please, please tell me this is a delayed april fool's joke

[sophiaserpentia]

LJ will now offer accounts which display ads on your journal and friend's page

But, hey! They'll be targeted ads, based on the interests in your interest list. Congratulations, you all belong to a focus group now!

Comments

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I'm selfish, but ... I'm a paid user and I'll never see an ad. No one will ever see an ad on my journal, either. I might, occasionally, see one if one of my friends goes Sponsored+ ... in which case I swat them in the head and pony up the five dollars to make them Paid. No sweat.

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

If your friends go Cheapo+ you still don't have to see their adverts on your friends page. Hurrah!

I'm torn between it being a Bad Thing (adverts? On lj? nooooo!) and a Good Thing (people can get more cool things, for free!)

But it won't actually affect me, as I'm paid. So it's only a theoretical dilemna.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

This is also how I feel about this.

The whole thing doesn't really bother me so much, but then again, if I were running LiveJournal there would be no free accounts.

The only place I can see this becoming an issue is for communities; I'm not sure how this will be handled there.

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

I would never have gotten rid of invite codes, either.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

Okay, after reading about communities, this should not be an issue unless a community maintainer chooses the "sponsored" level for the community journal, which I see no incentive to do.