Social capital of permanent accounts

A comment thread on a recent update from Dreamwidth owner Denise Paolucci discusses the possibilities of social capital present in what are known on journaling sites as "permanent accounts." The term really refers to permanently paid-status accounts (on journaling sites, users can opt to pay for their accounts to support the site and gain access to additional features). Permanent accounts are relatively expensive (the equivalent of several years of paid status) and are generally purchased by users who are heavily emotionally and/or socially invested in the site. The site gets a lot of revenue upfront but reduces the pool of users who would repeatedly purchase paid accounts over the long term.

hel is correct that many LiveJournal users cite their permanent accounts on that site as the reason they won't leave, and that these users' decision to stick around contributes to a social environment that reduces the likelihood that their friends will leave. But I'm not sure the permanent account is a strong a locking-in mechanism as it might seem. Without other active users in the permanent account holder's network, producing content and commenting on that person's posts, the value of the permanent account plummets. Although the more likely result of this is that the permanent account holder wanders away from journaling entirely (as opposed to following other to a different site), possibly taking up another kind of social media.