Livejournal was inwented by Russians!

[hafital]

Is it wrong that I keep slipping into a Chekovian accent each time I hear about this LJ/SUP acquisition?

My take, for what it's worth:

First reactions was: CHANGE BAD OMG, more for it seeming to come out of the blue (at least for ME, no matter it has apparently been in the works for a long time). My second reaction was still more negative than not, but a bit more tempered. This blog entry is useful in seeing how the different blogging sites/blogging companies stand in comparison to each other globally. The final graph shows 6A's popularity in Russia.

It makes perfect sense for a Russian company to want to buy LiveJournal, if it's that popular in Russia.(Friendster's popular in south-east Aisa? Who knew!)

The question is of course how will this affect me, and my friends, and my social interactions with all of you, all the people I love, the world, etc etc. Fandom lives on Livejournal, no matter the slow siphoning away to other LJ platform sites. I was amused by some of the comments on the LJ news comm that were all "Can't be worse than 6A!". heh. Of course it can, though. Or it can be better. Or the same.

I read the Wired article, which was interesting (and also a year old). I don't have any more information on SUP to come to any kind of conclusion about SUP's motivation, if it's purely a good business venture for them (which it is, no doubt) or some nefarious politico badness. If this were an episode of Alias or 24 we would know the answer! lol.

The company being Russian isn't a reason to bail, though. Russian companies have just as much right to play in the global market as any company anywhere; a company doing bad things to free speech either here or in Russia or anywhere is absolutely a reason to not give them any money, not to mention pulling up stakes and going elsewhere, but that stands for 6A just as much as for SUP, or our own dear government.

I'm not particularly sanguine about this acquisition, mostly because SUP is more an unknown entity than 6A was, and I have no more faith in SUP than any large company with money as it's goal. And it's hard to trust a company that's already been tagged as iffy and coming from a region with a reputation for corruption. But all in all I'm not going to jump ship just yet. However, I'm inclined to follow the herd, so, if my friends leave, then probably so will I eventually.

Incidentally, none of us want to hear it, but the internet is no longer free unspoiled territory -- it's a multi-gazillion dollar industry. It's less and less a good home for fandom. I know the OTW is working toward a goal in that regards, and I think all of us should seriously consider backing such a venture up. It's the way of the future.

This has actually motivated me to back up my journal, finally.

Comments

[destina.livejournal.com]

Heh. I backed up my journal two rounds of sky-falling ago, but I keep forgetting to do additional back-ups of current stuff. As for the idea of more changes to fandom and where fandom hangs out and where to find my friends: DO NOT WANT.

[klia.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I wish fandom had never migrated to LJ, but that's water under the bridge. I'm very wary at this point, especially after reading this:

http://news.livejournal.com/104520.html?thread=65950792

Not exactly filling me with confidence.

[carose59.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong that I keep thinking, "We've been bought by Fearless Leader! Frank will be replaced by Boris and Natasha!"?

(I like yours better, though. *g*)

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

This really was just a tiny straw for me, but it's sort of one of those things where I'm tired of my primary fannish outlet being more of a source of stress than one of fun. Like I said, it's mostly me and things that have nothing to do with anyone else.

There are two things about the acquisition that are adding to my sense of stress about it -- one, that I don't want my credit card and credit information on Russian servers. Since I'm already in their databases, and LJ has always been unclear on their purging policy, I can't know that even deleting my LJ will remove that information, but it's still not making me happy. The other thing is that if the year-old article is giving an accurate picture, it's entirely possible that the flagging and the acquisition are not concomitant by coincidence -- that the purchasing company wanted that feature for a particular reason.

Even if that's total paranoia, and I fully grant that's likely, the more I think about this flagging thing, the more I hate it, and the less I want to be a part of it.

Mostly, though, I need to focus my time and stress elsewhere right now, and it's easier just to say, giving myself a time-out, now. :)

[klia.livejournal.com]

it's entirely possible that the flagging and the acquisition are not concomitant by coincidence -- that the purchasing company wanted that feature for a particular reason.

That's what I've been thinking, too. I don't believe in coincidences anymore.

[banbury.livejournal.com]

What is it with us that if the situation involves Russians 2/3 times of it I'm forced to feel ashamed of who I am? And now I'm afraid of losing very comfortable world i'm living here in and many friends (either mutual or not) i'm interested in and i'm just not very happy of the whole situation, nationality regardless :((

[teresa-c.livejournal.com]

Hey there. I feel much the same. I've created other free accounts, at Insane Journal and Greatest Journal, but of course I have to come to LJ to see what's going on. All the great communities are here. How could I leave the Crack Van? Now I see people migrating to JournalFen, which makes me sad, because I do free accounts (I'm cheap) and can only get one there by paying.

I just wish we could all go to the same place. Maybe we could make mailing lists work again?