brokenpurplecrayon

first, let me say, that i have a permanent account on LJ. i’m not going anywhere. to be perfectly “frank” – i already left. i live at brokenpurplecrayon.com and my posts are reposted on LJ. i made that move a few months ago. not because of any politics on LJ, but because i wanted to revamp and revitalize my website. every now & then, i post a friends filtered post specifically on LJ that you won’t find on my website. it’s not often, but it does happen.

i understand why people are up in arms about things changing on LJ. promises were made to users that there would always be a free, ad-free version of LJ available. sadly, the people who made those promises don’t own the company anymore. the new owners don’t have to make good on promises made by previous owners. does it suck? well, on principle, yes it does. is it the way of business? yes it is.

the long and short of it is that if you are getting something for free, a company has the right to change how they provide that service, at any time, without notifying you. they can slap ads on it whenever they choose, and you will have no power against it. you can either adapt, accept, or change. in this case, the higher ups think ads are good for their business, and if users don’t want ads, they can pay for the use of LJ services. pure and simple.

if users would like a space where they can blog for free, there are lots of other options available. there’s no guarantee those hosts won’t some day decide to put ads on their free services as well. if you want more control, buy a domain and host your own site. you can get away with doing it for around $50 a year. then you can post almost anything you want (within the laws of decency) and nobody can put ads on anything without your permission.

i understand why some people are going to abstain from posting or commenting or otherwise being present and visible on LJ on friday. i applaud them standing up for what they believe in. i support their ideals. i do not think it will have any affect on the situation, but it will make those protesting feel better about having done “something”. as for me, i don’t know whether or not i will post on friday. i don’t know if i’ll have anything specific i’ll want to say that day or talk about, etc. if i do, i will try to remember to uncheck the “crosspost to LJ” box on my wordpress dashboard – out of respect for those trying to stand up for what they believe in.

.:{brokenpurplecrayon}:.