- LJ has halted the creation of new "basic" accounts, so that the only accounts that can be created henceforth are "plus" (supported by advertisements) and "paid". In addition it's not possible to take an account created after yesterday and revert it to "basic". They have sound business reasons for doing this, reasons which they could easily have announced and tried to defend.
- LJ made this change without announcing it, instead announcing "Other changes you may have noticed are the [...] registration process for new users. We streamlined and simplified things so that now it’s faster and easier than ever to create a LiveJournal account."
- When users noticed that basic accounts had been grandfathered,
jasonshellen (VP of product development for LJ) said "it was more about creating a new registration process that was easier for new users to understand".
- LJ have now announced that it "is a business decision. It is, emphatically."
Now I'm not very good at discerning intent and mindstate from LJ posts. It's just barely conceivable that I'm missing some nuances here.
Hence another poll:
Jason Shellen's comment -- does that look like a lie to you?
Today's News post -- does that look like an apology to you?
Where's the bit where they say "we were wrong" or "we're sorry" or use the term "apology"?