LJ Brouhaha--Holiday Edition!

So, as everyone may or may not know, LJ has implemented new commenting format and in some formats, the subject lines in comments are gone, or don't display the way they used to. Of course, when changes are implemented here, everyone usually kicks up a fuss and then gets used to the new system, but this time, a large number of people (mostly people in fandom circles and RPs) are making noise about jumping ship. This change will definitely stop some communities from existing, as well as make many, many others much more difficult to read. What really irks me is the way this change was handled: the Russian programmers came up with the changes, blogged about them in Russian, and then released limited, vague language about them on the English-language news community.* I also don't like the timing; close enough to a major holiday block of time when many users are away from their computers and therefore unable to protest.** The final straw has been that the LJ Staff refuses to acknowledge the complaints about this change and, apparently, has given a workaround option that is only temporary.

Anyway, this whole situation is depressing to me because it's the same sort of B.S. that drove me away from Open Diary about ten years ago. The site staff stopped responding to any sort of comments and collected their money while trolls ran rampant and users bitched. I forget what finally caused me to shut down my account over there, but whatever it was, I moved over here and haven't looked back. Up until now, I'd been very loyal to LJ, recommending it to friends considering blogging, and giving it a not insignificant amount of money over the years. But this move bothers me, because it's as if the opinions of the people who use the site mean nothing, and that nothing we ask for will get done. This seems like a spectacularly poor business model.

What this means is that I'm probably jumping ship. Not immediately, of course; I've made too many friends here and am part of quite a few communities that I enjoy reading/participating in to just suddenly leave. But after the holidays are over and the dust has settled, I will almost certainly be moving full-time over to DW, and be looking to Blogger or Blogspot for an independent site for my public entries. To that end, if anyone has any recommendations for services like that, I'd be very interested in hearing them.

*I'm also rather appalled that apparently said programmers have made public posts in which they say people "had better" get used to the changes, with the implication of "how dare they complain?"

**This practice reminds me of the way that UBC "negotiated" with the TA's Union by setting the meeting time with the administration at 7AM on the first day of spring break. Reportedly, the administration was angry when TA Union representatives actually showed up.