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]

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.