Private messaging on LiveJournal

So the recent news post says that one of their plans for 2007 is to make it possible for you to connect with others through private messaging (about time, huh?).

I'm confused by the "about time, huh?" parenthetical remark. I remember when some feature was suggested (I think it was a kind of screened comment that's visible to the person you commented to and not just to the owner of the journal), which was nixed by brad by saying it'd be used to hold private conversations, and that this was not what LiveJournal was for -- emails were better for that.

"about time" sounds as if people wanted to implement private messaging for ages but never got around to it, or lacked the technical skills, or whatever, whereas I thought I remembered that the there was active opposition from TPTB.

I suppose it comes with brad no longer being the only TPTB at LiveJournal/SixApart. Times change.