That content strike again

[unixronin]

furiosity provided a more accurate translation of Anton Nosik's comments (anton_nosik, iirc, but that journal appears to have been suspended ... too much hate mail, perhaps?), and the man makes an excellent point.  I personally have thought all along that this "content strike" is misguided; the odds are it'd be a blip in the noise, if it was noticed at all.  But what Anton pointed out is that when one considers the realities of business, the content strike is not only not productive, it is COUNTER-productive.  Until the content strike is over, SUP CANNOT address the issue the strike is about, however much they may want to — because SUP CANNOT be seen as kowtowing to blackmail from its users.

Q: So why don't you just let your new users go mad if they wish to?

A: I think it's necessary to give them that ability, though since the time the change was made, there hasn't been a single actual person who said that his individual right to using a Basic account has been violated. However, I believe that it's not worth it to forbid bloggers who come to LJ after March 12th from changing their Paid and Plus accounts to Basic. I hope that we will make the appropriate correction. However, this depends not on me, but on the collective decision by the company's management.

Q: When could such a decision be taken?

A: That's where we have a problem. In these current conditions of blackmail, the company's hands are tied.

Q: Why?

A: Let's say I tell you, the journalist, politely: "I think you put an extra comma here." Your normal reaction: "Yes, you're right..." or: "Let's ask the editor..." But if I show up here and say: "Hey you, get rid of that comma, or I'mma break your face!" Would you really check the comma placement, after that?

In a situation where people are trying to blackmail and intimidate us, threatening to destroy our business, there are business reasons not to reward this sort of behaviour. This isn't just the psychology of someone who becomes more stubborn the more they're pushed. The issue is that at no point in the history of any successful business, success was not reached by bowing to aggressive, unfriendly force. No decision -- even the most correct one -- should be taken under duress.

It would probably be right to reevaluate the [ToS] passage regarding March 12th in the following few days. But from the point of view of sound corporate politics, we'll have to wait for the boycott. Let it pass. So that the topic of public outrage, threats, and intimidation can be closed. And then we can discuss the problem thoroughly.

Because "Once you have paid the Danegeld, you'll never be rid of the Dane."

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I find this argument dangerously specious.

Giving in to demands once does *not* mean you have to give in to demands at any time in the future. Especially since in this particular case they have, already, given in to the demands (such as they are).

Negotiation is not the domain of black and white. By definition, in fact. All decisions are made under duress of some kind -- otherwise they didn't really require negotiation. The watchword of diplomacy is "if everyone is unhappy with the decision -- you have reached a good compromise".

The purpose of the protest is to remind SUP that LiveJournal is a conversation (http://www.cluetrain.com/book/95-theses.html), not a dictatorship -- we are engaged in a continual negotiation, between we its content providers and customers, and it the hosting business but also the publisher. Publishers can't exist without content providers, and vice versa. Did the writer's strike prevent the studios from negotiating? No, of course not. It was just another step in the conversation.

Now -- on the flip side: punishment is rarely the way to get people to do things. Related reading. (http://www.physorg.com/news125155198.html) On the flip side, this protest doesn't actually *punish* SUP...