paid account - last year my paid account lapsed by accident. my credit card number had changed so they couldn't auto-renew like before; they sent me a couple of emails but since i have my emails from LJ automatically routed into a special folder, i missed them. and then when i came in to try and reactivate my paid account, it was complicated enough that i just said screw it and never did.

there is a difference. you see ads. it's true that they put the paid accounts on faster servers, so your page load times will be a little slower. but really, now that (sob) LJ is not as active as it used to be, it matters less.

YMMV, but for me, i don't regret letting it lapse.