Too good to last?
Aug. 23rd, 2001 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaBrowsing LiveJournal news, I see that there are serious doubts about how long they're going to be able to keep this service going. Apparently the work is essentially being done at the volunteer level - and fewer than 2% of the 300,000 users have actually paid for their accounts. Even at the two month/$5 level.
Apparently there is outrage, outrage at the idea that online services are worth paying for. Someone commented on the news site that another community they were part of started requiring at least a $5 contribution, and within a couple of weeks more than 80% of the users had abandoned it. People are forecasting that the same will happen to LJ.
There are probably a few genuinely poor users of LJ, but I'm sure the majority drop $25 on a T-shirt or a couple of martinis or 1.5 CDs or a concert ticket or whatever, on a regular basis. But despite using LJ every day (some of these teenage users are so excessive), they wouldn't dream of sending the guys who organize it $25. I don't get it.
Some of the commercial aspects of the net drive me just as crazy as they do everyone else: banner ads are bad, popup ads are worse, misleading ads-posing-as-something-else are worse yet, spam is the worst of all. But I don't understand why that apparently generalizes, for most people, to "everything on the net should be free."
At this very moment, one of my favorite sites - Salon - is reportedly about to go under for financial reasons. I read it nearly every day, usually on my Palm Pilot. They provide great content, with the exception of David Horowitz's column, and it's well-organized and readable. They provide regular content. If they were a print magazine, it wouldn't seem funny to me to pay for it at a newsstand, or subscribe. And yet I haven't sent them money yet. That would probably be a good idea, huh? Putting my money where my mouth is, and all. Yeah, they might go under tomorrow, and I'd feel like an idiot - but on the other hand, it's only $30. That's two nights' worth of Chinese food.
I recognize that ranting about this here is of questionable purpose. Who's going to see it and be inspired by my example, other than my loyal audience of two non-LJ-users?
Still, my whole original purpose in starting a journal was to be able to write without worrying about the interest level, or appropriateness, or even existence of my audience. I don't want to get away from that, and start posting only things that will fascinate Misha and the TOCOTOXling, as bewitching as they are. I'm boring and pointless sometimes. It's part of the whole package. And at least this way, y'all can just hit the "back" button.
Apparently there is outrage, outrage at the idea that online services are worth paying for. Someone commented on the news site that another community they were part of started requiring at least a $5 contribution, and within a couple of weeks more than 80% of the users had abandoned it. People are forecasting that the same will happen to LJ.
There are probably a few genuinely poor users of LJ, but I'm sure the majority drop $25 on a T-shirt or a couple of martinis or 1.5 CDs or a concert ticket or whatever, on a regular basis. But despite using LJ every day (some of these teenage users are so excessive), they wouldn't dream of sending the guys who organize it $25. I don't get it.
Some of the commercial aspects of the net drive me just as crazy as they do everyone else: banner ads are bad, popup ads are worse, misleading ads-posing-as-something-else are worse yet, spam is the worst of all. But I don't understand why that apparently generalizes, for most people, to "everything on the net should be free."
At this very moment, one of my favorite sites - Salon - is reportedly about to go under for financial reasons. I read it nearly every day, usually on my Palm Pilot. They provide great content, with the exception of David Horowitz's column, and it's well-organized and readable. They provide regular content. If they were a print magazine, it wouldn't seem funny to me to pay for it at a newsstand, or subscribe. And yet I haven't sent them money yet. That would probably be a good idea, huh? Putting my money where my mouth is, and all. Yeah, they might go under tomorrow, and I'd feel like an idiot - but on the other hand, it's only $30. That's two nights' worth of Chinese food.
I recognize that ranting about this here is of questionable purpose. Who's going to see it and be inspired by my example, other than my loyal audience of two non-LJ-users?
Still, my whole original purpose in starting a journal was to be able to write without worrying about the interest level, or appropriateness, or even existence of my audience. I don't want to get away from that, and start posting only things that will fascinate Misha and the TOCOTOXling, as bewitching as they are. I'm boring and pointless sometimes. It's part of the whole package. And at least this way, y'all can just hit the "back" button.
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no subject
Date: 2001-08-26 10:50 am (UTC)Yeah, you're probably right. I was over at the "support" page (all my fonts had suddenly become inexplicably huge) and saw a whole bunch of entitled complaints that the servers were too slow, the site was always busy, etc... all from free users. It was all I could do to restrain myself from saying "maybe if you were to, I don't know, contribute something other than criticism..."
no subject
Date: 2001-08-26 12:55 pm (UTC)The servers have been slow for paying users too. Oh well. If LJ goes under I will have a tiny bit of my life back. :-)