LJ Content Strike

[pecunium]

I am not, as a rule, fond of one-day strikes. So I don't buy gas on Thursday.... big whoop. I need gas to get around, and there's nothing much I can do about it (I can, sort of, get by on bio-diesel, if I make use of the truck, and all the attendant hassles thereto). A boycott is different (if we all refused to buy gasoline from Exxon and Shell for the next year, then they might feel the pinch, and so decide that the margin of profit ought to remain the same, but I digress).

elfwreck does a good job of explaining why, on Friday, March 21, this space is taking part in the LiveJournal Content Strike, Friday, March 21, midnight to midnight GMT and will have

Однажды без поста, комментариев или содержания
No posts. No comments. No content

Also of import (and no small part of why I'm taking part, and posting about it; a boycott's not a boycot if no one tells the company why they aren't giving them custom) is this interview with the head of SUP, which shows he has an apalling contempt for us, the people who are making money for his company.

I'm tempted to say this boycott ought to last for more than one day, just to drive the point home.

Don't watch this space

Comments

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

That interview is scary. And very annoyign to those of us who happen to think that SUP is actually making money because we are producing content - if we weren't, nobody would be reading LJ...

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

What a horrifying interview. No respect whatsoever. Wow. Here I give up, come back to LJ because people weren't bothering with rss and because I wanted the locked content capabilities without losing connection with people, and then LJ goes and does something that makes me consider leaving again.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Combined with one or two stories I heard from my accountant, about doing business with companies in the former Soviet Union, I'm inclined to think we're seeing a combination of extreme capitalism, which sees humans as fungible assets, and the greed behind the mask of the New Soviet Man.

Maybe Web 2.0 companies need to be run by old-fashioned farmers, rather than capitalists. Any farmer would know that you need healthy sheep or cattle to make money. Any farmer would know that we're an asset that needs to be cared for, and protected from predators.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It looks (though it will pain my Russian friends to see me say so) not atypical of the Russian "boss". He is in charge, and that's the way it is. If you don't like it, good luck finding a boss who thinks in the manner you would like.

TK

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just a typical manifestation of the Russian notions of a service industry?

At the Tel Aviv Municipal Library (staffed and run by some of the million and a half Russian emigres who had arrived in Palestine/Israel after 1989) one had to stand in three separate lines for every visit - one for dropping off books, one for handing them in to be checked out, and one for picking them up after they'd been checked out to you. It certainly explained bread lines! The feeling one was given by the librarians was that they would only provide the service if they felt like it, and that you, patron of the library, were somehow disturbing them in their work, and could be dispensed with.

Similar attitudes prevailed in other service industries - unless and until one was defined as within the service provider's inner circle. At that point (and thereafter) there were no boundaries whatsoever - they'd give you the shirt off their backs, the last sip of their tea, the last bit of their cookie. And expect the same from you.

Anyhow, condescending to one's patrons seems quite Russian.

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

The interview seems to indicate that the boycott will be ignored, however. If there's a 1-day drop in page views and then Saturday everything's back to normal, will it matter?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yep. I think a week of zero-page views is more likely to make someone pay attention. I don't know that my dropping out for one week is going to make a difference, but if I leave/go to great lactivity...

On the other hand, I do reccomend saving an Lj-book more often, if one is going to be a non-paying member, since I don't know that I trust SUP to keep the data.

TK

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm not complying with this boycott. SUP acted clumsily and stupidly, but this is Good Friday and, for a change, I have the day off at home.

-- Steve doesn't get too many chances to use Livejournal during the day, when other users are on.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

My entire year is content-free, so this won't make much difference to LJ, I suppose, but I entirely support it.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Do you read Lj every day?

That's the real thing. Because it's not what I write, it's who reads it. SUP is in a bind. It really doesn't want me (a paying customer), because I'm worth a whopping $25 US, to them.

But if they can get a penny a page (or even a fourth of that) then I'll generate a more money in ad-revenue than I'll ever pay in subscription fees.

Hell, just in page loads to respond to comments, I'm probably doing more than a thousand a year. That leaves out friends page reading, link following from friends; other blogs, etc.

Lj is on a cusp. The blend of MySpace/Facebook and Wordpress. I don't have to learn the CSS and other stuff, and I don't have to put up with the strange crap of the social sites.

But I'm a customer. I want things. If I stop getting them, I'll go elsewhere. SUP has a second problem... they aren't, really, selling webspace, they're selling ad-stream.

Their customers, on that side of the house (the advertisers) want me, not the Basic Accounts. They want people who have a few bucks in their pockets, and are willing to spend them.

They probably don't see the "Free" account holders as all that great a set of eyballs, so pissing me off is a bad idea. Becuase the people with the money (or at least the desire) to pay for the bells and whistles, are, effectively, opting out of the real cash generator.

If SUP kills that (my not having to see banner ads), I'll walk. I won't keep an account. I'll use OpenID to take part, and my boycott will be an embargo.

So, don't log on from Thursday evening, to Saturday morning (and me, I'll be staying away until at least Monday).

I'd also plan on seeing antother one.

This proletariat isn't lumpen.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I don't read LJ every day. But I am also a holder of a permanent account, thanks to an anonymous donor last year. My money's been paid; they can't get any more from me except through that ad-stream, so SUP might notice if I suddenly stopped reading LJ. Well, you know, they wouldn't. But it would help.

As it is, since I stopped journaling, my email has dropped to almost nil and my friends act remarkably surprised if I leave an occasional comment on their journals. I never realized how many friendships had dwindled to passive content intake. Now that I don't provide it not many care to make the minimal effort to find out what's going on with me by dropping an email or picking up the phone.

It's discouraging, to be honest. And that's why I don't read LJ much right now. But I do think a content strike is a good idea just to send a message to the new owners of LJ.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I've been less than active of late (some sort of strange funk, combined with a different sort of daily busy. I can work photos, or I can blog, the photos are winning).

So I see some of the same thing. Part of it is that so many of my relationships, are because of Lj. I don't have a physical connection to lots of the people I have intellectual ones with here. So the form of relation is to talk across Lj.

I don't want to lose that (and I don't like that I feel tied to Lj. I've thought of moving before, but I'm emotionally invested).

And I feel guilty that I don't work at keeping up. Some of my relationships cross blog-lines (ML and my Lj are getting incestous). Some have moved to IM, and phone-calls and seeing people.

But most, are what they are. It's like Seattle. I have friends there (and because of there, you among them), but I don't see them often. Most I don't have the sort of relationship to just call on the phone.

E-mail... it's not letters. I miss letters, but I can't seem to make the time to write them.

The world changes, and I fear I am not changing, enough, with it.

So, next time you head to J-tree, call us. We might make the time to join you. It's among our favorite places. One of our first dates was a weekend (a cold november weekend) out there.

TK

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I will, though I don't expect to be back this year. And I, too, would rather work with my photos than blog, though I miss blogging quite intensely at least once a week.

I hate Facebook and MySpace because of the hideous user interfaces. I like LJ because of the simplicity of use. I also like LJ because so many people I like to read are here. I never did like trying to keep up with individual sites; that's why I created a web ring of my favorite journals back in the olden days (thus plunging all of Online Diary fandom into war, but whatever). RSS feeds are okay, certainly, but it's a nice community here. I'd hate to leave. But I will if I can't get what I need from it. I'm not in the demographic majority here, anyway.

[yuripup.livejournal.com]

I admit I haven't followed this LJ thing, but I love the Russian "kontenta".

Is that really the word?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It should probably be содержание, which is more correct. (so the form would be содержания). контент is a comprehensible neologism.

I was being lazy (and not parsing the grammar, it had been a long day when I read the post I lifted that block from).

Однажды без содержания

I'll go and post the actual text (one day, no posts, no comments, no content), into the entry now.

A request for a Russian Slogan

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

He used the term "resistant element"

I'm thinking tshirt slogan.

Re: A request for a Russian Slogan

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The thing to do would be to get a copy of the interview, and use his exact words.

If you go back to the interview, the person who did the translation is mentioned, they have an Lj.

Because I don't think I'd be likely to come up with the exact phrase.

TK

Re: A request for a Russian Slogan

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Sadly, for all that it reads better, that's not quite what he said.


"что никогда в истории какого бы то ни было успешного предприятия успех не достигался путем покорения агрессивной недружественной воле."

Which (by my translation), read more on the order of
"Never in history of any successful enterprise was success atained by surrender to aggressive unfriendly will."


стойкие элементы is "resistant elements"

It's a nice phrase, but not what he said.

That said, I suspect that, or стойкий элемент, which is the singular, would make a nice slogan

TK

[yuripup.livejournal.com]

Oh, and don't expect me on the 21st either.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that part of my content, part of what makes me bait for the use of advertisers, is links to my images stored on another web server.

It would not be difficult for me to replace those images with other material.

OK, so some of them are referenced from other than LiveJournal. So what? If people are still bothering to look, I can tell them what's happening.