I'm beginning to entertain notions that they want a fairly large part of their userbase (the freeloaders) to move off.

They are presumably trying to emulate Facebook, but what they don't seem to grasp is that most of Facebook's user base consists precisely of "freeloaders". They're the source to be datamined and sold advertising *to*. So yes, they're not paying directly, but without them there is no business. Then again, LJ's grasp of customer service is rather amusingly retrograde. Still, people validate that by staying with the service, so... *shrugs*.