where I learned so much of how to be me, and, I mean, we've already seen people growing up on LJ (I know so many people who have chronicled years and years of their lives here), and I'd like to build something where that means something.

I want to build somewhere that's the internet equivalent of the place you go to buy your penny candy with your allowance when you're a kid and come back to read the paper every morning once you're retired. That kind of place. Somewhere you know that the people running it have that vision and that particular ambition, not Sell To Google Or The Russians Three Years Down The Road.

I think, we hope, that this is going to speak to a lot of people, and that they'll be willing to help support us. It feels like there's a niche for that, at least.

whimsy

[idhren24]

What's the lj version of penny candy? Drabbles? Fanart?

I can definitely see the news communities as papers, and certain archives and ljs (like this one) as cafe bookstores.

[xb95]

I wholeheartedly agree. :)

[synecdochic]

Good thing, too, since you're kind of stuck with it ;)

[idhren24]

Exactly! Especially with the recent news about the LJ lay-offs.

[saoba]

Speaking as someone who grew up a military brat and doesn't even have a hometown this sounds terrific.

You know how they say you can't go home again? Well, in my case, the military units are stationed elsewhere, the bases are mostly closed down and in a lot of instances the military quarters we lived in have been torn down or remodeled beyond recognition. And we didn't have 'the old neighborhood' thing because on any given day anyone on the block could come home from school to find out Daddy had orders for someplace across the country (or world).

[idhren24]

Holy cow. The closest experience I've ever had to that was leaving elementary school; the year afterward, one of my favorite teachers got sued for being honest in a recommendations (the kid had been cheating in her class, she warned the parents in strong terms, and they *still* asked her to write the rec) and the administration did nothing to protect her. Three quarters of the staff resigned in protest at the end of the year, and an entirely new administration came in.

Two years after I graduated from elementary school, the building was empty of everyone I'd known and loved. Sometimes I drive by the shell, but it's an entirely different place now, and it still takes me by surprise.

In short, a long-winded way of saying 'if having six years of my life leave like that was such a shock, I can only imagine what it was like to expect a constant degree of turn-over,' and 'this Dreamwidth stuff is worth it. I want an expanded home of people I can find again wherever I am, whatever my feet take me in the years to come. Let's make it work.'