B is for Boycott
Mar. 22nd, 2008 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhan(It was going to be about Booze, but so many people on my f-list are talking about the boycott I decided I'm going to be a lemming today.)
I'm a paid user. I pay to support a service I use frequently, just as I buy CDs by bands after I've downloaded all their music and decide I like what they do. I believe in contributing financially to the things that I use whenever I can so that they can continue to do the thing that I like.
And in this case, what I like is reading posts. Posts written by people I like, people I care about, people I couldn't give two shits about but who have interesting things to say, and people who I honestly can't remember why they are on my f-list in the first place but I've kind of gotten used to following how their lives unfold. Compared to that, the ability to create polls or store pictures or make phone posts or have 50 billion WWJCD icons means absolutely zero to me.
And although I assume many of the posts I read are made by paid users there is an equal or larger number that are not. And if enough of them go elsewhere or simply drop off the face of the earth, my reason for paying goes away.
That's why I supported the strike. I don't think LJ is going to take any financial hit[1] because a bunch of people all decide not to log in for one day. The strike was not about punishing the new owners of LJ. It was about making the point that those to create content for the site, those who drag in their friends and relatives and make the site engaging for everybody, they are the reason that LJ can convince people like me to fork over my membership fee, and the reason why advertisers want to hawk their wares here in the first place. Non-paying users deserve to be treated with respect, as valued contributors and not as freeloaders.
Because if LJ pisses off enough regular users that the majority of my f-list moves over to InsaneJournal or GreatestJournal, I probably won't give up my LJ account. But they'll probably stop being the ones who get my money.
[1]Although I admit I have no idea how google ads revenue works so maybe I'm wrong.
I'm a paid user. I pay to support a service I use frequently, just as I buy CDs by bands after I've downloaded all their music and decide I like what they do. I believe in contributing financially to the things that I use whenever I can so that they can continue to do the thing that I like.
And in this case, what I like is reading posts. Posts written by people I like, people I care about, people I couldn't give two shits about but who have interesting things to say, and people who I honestly can't remember why they are on my f-list in the first place but I've kind of gotten used to following how their lives unfold. Compared to that, the ability to create polls or store pictures or make phone posts or have 50 billion WWJCD icons means absolutely zero to me.
And although I assume many of the posts I read are made by paid users there is an equal or larger number that are not. And if enough of them go elsewhere or simply drop off the face of the earth, my reason for paying goes away.
That's why I supported the strike. I don't think LJ is going to take any financial hit[1] because a bunch of people all decide not to log in for one day. The strike was not about punishing the new owners of LJ. It was about making the point that those to create content for the site, those who drag in their friends and relatives and make the site engaging for everybody, they are the reason that LJ can convince people like me to fork over my membership fee, and the reason why advertisers want to hawk their wares here in the first place. Non-paying users deserve to be treated with respect, as valued contributors and not as freeloaders.
Because if LJ pisses off enough regular users that the majority of my f-list moves over to InsaneJournal or GreatestJournal, I probably won't give up my LJ account. But they'll probably stop being the ones who get my money.
[1]Although I admit I have no idea how google ads revenue works so maybe I'm wrong.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 07:27 pm (UTC)1. The strike wont have any effect on the LJ corp. They will just wish it away.
2. The strike has little to zero economic effect. A filibuster would have been better with every free member writing as much real content as possible.
3. They are striking over the fact that users used to get their LJ without ads. Now that it's commercial it's likely to get ads **for new users**. The old users wont get a change.
4. Somehow LJ became evil when they made the mistake of censorship. It is a Russian company. I would expect a few mistakes in this regard. However striking doesn't DO anything.
If anything I'll be interested to see just how LITTLE backlash this causes.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 07:46 pm (UTC)That would be unfortunate for them if true. I think it's a good idea for LJ corp to pay attention to discontented users. (That doesn't mean "give them everything they ask for" it means "Are we pissing off a bunch of people.") They are already competing for advertising dollars with MySpace and Facebook. And of course with BlogSpot and all the other blogging software that's available out there. New users joining have dropped off dramatically over the years. The last thing they need is start bleeding existing users.
2. The strike has little to zero economic effect. A filibuster would have been better with every free member writing as much real content as possible.
The only people I've seen talking about economic effect is those who are against the strike. The pro side (at least those that I've been reading) never claimed there would be any economic impact or said it was a goal.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 07:56 pm (UTC)Russian corporations are NOT like American corporations. A better policy would have been to get everyone to send the president of the company some vodka.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 08:12 pm (UTC)Most of LJ.com is populated by Americans, so they'd better freakin' learn, yes?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 08:04 pm (UTC)Even if I agreed with the action (which I don't), I really wouldn't trust the efficacy of a group of people who don't actually know what the action they're organising _is_.
Also, they were boycotting LJ because A) LJ weren't great at informing users about changes they were making, and B) LJ filtered (not censored; that's another misnomer/misunderstanding of the terms) some interests on the "Most Popular Interests" page. LJ addressed both issues _before_ the boycott went ahead.
In addition, the boycott was arranged, presumably from the UK (based on the fact that it was scheduled by GMT), for a day which is a bank holiday, and on which posting is expected to be down anyway. That seems to me to be a rather dishonest way of trying to make it look more effective and more widespread than it actually was.
Plus, the boycotters managed to annoy a fair number of people, many of whom deliberately posted extra yesterday, specifically in order to counteract any effect the boycott might have. If you're going to try and have a negative impact on the figures, it's probably a good idea to get people on your side, rather than pissing them off, so they handled the whole thing monumentally badly.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 08:11 pm (UTC)A boycott is refusing to buy something. I've already bought my membership, so I don't think boycott is accurate.
A strike is to refuse to work. Admittedly it's not paid work, but if the labour is volunteer it's still strike, isn't it? Or is there another word?
Plus, the boycotters managed to annoy a fair number of people, many of whom deliberately posted extra yesterday, specifically in order to counteract any effect the boycott might have. If you're going to try and have a negative impact on the figures, it's probably a good idea to get people on your side, rather than pissing them off, so they handled the whole thing monumentally badly.
This is something I don't get. What did the strikers do to piss people off so badly? I saw lots of posts of posts by people against the strike calling the strikers by all manner of names, I did not personally witness the terrible crime the strikers committed to garner that reaction.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 08:19 pm (UTC)I think people were pissed off for a variety of reasons; calling it a strike annoyed a lot of people (especially anyone who's had anything to do with union politics). The failure to provide a clear explanation of what the action was all about pissed people off. The failure to do anything when LJ addressed the reasons for the action pissed people off. The posting and reposting of whole long screeds, urging people to take part, without proper explanations and without cut-tags pissed people off (admittedly that wasn't the fault of the people organising it, but any political movement will be judged by its follower). The fact that the whole thing involved a large amount of effort which is basically wasted, because it's not going to have any effect, pissed people off and made them want to take the piss.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 08:44 pm (UTC)People aren't paid in money, it's true. (There are paid posting sites out there. I belong to a couple, the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty freaking low.)
But people are contributing to the site and the success of LJ is dependent on lots of people making that unpaid contribution. I repeat my question, what do you call it if a group of people who are providing volunteer contributions withdraw their free labour?
The Food Bank in Toronto depends 100% on donated labour. If they all walked out, I bet you $100 the newspapers would be calling it a strike.
While "boycott" isn't perfectly accurate, it's more accurate than "strike".
Well, I disagree with you. I think boycott specifically refers to refusing to purchase a service. I don't think that's what happened here. As I said to
calling it a strike annoyed a lot of people (especially anyone who's had anything to do with union politics).
>>snort<< The only people I saw objecting to the term wouldn't know a collective bargaining agreement if one crawled into their sinuses and took a shit.
The failure to provide a clear explanation of what the action was all about pissed people off.
So pretty much what I thought. "I don't get it and I disagree with it, so I'm going to be an asshole about it."
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 08:52 pm (UTC)But that's not what was going on here. LJ _does_ have some volunteers, but they work in support. The members pay for their accounts (or have free ones, or ones fuelled by ads), but the posting itself is a hobby. If people stop doing their hobby, it's not a strike, even if the hobby shops rely on those hobbyists for their income.
The only people I saw objecting to the term wouldn't know a collective bargaining agreement if one crawled into their sinuses and took a shit.
*heh* I guess we saw different people objecting.
"I don't get it and I disagree with it, so I'm going to be an asshole about it."
No, not really; more "You're making a big fuss about taking this action while not actually explaining why you're taking it, which makes you look like stroppy kids who are taking their ball and going home for no clearly-defined reason, and expecting everyone to admire you for doing so; well, fuck that, I shall carry on playing, and enjoy the extra space created by your vacating the premises."
Let's be fair, if you're posting a message all over the place saying "Everyone should join in this pseudo-political action", you do actually need to explain why they should do so, and what the benefits are likely to be. The people organising the strike failed to do that, and in fact seemed fairly poorly-informed about the issues they were supposedly "striking" over, which is bound to lose people's respect.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 09:19 pm (UTC)>>it if a group of people who are providing
>>volunteer contributions withdraw their
>>free labour?
But that's not what was going on here. LJ _does_ have some volunteers, but they work in support. The members pay for their accounts (or have free ones, or ones fuelled by ads), but the posting itself is a hobby. If people stop doing their hobby, it's not a strike, even if the hobby shops rely on those hobbyists for their income.
That allegory would work if LJ had content that was independent of users, but it doesn't. If the posting stops, not only do the customers go away, but so does the inventory.
A better comparison is an on-line magazine where the writers don't get paid. No writers = no magazine.
*heh* I guess we saw different people objecting.
Entirely possible. The only objections I saw were from white-collar IT workers who got all het up about "appropriation".
I come from a long line of blue-collar workers. My family has been through strikes, and I've voted in favour of walk-outs. I roll my eyes at their righteous indignation.
Let's be fair, if you're posting a message all over the place saying "Everyone should join in this pseudo-political action", you do actually need to explain why they should do so, and what the benefits are likely to be.
No argument there. It wasn't clearly articulated.
And to be clear, I have no issue with the people who said it made no sense to them or that they disagreed with it and so they were just going to carry on as usual. I do have a problem with a lot of the FUCK YOU NA-NA-NA YOU CAN'T STOP ME HAHA YOO SUCK posting.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 09:41 pm (UTC)It's not inventory; LJ sell the place to make posts, not the posts themselves. So it's really very like a hobby-shop that sells the wherewithal to do beading or macrame or whatever. Yes, other people might be attracted to a hobby because of what other people make, but the hobby shop doesn't sell the outcome of the hobby; just the stuff you need to make them. If you've already bought your raffia/bakeable clay/yarn, giving up knotting/knitting/modelling for a day is not going on strike.
A better comparison is an on-line magazine where the writers don't get paid. No writers = no magazine.
Except that LJ doesn't sell the magazine, and the writers pay to be allowed to write it. Which is not like any magazine I know of.
The only objections I saw were from white-collar IT workers who got all het up about "appropriation".
Personally, I just like people to use the right words. Failing to do so suggests a lack of undestanding of th situation.
I do have a problem with a lot of the FUCK YOU NA-NA-NA YOU CAN'T STOP ME HAHA YOO SUCK posting.
Fair enough; I didn't see any of that, I just saw various people being exasperated with the boycott, and taking a certain amount of pleasure in posting despite it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 09:50 pm (UTC)Of course they do! That's what I'm buying when I pay for my account. That's the whole point I was making with my original post.
I could also argue they are selling it to the advertisers, but again I'm not sure how that revenue stream works.
Personally, I just like people to use the right words. Failing to do so suggests a lack of understanding of th situation.
Or a disagreement as to the nature of the situation. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 09:54 pm (UTC)Figuratively, perhaps, but not literally. You can read LJ with or without an account, and having an account doesn't guarantee you any specific content; if someone doesn't add to their f-list, you don't get to read what they write, regardless of whether you've paid or not. They're not selliong the magazine, they're selling the means to write for the magazine; that's a different thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:01 pm (UTC)You know, one of the beefs I often have with people when they decide to vote with their feet is that they didn't let the company they are abandoning know in advance that they were doing something to piss off their customer base. In that regard, the strikers are behaving pretty honourably. The LJ folk may decide that the complaints are trivial or stupid, and they may chose to disregard them. But nobody can claim that they didn't know that some people perceived a problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:14 pm (UTC)People got to express themselves, nobody (as far as I know) has left permanently, LJ suffers no negative impact. What's the problem?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:21 pm (UTC)It also means that next time LJ pisses people off, and members say "Well, how can we demonstrate our displeasure?", a content boycott is going to be a bit pointless, because LJ have now learned that content strikes are nothing more than organised tantrums, with no bargaining power or even intent.
It _also_ means that the people organising the boycott are disingenuous, to say the least. They claimed that the boycott was about specific issues; clearly it wasn't about those issues, because those issues were addressed before the boycott went ahead.
Finally, it means the whole thing was just thoroughly pointless. Not harmful, just silly.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:36 pm (UTC)But when you start saying, "The organizers meant this" and "The participants were trying to do that" you get into an area where there isn't really any discussion possible. Because if you've already decided for yourself what the strikers motivations were, then there really isn't anything to talk about any more.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 11:19 pm (UTC)Yes. When both parents belong to the same local of the same union:
"Hi Mom. I just finished university. I took my tax return and paid first & last on an apartment in the city. I've registered at some agencies and applied for some restaurant work, but I have $10 left in my account. Can I borrow some money?"
"No, dear, we're on strike".
That, readers, was my introduction to the Real World (TM).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 08:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 09:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-22 11:20 pm (UTC)Just my thoughts
Date: 2008-03-23 12:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-24 11:45 pm (UTC)Loads of people I know signed up to Facebook but are still on LJ since Facebook isn't the same.
My fear is the same as
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:54 pm (UTC)50 billion and one? :)
I got more. If you want 'em, they're yours. I'm afraid of imposing them on you because I don't know what icon limits if any there are on paid accounts. But I love thinking them up and making them. :)
Well, I'm an idiot
Date: 2008-03-26 05:37 pm (UTC)Re: Well, I'm an idiot
Date: 2008-03-26 06:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-26 06:28 pm (UTC)WELL THEN!
Date: 2008-03-26 10:42 pm (UTC)Re: WELL THEN!
Date: 2008-03-26 10:54 pm (UTC)