"I think I'm gonna have a heart attack and DIE from that surprise."
mood: 
cynical
cynicalThey took away Basic accounts to "streamline" the registration process... but even now are considering replacing them with a new third option when you create a new journal:
"Paid Accounts Supported by Sponsors.
"The concept is simple, really. Essentially it's a paid account, but someone else picks up the bill.
"Here's how it works: Users will be offered paid accounts that are supported by sponsors. Users will be able to choose accounts from a range of brands supporting this program. Should the sponsor stop supporting this arrangement, the account will revert back to its previous type.
"The accounts will have a specially designed journal style with modest branding from the sponsor; these will be designed by our creative department and approved by the sponsors. There will also be a banner in the profile page. The owners of paid/sponsored accounts will not see advertisements in other people's journals, while existing paid users will not see banners in a sponsored users' profiles. The branded styles will respect ?style=mine, which will allow paid users to avoid seeing branded styles if they wish to do so."
Now color me paranoid after all the other crap they've pulled, but to my mind that translates as "Company X will have their logo all over your layout, and people who pay for their accounts in order to not have to see ads will have to jump through hoops to avoid them!"
Will the sponsors will have people monitoring the journals wearing their "colors" for any entries they find offensive? Will they pull their "sponsorship" without notice over comments that somebody else makes in a journal, or only the poster's own content?
Sadly, there are probably quite a few people on LJ who will go for this. =P Right, back to deleting my old entries from their servers. They get no content from me.
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