B is for Boycott

[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.

Comments

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

If the posting stops, not only do the customers go away, but so does the inventory.
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.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Except that LJ doesn't sell the magazine

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. :-)

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm buying when I pay for my account.
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.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

OK. And if they make writing for the magazine onerous or uncomfortable for enough of the writers that they take their scribblings elsewhere, I will stop paying LJ for their product.

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.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Well, except that LJ has addressed the issues they were boycotting over, and yet the boycott went ahead anyway. There's not much point in LJ paying attention to boycotts or other action, if it's going to go ahead regardless of whether LJ addresses the problem or not. The boycotters really shot themselves in the foot there, by demonstrating that the boycott wasn't actually about the issues they claimed it was about.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Sooo.. how is that a problem?

People got to express themselves, nobody (as far as I know) has left permanently, LJ suffers no negative impact. What's the problem?

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

It's not a problem, it's just evidence that it wasn't an attempt to influence LJ's business decisions (as was claimed); it was, essentially, an organised tantrum. Which, yes, is a legitimate form of self-expression if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not exactly something that deserves respect.

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.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

YOu know, there's a point at which you start projecting your own bias onto an argument tp a degree where it becomes easier to just say, "OK, whatever" than it is to go through and dissect every statement you've just made.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, I'm not expecting you to agree with me; I'm just explaining some of the reasons why there was such a lot of bad feeling against the whole thing.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I'm not expecting you to agree with me either.

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.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to comment on what the organisers _meant_; I'm just saying that what they _said_ they meant doesn't match up with what they did, which obviously makes them look either dishonest or stupid, and is likely to cause bad feeling (and indeed, did exactly that). It's entirely possible that they had some entirely undisclosed motive for the whole thing which I haven't even thought of; obviously I can only comment on what I've seen them claiming.