Why I'm currently UNinterested in Dreamwidth...

[seawasp]

... pretty simple:

I, and my wife Kathy, have PERMANENT paid accounts here already. Which amount to our online homes. So moving would be a serious PITA.

I suppose if I'd run into any actual problems with LJ I might have considered it, but unlike the other two journals (GreatestJournal and InsaneJournal) I tried, LJ has never caused me any trouble.

Comments

[shana.livejournal.com]

I wanted to get an account early enough to get my name. I don't have plans to move there, but if enough of my friends do it will be good to have a convenient place to read them.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

my issue with LJ is that... honestly? i am worried about how long its going to be around. at least, as it is.
there have been so many rumblings about changing LJ to fit closer to the MySpace/FaceBook social networking model. none of them may be true. but i hear enough of them that it kinda worries me; DW has all of the good parts of LJ without the issues from InsaneJournal and others. thats all. i am not stopping LJ (obviously). i am just adding DW, like other people have added MySpace or FaceBook (and dear gods i HATE both MS and FB!)

are there people trying to get you to switch?

[meril.livejournal.com]

If you need to comment over there, just use your LJ OpenID. It's easy!

It's very simple ...

[autopope.livejournal.com]

... We are not the key customer base for LJ.

Advertisers are the key customer base for LJ. (As in: without them, LJ goes down the tubes.)

This means that LJ will do whatever is necessary to keep the advertisers happy. We can go to hell; they've already got our permanent account money. (What are we going to do? Sue them?)

Moreover, about 80-90% of LJ's user base is now Russian. We English-speaking folks are irrelevant even to their advertisers.

Ergo: LJ have no financial incentive to keep us happy or take our interests into account when working out how to run their business -- we are not their customers.

Dreamwidth on the other hand has a different business model, which is: slow, scalable growth based on monthly subscriptions, no advertising, and obtaining said subscriptions by providing services of value to creatives, i.e. folks like us.

(They also have a "push button to import your LJ postings, comments, and ephemera into DW" feature. You can take it with you.)

Greatestjournal and Insanejournal were basically farts in the gale and went titsup when LJ threw a whoopsie and a bunch of LJers moved in -- they didn't have a business plan or a growth pathway and the added load killed them. DW at least seems to be run by former LJ developers and they seem to have some idea of what went wrong the first time round, and how to avoid doing it again.

Re: It's very simple ...

[julesjones]

What autopope said, plus what slrose said about grabbing my name there.

I like LJ, but Dreamwidth looks like a serious contender for my friends on LJ packing up and leaving en masse should LJ prove untenable in the near future.

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming most of my RL friends are staying on LJ. But a lot of my fandom friends are jumping ship. I support Dreamwidth's concept (have since I first heard about it a long time ago from people I trust) and so will be splitting my time.

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

I also have a Permanent account here, so I'm here until LJ folds, if they ever do. I also have a bunch of Blogger blogs and can revive my Blogger writing blog if need be. I'll probably try Dreamwidth, tho, when it goes public because I enjoy trying out blogging services and social sites, even if I never use them past the initial setup phase.