What bugs me is the underlying fact that even if he was putting these things in motion over a year ago, why does it all suddenly happen as soon as he gets promoted? How tastless is it to bash Brad and more or less imply that people who choose to lock their journals to friends aren't using the site correctly?

He speaks of American users, the ones who pay him the most money, as stupid and naive, who use the site in the wrong way. What right does he have to judge us? I don't care if he's President of LJ or President of the whole planet. It's not his site, he did not make it, and if he wanted to do all this expensive and unnecessary shit, he should have just made a Russian blogging site.