For me, there are two intersecting sets; people I read because I enjoy/respect/am interested in what they say, and people who are friends and/or, for one reason or another, share a community with me. For the first group, I don't really make much distinction of whether they're on LJ or not (though I occasionally get irritated with having to go through hoops to comment on off-LJ blogs). The second is where LJ and its, admittedly primitive and partial, support for trust relationships is useful.

I value LJ for what it offers for people I may have little or no contact with - communities for any bizarre social, sexual, political, artistic PoV that is out there. I'm glad that there's somewhere for people I consider utterly Dagenham to live and have their being and, frankly, people who judge LJ on those grounds are welcome to continue disappearing up their own dried out and constipated arses: they define their selves by their behaviour.

I'm glad that I'm here in this messy flux of an expression of Sturgeon's Law.