but everyone ignored me. :P

That's what happened to me! And if one more person poke me I'm going to kick them.

Sabina is right, you don't ever revoke a service you once offered, and you try to RETAIN your LOYAL client base with tooth and nail. New customers are always more difficult to retain. The thing with business is that it is all COMMON SENSE. The customer relations person was an awesome addition and I honestly thought they were going to get smarter about their PR but they fail miserably.

I don't think LJ want to get rid of fandom, they just want to hide it from potential business interests, which is actually a smart decision, but WHY THE STUPID WAY OF ACCOMPLISHING IT?!

(Who need communication skillz when there are obsessions to write essays on?! :D)

I don't know, I keep on thinking that there has to be someone with a PR degree on their board but I'm obviously mistaken. Also, while they are making good commercial decisions I'm slightly concerned about future fallouts. All they need is one unethical act (lying about the interest statistics) to make it onto the 6 o’clock news and it is all over for them. The fallout from that can be potentially their business.

Oh gods, don't get me started on how reactive fandom is. I've been biting my tongue (or would be that finger) for awhile now to not comment on certain fandom-stupidity. I find fandom's negative reaction to money-making ventures (business sense) to be highly insane.

clearly BS explanations. That made me roll eyes, it was just so horribly thought out, and really you could tell they screwed up their communication right then and there.

I think fandom, or at least the semi-reasonable ones understand why LJ need to make money, but is highly concerned with the way LJ seem to be ignoring other alternatives for source of income, and instead is taking the easy way out (removing Basic accounts). I mean LJ can monitories components; userpics, edit capability, mobile posts and so forth, and people would pay for those single components. But alas they didn't even think about other alternatives and just removed the Basic accounts with no announcements and ignored their Advisory board completely (BTW: I see that Brad is really pissed, as he should).

Either way LJ/SUP has screwed up way too many times, and I'm really not that attached to their service so much as the people, and if they leave I leave.