But the fact that they created an Advisory Board for this sort of issue, then summarily ignored its inputs and tried to pass of the (rather major) change as a mere streamlining and simplification pisses me off. That's called lying.
Well put! I've thought about upgrading my basic account to get more userpics, but I think this move makes me more inclined to hang on to it as long as possible as protest (and because if I tire of paying or looking at ads I can no longer change my mind). Grrr.
Yeah... and I know that (since I'm a non-paying user of a service that's at least five years old) my part of their market share is vanishingly small, but still.
Honest assessment of their business needs? Fine. Grab for money under the guise of making LJ easier to use? Not fine. Implication that most LJ users are not smart enough to choose among three choices, but that choosing between two would be fine? Offensive in the extreme.
It's not the loss of the Basic Accounts I mind, particularly. Yes, I agree with the Advisory board's opinion there, and I regret the change, but it's a fairly reasonable business decision. If they'd been up-front about it as a commercial decision, I'd have made a slight face at the screen and moved on. This account, and several of my RP accounts, are paid ones anyway; I don't mind giving LJ money to dodge the ads, or putting up with advertisements on an account I don't use enough to feel it worth paying for.
What makes me so frustrated, and annoyed, is how appallingly stupidly they're handling the whole thing.
You would think they'd learn from the last three times they made this same exact mistake, especially since it's pretty basic PR.
And that recipe is, sadly, a pretty succinct description of their basic tactics so far as I can tell.
Is it really so hard for such a big corporation to a) hire anybody with any tact, and b) make and enforce company rules that those people hired for their tact are the ones to talk to the consumer base about anything new, and the people who are not hired for their tact should not perform the jobs of people who are?
The problem stems, in part, from the fact that people who lack tact and subtlety tend not to be aware of that lack. Since apprehending the deficiency requires subtlety in itself.
I think the other thing is that technical disciplines seem to shun organized, rule-based thinking about certain kinds of things, and this seems to be one of them.
Sigh. What are you doing with yourself these days?
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this is really bringing out the cleverest prose composition in a number of people i know. i love y'all sometimes.
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Well put! I've thought about upgrading my basic account to get more userpics, but I think this move makes me more inclined to hang on to it as long as possible as protest (and because if I tire of paying or looking at ads I can no longer change my mind). Grrr.
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Honest assessment of their business needs? Fine. Grab for money under the guise of making LJ easier to use? Not fine. Implication that most LJ users are not smart enough to choose among three choices, but that choosing between two would be fine? Offensive in the extreme.
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It's not the loss of the Basic Accounts I mind, particularly. Yes, I agree with the Advisory board's opinion there, and I regret the change, but it's a fairly reasonable business decision. If they'd been up-front about it as a commercial decision, I'd have made a slight face at the screen and moved on. This account, and several of my RP accounts, are paid ones anyway; I don't mind giving LJ money to dodge the ads, or putting up with advertisements on an account I don't use enough to feel it worth paying for.
What makes me so frustrated, and annoyed, is how appallingly stupidly they're handling the whole thing.
You would think they'd learn from the last three times they made this same exact mistake, especially since it's pretty basic PR.
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One would apparently be wrong, though.
And that recipe is, sadly, a pretty succinct description of their basic tactics so far as I can tell.
Is it really so hard for such a big corporation to a) hire anybody with any tact, and b) make and enforce company rules that those people hired for their tact are the ones to talk to the consumer base about anything new, and the people who are not hired for their tact should not perform the jobs of people who are?
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I think the other thing is that technical disciplines seem to shun organized, rule-based thinking about certain kinds of things, and this seems to be one of them.
Sigh. What are you doing with yourself these days?
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