When I started LiveJournal, there were two account levels:
- Free Account -- no ads, no cost, but minimal features.
- Paid Account -- no ads, costs money, get everything.
When SixApart wanted to do advertising, they made a new account level in the middle that users could choose, and also renamed "Free Account" to "Basic Account" to disambiguate what "Free" meant. Now we had:
- Basic Account -- no ads, no cost, but minimal features. (the old "Free Account")
- Plus Account -- ads, no cost, medium feature set.
- Paid Account -- no ads, costs money, get everything.
And today, SUP has apparently removed Basic accounts altogether:
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=38&view=full
...I advised against this (when I heard a rumor about it awhile back). I hadn't heard anything recently about it. Perhaps they interpreted my advice as "well, okay, then maybe we'll at least grandfather the existing Basic users, and not convert them all to Plus..."
"Basic Account is an option available to accounts which were created before March 12, 2008. No account created after this date can be turned into a Basic Account."
...
In any case, SUP apparently sees no value in freeloaders not looking at ads, not paying, and oh wait... producing most the content for other members to read, other members who are looking at ads and paying for their accounts.
Let's hope my permanent account is grandfathered.
Yours truly,
Brad Fitzpatrick
LiveJournal Advisory Board Member
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