Well, are we talking about gigantic pop-ups that say YOU HAVE WON A FREE TUBE OF JOCK ITCH CREAM with a marquee tag? When I go read free content at political blogs and such, I see ads. But I get all the content I want. And someone gets paid to keep providing the service for free, to me.

Hooray.

I hear you, Allyson. I don't quite get the insistence that LJ owes people free accounts. I do think they've been assy in their communication, or lack thereof.

Assy on communication. With you, there.

I'm not bothered by ad-supported accounts, or ad-supported websites or whatever. I think it's clear that it bothers some of the users, or else they all would have gone to ad-supported. I'm bothered (almost academically, since I don't use my account for posting) that they made an obvious big policy change without notifying existing users. And that they want to maintain an image as a friendly, community-based company. That's stupid. If Mastercard makes a change, they try to sneak it by me, whatever. But I don't use Mastercard because it is a warm and fuzzy thing to have.

Speaking of community takeover, did people notice that Miss Alli left TWoP too?

In other news, I was in a training today where the phrase "servant leadership" was used. All I could think was "topping from the bottom." I blame you people.

they want to maintain an image as a friendly, community-based company

This part I'm not getting. I think they'd like to be smoother than they in fact are, but not fuzzier.

I don't quite get the insistence that LJ owes people free accounts. I do think they've been assy in their communication, or lack thereof.

For me, it's this. If they want to say "either pay or see ads", that's their business, and it's in line with every other commercial membership site on the entire internets. The fact that they tried to sneak it past people, and then started calling their users idiots and assholes (no, really!) when people protested, makes them jerks with a piss-poor ear for public relations.

They also did it explicitly against the advice of their newly appointed advisory board, whose presence had reassured some of us. And now the advisory board is all "WTF?"

Me, they actually don't care about, because I snagged a permanent account a ways back, so I can't display my umbrage even vaguely meaningfully. Just as well that I'm not toting any at the moment.

Yep, same here. Do I think they could be much better about informing their users about the decisions they've made? Oh hell yes.

For me, it's this. If they want to say "either pay or see ads", that's their business, and it's in line with every other commercial membership site on the entire internets. The fact that they tried to sneak it past people, and then started calling their users idiots and assholes (no, really!) when people protested, makes them jerks with a piss-poor ear for public relations.

Right, it's this. And it's a pattern that's been around almost since SixApart bought them, and has continued since the SUP sale. They're opaque and unprofessional, making major changes with no notification, and then being assy about it until it becomes clear that they have to issue an, "Oops! We'll do better next time!"

Of course, thus far, they haven't really managed more than additional Oops reports.