bitchin'

[mamajoan]

So apparently lots and lots of people are upset about LJ instituting posting limits. (I'd put a link to the official announcement, but I'm too lazy. In sum, free users are limited to 3 posts a day, paid users to 20.)

Personally I think everyone who's bitching is, to put it delicately, in the wrong. I put it much more forcefully in my comment on destina's post on the topic.

To me, the salient point is this: LJ is not a large corporation providing you with a service, for which you pay a fee, which entitles you to certain standards and benefits. No. LJ is a bunch of geeks who labor long and hard, mostly in their spare time, mostly unpaid and *certainly* unthanked, to provide you with this service just because they thought it was cool and wanted to share. And, perhaps, because you appreciate the coolness, you gave them some money. Which, far from lining their pockets, went directly back into providing you with this cool service.

When LJ is slow, or refuses to load, or makes you try three times before it'll post a comment? It is not THEIR fault. It is YOUR fault. Yours, and mine, and that of all our lj-friends (and enemies). Because we're the ones putting the excessive burden on the servers. And we, collectively, are not giving the LJ folks enough money to buy better servers. (We, individually, those of us who are paid users, have no call to feel smug either. What, you gave them $25? Whoopee. Do you have any idea how much a server costs? Not to mention the amount of bandwidth LJ eats up? Your $25 bought, like, one key on a server's keyboard. So don't get all high-and-mighty about having "paid for" the service. Oh, and if you really need to post more than 20 times a day? Get a life.)

What it boils down to is: LJ is shareware. Shareware only works if everyone cooperates. If you're bitching, you don't get that, and you should shut up until you do.

OK, so this post is pretty harsh, eh? Maybe tomorrow I'll have a fit of regret and delete it. OTOH, maybe not.

Comments

[vissy.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I seriously don't understand all the fussing and moaning. I love LJ and I'm happy to cough up to be a paid member and support the service. The ingratitude I've seen today is amazing.

[azurelunatic]

I'm a permanent user. I'm not complaining. I do go over 20 posts/day, quite a few of which are chat logs and bookmarks, and can easily be done other things with rather than hyperposting.

[workingslacker.livejournal.com]

What you said.

Seriously, though, I don't get why if people are unhappy with LJ they continue to use it. There are other options available. Not to mention that LJ is low/no cost, with no ads, or pop-ups, and virtual no form of making a profit. Which is one of the reasons why I support and will continue to support it. And, when I have the financial means, I will donate large sums to them, because damnit, LJ is cool.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Heh, well. Yes, there are other options, but none of 'em are as cool as LJ, and especially if all your friends are already on LJ, you'd be reluctant to switch.

But I actually think that's an argument in favor of becoming a paid user and not bitching! I mean, if it's the coolest thing going, you should be proud to support it! Or maybe that's just me. *g*

And, when I have the financial means, I will donate large sums to them, because damnit, LJ is cool.

Yeah. I wish I had large sums to donate to them right now.

[xochiquetzl]

It sounded to me like the problem was script kiddies with 10 line perl scripts hammering the servers to be obnoxious. It also seemed like the servers were much faster with the quotas in effect.

I think 3 is too small a number for free users, but otherwise I think it's a good idea. I also get the impression that a lot of people think of LJ as their free Geocities homepage. I'd be very upset if we got popups and banner ads like Geocities.

I also think 20 is perfectly reasonable--generous, even--and don't see what people are complaining about. Yeah, yeah, you paid $2 a month. I'm getting way more than my money's worth out of my $2 a month, and so are you--even with quotas.

[ms-maree.livejournal.com]

I love LJ, I've never had any problems with the system and I don't know why people complain so much.

It's the best thing to have happened to online communities imho. :)

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I think 3 posts a day for free users is pretty low, but it's not that bad if you consider that you can always go in and edit your posts to add more stuff if you want to.