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I'm not telling you not to use their service, my wife (for example) continues to use Spotify. However, I personally will never use their service again. When th

I'm not telling you not to use their service, my wife (for example) continues to use Spotify. However, I personally will never use their service again. When they thought it was alright to use my network (that I pay for) to make money, then I have a right to turn my back on them. Questionable legality is one thing, I personally could care less about laws. I break probably 5 or 6 laws an hour. Laws have nothing to do about morality. It's "illegal" to go 1 mph over the speed limit, it's "illegal" to cross the street without a sign, etc. As a society the vast majority of the laws we don't care about or follow. What most people do is try to be moral and civil with one another. In the case of distributing music, most people seem willing to pay (hence Spotify has become popular). However, that didn't give them a right to use my network without my consent. That is immoral, and that will get a visceral reaction from people. In this case, it didn't surprise me they were using torrented content in their service. I shared what I found interesting, and why it didn't surprise me, and also my opinion about how they were shady. > even though they've since entirely removed that functionality? If a company is shady, I'm not going to trust them with my money / data unless I have to (i.e. Comcast / Verizon / AT&T). If I have a choice, I'd use someone else. This is my "vote" of dissatisfaction. I vote with my wallet, and I share my insights / knowledge such that others will vote (informed) as well.

johnmaguire2013 10y ago
I think the parent's point was that people and companies make mistakes. Voting with your wallet is a great idea -- often times when I pull funding from a company for a perceived slight, if they react to my vote, I'll vote again by paying for their service.
- LordKano 10y ago
  There are some transgressions that people don't forgive easily or at all. I have been taking part in a one man boycott of Nintendo for over 20 years. Not that it hurts them. Not that they care. I was just done with them.
  - pmarreck 10y ago
    I hesitate to ask, but what did Nintendo do to justify this lifetime ban? ;) (also, I kind of want a Switch, but anyway)
    - LordKano 10y ago
      The way they butchered what was my all-time favorite arcade game "Killer Instinct" with the SNES port and then KI Gold for the N64. I have never been able to forgive the company.
      - pmarreck 10y ago
        err... did you ever consider that perhaps those systems weren't actually powerful enough to support the "full" Killer Instinct experience, so there was no way for it not to seem "downgraded" from the real deal? (I was in my early 20's when that came out in the arcades. I remember it well)
        LordKano 10y ago
        The SNES certainly wasn't able to reproduce the arcade experience. The N64 should have been. Over the years, I have considered buying an old arcade cabinet just to re-experience the magic. I just need to find the space for it.
        pmarreck 10y ago
        You should do that. Don't lose the wide-eyed kid inside. :)
        LordKano 10y ago
        Many years ago, someone made a PC based Killer Instinct emulator and I played it whenever I was feeling nostalgic. I had problems getting it to run under XP, I wonder how well it would work under 7.
- pmarreck 10y ago
  I was making that point, and ALSO the point that the perceived slight was purely in the eye of the beholder, I edited my comment to add a link to a 2011 academic paper on Spotify's P2P architecture that proves that they were not being cagey or secretive about this part of the design, it was already "out there" and if it just so happened to first cross this guy's radar when he saw the outbound traffic on his own network, he can't really blame Spotify, he can only be indignant at his own ignorance.
  - suneilp 10y ago
    So now every ordinary person is going to read academic papers to ensure that a service or product meets decent moral and ethical standards? If it wasn't on their website designed for selling, then they don't really have an excuse. That is the spot where those kind of details should be mentioned.
    - pmarreck 10y ago
      > a service or product meets decent moral and ethical standards? I don't know what your standards are here but "an app that both sends and receives data from the Internet" pretty much describes every app in popular existence right now
pmarreck 10y ago
The issue I'm taking with this is that Spotify did not try to hide, be cagey or act deceptively about the p2p aspect of their design at all; in fact here is a 2011 article on an academic paper on the design http://pansentient.com/2011/04/spotify-technology-some-stats-and-how-spotify-works/ http://pansentient.com/2011/04/spotify-technology-some-stats... and here is a question-and-answer from their support community about it, from 2013: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web-Player/Spotify-P2P-uploading-and-cache/td-p/311368 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web-P... Hardly a design aspect that everyone who actually cared about such things was intentionally kept in the dark about. I would feel it is justified to be miffed if they tried to do it in secret and it was determined that they did indeed try to hide or downplay this fact, but this is not in fact what happened. Their stance seemed to be "yeah, this is currently how it works, we know some customers are unhappy with the arrangement, so we'll eventually change it, but you can't currently turn uploads off." Thus, you are basing your indignation off your own ignorance, and not reality. Full disclosure: Am long-time Spotify fan (hey, gotta be honest!)
- brainfire 10y ago
  So how many journals and forums do you subscribe to in order to find out what the programs installed on your computer are doing?
  - pmarreck 10y ago
    This is not a counterargument. P2P is not something that most people would understand and thus, including it in marketing materials would turn people off. Thus, not including it in marketing materials is not a sign of intentional deception. I can't go back in time but I bet if you googled "spotify p2p" or "spotify architecture" in 2012 you'd find a wealth of information on it
    - scrollaway 10y ago
      You, and several other people in this conversation, are trying to tell the person you originally replied to how to feel. They said nothing but "this is how I felt, this is why I stopped using it". If I had a bad experience with some software, I too would uninstall it, even if I'm told "but you see, you didn't experience it correctly".
redbergy 10y ago
I make no argument with your position (in fact fully agree you should vote with your wallet in this case) but I think it should be pointed out you most certainly gave consent to allow them to use your network when you agreed to their terms by using their service. I can't imagine anyone who reads every line before they sign up for a service or install software so I understand why you feel the way you do. Objectively, to me, it feels like more of a moral gray area than completely immoral.
type0 10y ago
> If a company is shady, I'm not going to trust them with my money / data unless I have to ... They are shady, few years ago they forced new users to have a fazebook account in order to sign up. I don't know how it is now, do they still?

johnmaguire2013 10y ago

I think the parent's point was that people and companies make mistakes. Voting with your wallet is a great idea -- often times when I pull funding from a company for a perceived slight, if they react to my vote, I'll vote again by paying for their service.

LordKano 10y ago
There are some transgressions that people don't forgive easily or at all. I have been taking part in a one man boycott of Nintendo for over 20 years. Not that it hurts them. Not that they care. I was just done with them.
- pmarreck 10y ago
  I hesitate to ask, but what did Nintendo do to justify this lifetime ban? ;) (also, I kind of want a Switch, but anyway)
  - LordKano 10y ago
    The way they butchered what was my all-time favorite arcade game "Killer Instinct" with the SNES port and then KI Gold for the N64. I have never been able to forgive the company.
    - pmarreck 10y ago
      err... did you ever consider that perhaps those systems weren't actually powerful enough to support the "full" Killer Instinct experience, so there was no way for it not to seem "downgraded" from the real deal? (I was in my early 20's when that came out in the arcades. I remember it well)
      - LordKano 10y ago
        The SNES certainly wasn't able to reproduce the arcade experience. The N64 should have been. Over the years, I have considered buying an old arcade cabinet just to re-experience the magic. I just need to find the space for it.
        pmarreck 10y ago
        You should do that. Don't lose the wide-eyed kid inside. :)
        LordKano 10y ago
        Many years ago, someone made a PC based Killer Instinct emulator and I played it whenever I was feeling nostalgic. I had problems getting it to run under XP, I wonder how well it would work under 7.
pmarreck 10y ago
I was making that point, and ALSO the point that the perceived slight was purely in the eye of the beholder, I edited my comment to add a link to a 2011 academic paper on Spotify's P2P architecture that proves that they were not being cagey or secretive about this part of the design, it was already "out there" and if it just so happened to first cross this guy's radar when he saw the outbound traffic on his own network, he can't really blame Spotify, he can only be indignant at his own ignorance.
- suneilp 10y ago
  So now every ordinary person is going to read academic papers to ensure that a service or product meets decent moral and ethical standards? If it wasn't on their website designed for selling, then they don't really have an excuse. That is the spot where those kind of details should be mentioned.
  - pmarreck 10y ago
    > a service or product meets decent moral and ethical standards? I don't know what your standards are here but "an app that both sends and receives data from the Internet" pretty much describes every app in popular existence right now

pmarreck 10y ago

The issue I'm taking with this is that Spotify did not try to hide, be cagey or act deceptively about the p2p aspect of their design at all; in fact here is a 2011 article on an academic paper on the design http://pansentient.com/2011/04/spotify-technology-some-stats-and-how-spotify-works/ http://pansentient.com/2011/04/spotify-technology-some-stats... and here is a question-and-answer from their support community about it, from 2013: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web-Player/Spotify-P2P-uploading-and-cache/td-p/311368 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web-P... Hardly a design aspect that everyone who actually cared about such things was intentionally kept in the dark about. I would feel it is justified to be miffed if they tried to do it in secret and it was determined that they did indeed try to hide or downplay this fact, but this is not in fact what happened. Their stance seemed to be "yeah, this is currently how it works, we know some customers are unhappy with the arrangement, so we'll eventually change it, but you can't currently turn uploads off." Thus, you are basing your indignation off your own ignorance, and not reality. Full disclosure: Am long-time Spotify fan (hey, gotta be honest!)

brainfire 10y ago
So how many journals and forums do you subscribe to in order to find out what the programs installed on your computer are doing?
- pmarreck 10y ago
  This is not a counterargument. P2P is not something that most people would understand and thus, including it in marketing materials would turn people off. Thus, not including it in marketing materials is not a sign of intentional deception. I can't go back in time but I bet if you googled "spotify p2p" or "spotify architecture" in 2012 you'd find a wealth of information on it
  - scrollaway 10y ago
    You, and several other people in this conversation, are trying to tell the person you originally replied to how to feel. They said nothing but "this is how I felt, this is why I stopped using it". If I had a bad experience with some software, I too would uninstall it, even if I'm told "but you see, you didn't experience it correctly".

redbergy 10y ago

I make no argument with your position (in fact fully agree you should vote with your wallet in this case) but I think it should be pointed out you most certainly gave consent to allow them to use your network when you agreed to their terms by using their service. I can't imagine anyone who reads every line before they sign up for a service or install software so I understand why you feel the way you do. Objectively, to me, it feels like more of a moral gray area than completely immoral.

type0 10y ago

> If a company is shady, I'm not going to trust them with my money / data unless I have to ... They are shady, few years ago they forced new users to have a fazebook account in order to sign up. I don't know how it is now, do they still?