Comments | no_lj_ads: Oh yes they did

foxfirefey in no_lj_ads

Oh yes they did

Apr 16, 2010 01:20

This ad-related news has been around a couple of weeks, but for the record: ohnotheydidnt has become an officialish LJ community, with one of the maintainers becoming LJ staff. This also means that ohnotheydidnt now shows ads.
( Gleaned Commentary )

business deals, ad creep

Comments 7

amokk April 16 2010, 10:14:35 UTC

Oh good, strongarm techniques to force ads onto communities/people that very obviously didn't want them to begin with. Nice, lj, nice.

foxfirefey April 16 2010, 22:47:39 UTC

Well, I'm not sure what else LJ was supposed to do--ONTD was a huge community that regularly broke servers, slowed the service for all users, and was very expensive to run. Sure, it had a permanent account, but the price of that account wouldn't cover even a week of hosting costs for it.

The only other choice would have been to start putting restrictions on ONTD to cripple its growth and use, and that's probably the worse choice to make for LJ. I mean, I don't think ONTD wanted ads necessarily, but they also crowed proudly every time they broke the servers, and that LJ has been very patient with them.

amokk April 16 2010, 23:28:11 UTC

I understand that side of it, but it still feels very wrong, that they're going against past promises (then again, I shouldn't be surprised at all by that by now, damn).

However, there was probably a better way to go about it; implying they somehow "own" the entire community, or the content, or whatever, goes more against the social contract of LJ than just breaking the "permanent accounts will never have ads" promise. That's the one that really frustrates. It also sets the precedent, so what's the next journal to be taken over by force?

Blah. I'm just ranting. It all just leaves a bad taste.

foxfirefey April 16 2010, 23:49:54 UTC

I'll note that it's something brenden said was "implied"--we don't really know how it went about. I don't think LJ wants to own the content--their TOS is very standoffish about that, and the people who posted can all still delete their comment from the community.

ONTD is such an outlier. I don't think other journals are going to be taken over by force--I think LJ pretty much had to take over ONTD in self defense. I don't think it's awesome or anything, but I have a hard time getting my hackles up--maybe because I have no great love (though neither do I have hatred) for ONTD. And I think ONTD might benefit from LJ having a greater incentive to invest in it, you know?

That's not to say this development isn't problematic--mostly I wonder about becoming a target for copyright issues, like one person mentioned.

Thread 5

(The comment has been removed)

foxfirefey April 16 2010, 18:13:51 UTC

The cluster move is to increase performance, but because ONTD was so big they haven't been able to do it yet. And ONTD isn't the only problem even if moving them will help some:

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_maintenance/128482.html?format=light

I agree with you on the matter of time--ONTD has been very costly for LJ to run, and eventually they'd have to pony up.

atlanticat April 16 2010, 14:47:48 UTC

LJ needs to understand that if they keep pulling shit like this, they will eventually cause EVERYBODY to leave. LJ is a ghost town now, this will only make it worse. They're throwing good money after bad and it will eventually spell the end of LJ.

My guess is, they've made their buck and they're content to keep making that buck as long as they can and then they'll just pull the plug like everybody else does. Nobody cares about the common man any more, including the common man....