It's my blog and I'll whine if I want to

Most of us have probably seen the announcement in news - Permanent accounts are going on sale! There’s also a more less detailed (but much more smarmy) post about it over at lj_biz

The comments sections of both posts are pretty interesting. There are a lot of valid points being made (almost entirely on the side of the people who will no longer consider buying a permanent account – the other side’s comments are pretty much ‘I can’t believe you losers shut up already about the drama’ because, you know, we don’t have a right to complain about a service a lot of us are paying for). And, believe it or not, not all of the comments are about ‘Strikethrough ‘07’ – though many of those, including a good point here by a person that was effected, are perfectly valid. But aside from the yet-unfulfilled promises of a clarified TOS and the lack of any sort of retraction for those unjustly labeled, there are other problems.

There are still issues with the login page (which I never see, I’m not sure how/why it pops up automatically – I log in on my profile page, and it stays on that page after I’ve logged in), I have an apparently common problem with my manage settings (I find it interesting that within 5 minutes of posting this comment about my service request and the non-functionality of my journal as a reason NOT to buy a perm account in the news post I got a response to my query (it still has not been resolved, but at least I feel a kernel of hope), there are still many people who are not getting notification e-mails (and just as many people jumping on them that ‘I don’t have problems, it must be your fault, don’t blame LJ for this!’ Because, right, if it’s not a problem for YOU it’s not a problem for ANYONE.), some people still cannot post long comments, and, of course, there’s the general feeling of pique surrounding the proliferation of ads, sponsored communities, and the new sponsored styles… oh, and there’s apparently a bit deal with Russian users/SUP - <sarcasm> but since that doesn’t effect me, so why should I care? </sarcasm>

If you’re interested, there’s a poll here about whether people are planning on buying and why/why not. It’s not scientific or, I would gather, wholly accurate, but, hey, it’s interesting. And we all know how much I like giving my opinion.

In other news, WFI, the group that may or may not have started the witch hunt, has turned on LJ like a starving Chihuahua on a pork chop. Oh, yes, the site that was crowing about its buddy-buddy status with LJ in the fight to topple the evil pedophilia ring has now turned and stabbed LJ in the back. Evidently, they felt more than a little slighted by LJ’s retraction of the suspensions (which were considerable more than the ‘dozen or so’ they claimed were the only ones wrongfully suspended – if you look at the lists well over half of the suspended journals appear to be reinstated, and several that are still suspended - lolita_icontest, for instance – shouldn’t be. But in the case of that example and many others, the communities were dormant for some time and there was no one to really complain loudly enough. Best guess is that the ‘dozen or so’ journals he was talking about were the correctly suspended ones out of that group.). They are now apparently flooding advertisers with this e-mail, which is rather bullying along with bordering on libelous (unless a reasonable person believes LJ is really a hotbed of pedophilia).

Overall, I’m positive I’ll not buy a permanent account. It’s too iffy of a proposition. I’m not going to say I’ll NEVER give money to LJ again (never say never), and since my paid account status runs until December, I have time to think it over. A lot can change or happen in between now and then. In the meantime, I’m thinking that $150 is better served going towards my mortgage, since paying an extra $150 now will save me $590 in the long run.