I wish I had a 'pissed off' user icon. But I'm a Basic Account user so I have only six. No room for frivolities.
And the reason why I'm a Basic Account user is that I don't think I like and trust SUP (the owners of LJ) enough to give them my monies, and yet I want an addless journal.
This used to be possible: there were free Basic Accounts available untill March 2008. No frills, no Scrapbook, no Voice posts, six user icons. All fine with me, and a very nice service level for something that's unpaid. But.
In March 2008, this account level was made unavailable to new users. First we were told it was because three account levels were 'too confusing', then they said that 'empatically,. it's a business decision'. I'm not sure there was a whole lot of empathy involved, but sure, it's a business and they call the shots, right? And they said existing Basic Accounts would be 'grandfathered'.

Now this month, they told us they were 'bringing Basic back'. Sounds good, right? But there was a price to pay.
Ads.
What else?
Users were asked for their input how and where these ads would be implemented.

The choice that was decided upon (and many users actually said they could live with) was: show ads on Basic journals, to everyone who isn't logged in.

So here it is. I specifically logged out and cranked up IE (my SeaMonkey has Adblock) to see what my journal would now look like to others, more specifically my mother. Click the pic for full size. If you dare.

I'm Not Happy about this.
Hello Mom? I'll be over next week, installing Adblock on your FireFox.