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As a paying customer, I'm genuinely surprised that adblocking is possible with Spotify considering they control both the servers and the client. That said, I s

As a paying customer, I'm genuinely surprised that adblocking is possible with Spotify considering they control both the servers and the client. That said, I started on the free plan and have friends who still use it and the ads really aren't intrustive at all - it hardly seems like it would be worth the effort?

skstronghold 9y ago
They control the client but not Browser/DNS/OS
mojomark 9y ago
Also as a paying premium spotify customer, I can say they still serve up ads, they're just incognito... 1.) I recently had a splash screen for a Hulu partner "free trial" membership. Turns out it's actually a bundle, but I don't want to pay more for Hulu so keep your "ads" out of my premium feed Spotify. Put it in a special offers section where I can peruse at my liesure. https://support.spotify.com/us/account_payment_help/subscription_information/spotify-and-hulu/ https://support.spotify.com/us/account_payment_help/subscrip... 2.) My email is constantly bombarded with ads like "[pick a artist] wants to say 'thanks' with presale tickets". I already get presale with Amex. Again, these ads can be placed in a 'shows near you' section vice shoved in my email face. No ads my hiney.
- notriddle 9y ago
  > My email is constantly bombarded with ads like "[pick a artist] wants to say 'thanks' with presale tickets". I already get presale with Amex. Again, these ads can be placed in a 'shows near you' section vice shoved in my email face. Doesn't CAN-SPAM legally require them to have an unsubscribe button on anything like that?
  - rushsteve1 9y ago
    IIRC they do have an unsubscribe button, or some other opt-out method, because I know I clicked it, and I don't receive any of the aforementioned ad emails.
extra88 9y ago
Yes, the visual ads in the Spotify client are no big deal, it's behind other windows most of the time when I'm using it anyway. The interstitial audio ads are pretty bad; annoying, repetitive, and too frequent. But the audio ads still take up less "air time" than ads on Top 40 broadcast radio.
Just_Smith 9y ago
I haven't used an ad blockers for Spotify in a long time (because I'm a premium user when I can afford it), but when I was using one, all it did was mute the ads when they came on. Not perfect, but it certainly didn't break the mood as much as a randomly placed ad.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  I use Spotify web with uBlock. It doesn't mute audio ads, they just aren't there. Not sure how it works. As a side note, the web app is hidden -- they want you to download the desktop app, from which you can't block ads. The thing is, the desktop app performs even worse than the web app
  - FridgeSeal 9y ago
    You can definitely block ads on desktop Spotify: I did it by modifying my hosts file. As for your first question, I think when it encounters what should be an audio ad in the queue, it attempts to play it, due to the host file, the ad request gets blocked/sent to a black hole and nothing is returned, so the application presumably assumes that everything was fine and continues on.
  - YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago
    You can watch uBlock's logger when using the web player to see what it does. AFAIK the blocking rules are imported from EasyList. However, as far as user experience goes, I don't share your experiences at all – the web player is almost unbelievably bad, with frequently malfunctioning (disabled) player keys, volume slider jumping all over the place and common problems when resuming playback after a while. (Also, the desktop application has more features, including the ability to select multiple tracks to perform an operation on, and naturally the support for media keys.)
jiveturkey 9y ago
It’s probably intentionally tolerated. It gains them mindshare.

skstronghold 9y ago

They control the client but not Browser/DNS/OS

mojomark 9y ago

Also as a paying premium spotify customer, I can say they still serve up ads, they're just incognito... 1.) I recently had a splash screen for a Hulu partner "free trial" membership. Turns out it's actually a bundle, but I don't want to pay more for Hulu so keep your "ads" out of my premium feed Spotify. Put it in a special offers section where I can peruse at my liesure. https://support.spotify.com/us/account_payment_help/subscription_information/spotify-and-hulu/ https://support.spotify.com/us/account_payment_help/subscrip... 2.) My email is constantly bombarded with ads like "[pick a artist] wants to say 'thanks' with presale tickets". I already get presale with Amex. Again, these ads can be placed in a 'shows near you' section vice shoved in my email face. No ads my hiney.

notriddle 9y ago
> My email is constantly bombarded with ads like "[pick a artist] wants to say 'thanks' with presale tickets". I already get presale with Amex. Again, these ads can be placed in a 'shows near you' section vice shoved in my email face. Doesn't CAN-SPAM legally require them to have an unsubscribe button on anything like that?
- rushsteve1 9y ago
  IIRC they do have an unsubscribe button, or some other opt-out method, because I know I clicked it, and I don't receive any of the aforementioned ad emails.

extra88 9y ago

Yes, the visual ads in the Spotify client are no big deal, it's behind other windows most of the time when I'm using it anyway. The interstitial audio ads are pretty bad; annoying, repetitive, and too frequent. But the audio ads still take up less "air time" than ads on Top 40 broadcast radio.

Just_Smith 9y ago

I haven't used an ad blockers for Spotify in a long time (because I'm a premium user when I can afford it), but when I was using one, all it did was mute the ads when they came on. Not perfect, but it certainly didn't break the mood as much as a randomly placed ad.

TremendousJudge 9y ago
I use Spotify web with uBlock. It doesn't mute audio ads, they just aren't there. Not sure how it works. As a side note, the web app is hidden -- they want you to download the desktop app, from which you can't block ads. The thing is, the desktop app performs even worse than the web app
- FridgeSeal 9y ago
  You can definitely block ads on desktop Spotify: I did it by modifying my hosts file. As for your first question, I think when it encounters what should be an audio ad in the queue, it attempts to play it, due to the host file, the ad request gets blocked/sent to a black hole and nothing is returned, so the application presumably assumes that everything was fine and continues on.
- YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago
  You can watch uBlock's logger when using the web player to see what it does. AFAIK the blocking rules are imported from EasyList. However, as far as user experience goes, I don't share your experiences at all – the web player is almost unbelievably bad, with frequently malfunctioning (disabled) player keys, volume slider jumping all over the place and common problems when resuming playback after a while. (Also, the desktop application has more features, including the ability to select multiple tracks to perform an operation on, and naturally the support for media keys.)

jiveturkey 9y ago

It’s probably intentionally tolerated. It gains them mindshare.