If you aren't a fan of the visibility of lj than dreamwidth probably is a much better choice. But I think the price of belonging to a smaller community is, well, a smaller community. If people primarily enjoy online journaling because of the fannish aspect, I think this really is the best place for it.

Personally I love the interactivity that lj provides, the communities, the nested comments. And as someone who has been on lj for over ten years I've been witness to the whole "something breaks, everybody freaks out" cycle a few times now.(And, really, what form of social media HASN'T screwed the pooch in the past year? Facebook is constantly encroaching on user privacy, twitter fail whales at least once a week.) All I can say is do what makes you happy. But in response to feliciakw's initial question: this is where I've been and this is where I will always be. For me, personally, nothing else compares.