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Good. Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. To those who justify wanting the paid service for nothing by saying Spotify won't "take

by cletus 8y ago

Good. Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. To those who justify wanting the paid service for nothing by saying Spotify won't "take responsibility" or "assume liability" for their ads or those ads "might deliver malware" or are "intrusive" as a weak rationalization, you present a false dichotomy. There are at least three options: 1. Pay for the service 2. Suffer through the ads 3. Don't use the service This thread is an object lesson in why basically every large service on the Internet is ad-supported. When people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming are you really surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model?

devy 8y ago
I am on a paid account and I use ad blockers religiously. Will Spotify still terminate my account?!
- DangerousPie 8y ago
  I'm in the same boat as you and I very much doubt it.
- thisisweirdok 8y ago
  No because you're paying them more than ads generate
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    Not by as much a I'd have thought: > Premium Gross Margin was 27.3% in Q4, up from 26.1% in Q3, and up 200 bps Y/Y. Ad-Supported Gross Margin was 22.1% in Q4, up from 18.6% in Q3, and up 350 bps Y/Y. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190206005298/en/?utm_source=Memberful&utm_campaign=11b188e53b-weekly_article_2019_02_07_free&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d4c7fece27-11b188e53b-111064245 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190206005298/en/?ut...
- ijpoijpoihpiuoh 8y ago
  Probably not?!
- onemoresoop 8y ago
  Do they have ads in the paid version??
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    No.
  - brink 8y ago
    Just banners advertising popular new releases.
    - anoncake 8y ago
      In other words, yes.
      - omegabravo 8y ago
        What's the difference between an ad and a recommendation? I'm not sure but this certainly feels like suggested music to me.
        anoncake 8y ago
        AFAIK Spotify gets paid for those banners. If they don't then of course they aren't ads.
        gowld 8y ago
        The difference is whether I have the power to customize it or turn it off, or if it is forced into my attention.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
michaelmior 8y ago
> 1-2 coffees a month Where do you buy coffee that one coffee costs $10?! (or even $5?) I still don't think it's a lot of money, but not quite so trivial.
- yial 8y ago
  Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop. Any kind of specialty drinks, which most people I would believe get at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, the local coffee shop, end up being $5-8, not even in a major city or metropolitan area.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Basic at my local shop is under $2, including the sweetener bar (cream, raw sugar, nutmeg in a grinder(!) etc) Its actually a family-owned chocolate shop (Winan's) offering Yurgacheffe, Costa Rican, Nicaraguan, Guatamalan and many blends. So a pretty good deal!
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop. Any size coffee is $1 at McDonald's 24/7. The quality is improving, too, so it's something to remember when you're traveling in unfamiliar territory.
    - gowld 8y ago
      Is that better than buying a pack of caffeine pills to travel with?
      - fernandotakai 8y ago
        honestly, i prefer not drinking any coffee if i can only afford mcdonalds coffee.
      - OldSchoolJohnny 8y ago
        Yes. You get to interact with real people and stretch your legs.
ar0 8y ago
I think it will all depend on how this plays out in practice. For now, this is only some fineprint in a ton of other legalese that might or might not be used in the future. I mean, if they show you a notification that you should really sign-up for a paid subscription or disable your adblocker, this does not really seem a big deal for me and all right for Spotify. However, if they terminate your account because you happened to use Spotify for a while on a system with adblocking enabled (does being on a Pi-Hole network count?), I am wondering if they won't just drive a lot of potential customers to Apple Music & Co, which is the last thing they need right now... I mean, if they would terminate my account like this, I definitely would not come crouching back to them asking for mercy to be allowed to sign-up for a paid subscription. I mean, I do have some dignity left. (I usually use Spotify using their apps, so without ad-blocking, but I cannot guarantee that I haven't been using their web player from time to time, too, and of course my browser has an enabled ad-blocker. I don't pay for Spotify because I buy my MP3s and use Spotify primarily to discover new songs.)
- alexgmcm 8y ago
  I think the main competition will be Amazon Music as I already have access to it due to my Prime account. I have a Spotify subscription because Amazon Music didn't used to exist and now I am used to Spotify, but if I'm paying for Amazon Prime anyway then why not make the switch?
  - cglace 8y ago
    Because the Amazon music subscription you get through prime is terrible.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      It's not "terrible." It's fine if you just basically want background playlists and don't want to pay for a premium service (from Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, etc.). But I agree that Amazon Prime Music isn't really a competitor to Spotify in the sense of using it to search for and play specific music.
- 8y ago
birksherty 8y ago
> 2 coffees for a month Where is that price from? What if I live in a poor country and price of 2 cup of coffee is $0.40?
- voidpointercast 8y ago
  Yeah I wanna know what kind of coffee this dude is drinking. Even at the most expensive places US side it's <3.50. I know this is semantics, but that's super deceptive. The only thing of value to me from Spotify is their quantification of my musical tastes. That said, full disclosure I'm a notorious pirate on the dread sea qbittorrent with little qualms about denying others profit; so take anything with a massive grain of salt.
  - kaikai 8y ago
    > Even at the most expensive places US side it's <3.50 Not true; I live in the US and a coffee from a fancy place is easily >$5. A starbucks frappawhatever is way more.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> There are at least three options: > 1. Pay for the service > 2. Suffer through the ads > 3. Don't use the service Those are the customer's options. What about Spotify's? 1. Offer the service as paid-only, no free with ads option. 2. Offer a paid version and a free version, but some people use ad blockers. 3. Offer a paid version and a free version, block ad blockers and expose your customers to malware. The last is the only one that has "expose your customers to malware" in it, so maybe they should pick one of the other two. Because if all the customers chose either paying or not using, that's the same anyway, and if they didn't, they're actively harming the remainder.
- jtuente 8y ago
  > 2. Offer a paid version and a free version, but some people use ad blockers, and expose most of your customers to malware.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    So that leaves option one. Or for browser vendors to start shipping ad blockers or third party javascript blockers by default.
    - fastball 8y ago
      How many people have gotten malware from Spotify ads?
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        It is a thing that has happened. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-Free-ads-causes-browser-to-launch-on-malware-virus/idi-p/1461222 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-Free...
- dcow 8y ago
  Like others have mentioned, you can do #2/3 without the “expose to malware” caveat if you implement responsible ads.
zzzcpan 8y ago
No, paying for service doesn't guarantee ad-free and tracking-free experience at all, especially for VC backed companies. They probably already inject tons of tracking for paying users. And those users are still just users, not customers. The only real customers of spotify are advertisers and sooner or later paying users are going to be sold to advertisers, there is just more money there and they can't ignore that.
- bcruddy 8y ago
  It sounds like they're only suspending free accounts for adblockers. At the same time, I don't mind spotify tracking how I use the application. It generates valuable data for their product managers to improve the overall experience. If there's evidence spotify is using this data to track users across the internet, then there's problem.
  - mosselman 8y ago
    Spotify is not a public service, it is a company. They can pay for user testing in order to improve their product or they can use completely anonymous data. Your privacy is not a necessary sacrifice for products to improve nor should it be. That being said, I find it OK for them to block users who try to get a paid service, for free. What isn't OK is the advertisement model. A better model in my eyes would be for limiting the free element of the service more and/or running unintrusive ads for the service itself. That way you could still push for more paying customers, without sacrificing the users who can't afford the product. I do think their is a nuance between tracking how you use the app and letting third party systems track what you do, where you are, etc. Still, they are just a company, not a basic human need.
  - lewiscollard 8y ago
    > It sounds like they're only suspending free accounts for adblockers. Unfortunately, it is unclear from both the article and the revised terms whether this is the case.
- opencl 8y ago
  Ads only make up ~10% of Spotify's revenue. If they start putting ads on the paid version everyone will just leave for one of the competing ad-free services (Amazon, Apple, Google). I'm sure you're right about the tracking though. https://adexchanger.com/digital-audio-radio/spotifys-f-1-shows-programmatic-makes-18-ad-revenue/ https://adexchanger.com/digital-audio-radio/spotifys-f-1-sho...
dithering 8y ago
Years ago, a Windows virus slipped on to three family machines I'm the go-to-guy for, due to Spotify using IE to display ads, and not vetting its ads properly. My answer was two-fold - never use Spotify, and always use an ad-blocker.
- gramstrong 8y ago
  I've pretty much always paid for Spotify, and from what I can remember when they first started all of their ads were "radio" ads. How were they using IE to display their ads? Did they introduce pop-ups?
  - dithering 8y ago
    Embedded in the desktop app. It was news at the time. "spotify ads malware" looks like a good search term to dig up more information.
- AJ007 8y ago
  Ad blockers are mandatory on my parents computers. They can’t distinguish between what is or isn’t an ad (not speaking specifically of Spotify display ads.) I feel like I hold an opinion no one else reading hacker news has, I believe website owners should be able to deliver ads and website visitors should be able to block them.
  - dylan604 8y ago
    I feel like websites should be able to run clearly labeled ads that are not trying to pretend to be anything but an ad. I also feel like paid for articles should be clearly labeled as such and not hoping people will not notice the review/write up isn't just an ad in sheep's clothing. I get it. A website needs to make money in order to stay in business delivering "free" content. Why does it have to be a game? Commercials/ads on television are not hidden. We accept that in order to bring broadcast television without a BBC style licensing fee, the broadcasters make money selling air time to advertisers. Sure, some product placement occurs in some of the programming, but that's up to the producers and not the broadcasters. Why is it any different on the internet?
bliblah 8y ago
Why should spotify have any say on what software you use on your computer?
- bhauer 8y ago
  > Why should spotify have any say on what software you use on your computer? They don't, clearly, as there are people who are running software they would prefer people don't run. What they do have a say on is whether you get to have a Spotify account, and they can base that on whether or not you're seeing the ads their software uses for revenue. You of course have the option to pay for the service, which results in the ads being removed from the service. I say all this as someone who doesn't use Spotify at all.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  They don't, but you also do not have an inherent right to use their service. What about video game cheats? Should e.g. Blizzard have no recourse should you run software which allows you to cheat in their games? You may say "well fix your bugs!", but it seems simpler and better for the community to just ban the tiny percentage of people who are hell bent on cheating.
  - discreditable 8y ago
    I don't think cheating in multiplayer games is comparable. Doing so harms the experience of other players.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      The only argument from the GP was >Why should spotify have any say on what software you use on your computer? I agree that cheating is not on par with ad-blocking, but that's neither here nor there. If there are exceptions then the GP should clarify their position.
    - CDSlice 8y ago
      Well, blocking Spotify's ads directly harms their revenue and not just their feelings. So I would say it is comparable.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kgwxd 8y ago
Contrary to popular belief, ads can be delivered without arbitrary code execution. The Spotify app already has the ability to deliver audio and video, that's all they need. The mistake here is letting third-parties onto users devices. It's a disgusting industry-wide practice that needs to stop. Using the existing audio/video delivery system would render "ad blockers" useless. "thrid-party blockers" would still work as intended though.
- akerl_ 8y ago
  And if the approach is “I won’t use services that want to use 3rd-party-RCE-style ads”, it makes sense to me. But the folks who are blocking ads are taking Spotify’s offer (pay us, let us run our ads, or don’t use our service, pick 1) and trying to shoehorn a 4th option that Spotify doesn’t offer: get the content w/o Spotify getting paid. To tell Spotify “I’d use your service if you added an option where the ads didn’t give 3rd parties the ability to run JS on my system” is different from “I picked your current ad-supported option and then prevented the ads from running”.
  - gowld 8y ago
    Pandora and Google Play Music (and maybe Spotify too I don't know) put ads in the audio stream (and video, if you are looking at the app screen while listening to music for some reason). Seems simpler to do this than get into a technical arms race with users.
    - judge2020 8y ago
      They already do this, there are constant interruptions for 30-second audio ads. Currently, you can turn the audio down, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do something akin to the black mirror episode "fifteen million merits" where you have to look at/listen to the ads for them to go away. The main gripe is using adsense which can still often be used to deliver malware.
      - heynk 8y ago
        I've paid for Spotify for a while, so its been some time since I've heard an ad. But from what I remember, if you put the volume below ~30%, the ad pauses.
jbeales 8y ago
Here's the thing(s): 1. It's not just 1 type of ad. In Little Snitch, I have permitted Spotify to connect to 281 different domain names, most of which are ad-related. That's a lot of companies being allowed to run JS in whatever webview Spotify uses to display ads. I don't listen much on my computer anymore. 2. They keep advertising deals to me - $0.99 for a month, or $9 for 3 months, that I can't subscribe to because they don't let people in Quebec sign up for them, (something related to the consumer protection laws here). These ads are audio, in-app visuals, and even E-mails. This leaves a horrible taste in my mouth, and I've let them know several times, but they never change it. That, combined with the fact that I feel like the $10/month subscription is a tad expensive, make me very reluctant to subscribe again, (I was a subscriber through my mobile phone plane for a long time). At $5/month I'd subscribe instantly. $7-8 I'd probably still do it. $9-10 I can buy 10-12 CDs per year that I own in perpetuity. I feel like if they did the ads right, (in-house, with non-insulting geotargeting), or offered a subscription price closer to one latté per month, I would have a lot less animosity and be more supportive of this move.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  > $9-10 I can buy 10-12 CDs per year This is good in other ways! One of the problems with Spotify is that the musicians don't really get paid a realistically useful amount. I say this as someone who has both a Spotify subscription and musician friends whose music is on Spotify. That said, I personally find the subscription price surprisingly low for what I get, but I wouldn't try to tell you what to do with your money.
  - jbeales 8y ago
    There's a strong argument for "$10/month is amazing for unlimited access to this entire catalog!" But I wonder how many songs or artists I actually listen to. Is it really that much more than I would if I were buying CDs? I do enjoy the personalized playlists a lot, though.
    - matwood 8y ago
      For me it's much more than "I could buy CDs". A sub to Apple Music for example lets me go on musical journeys. I listened to the many versions Vivaldi's 4 seasons the other day and enjoyed hearing how different orchestras performed. I have taken a dives into 80s rap/hip hop, or hair bands, or whatever else strikes me. Those types of exploration were not possible in the days on only buying CDs.
simias 8y ago
I agree, I block every ad I possibly can but if I actually benefit from using a service and they provide a (reasonably priced) paid option I'll gladly subscribe. I want the ad-driven model to die but how is it possible if the alternatives don't manage to make as much money?
anoncake 8y ago
You cannot pay for the service, the service is free. You pay for not being forced to watch ads. Not forcing people to watch ads is what decent people simply do, nobody deserves to get paid for that.
ouid 8y ago
1-2 coffees? it's 10 bucks. where are you that 1 coffee is 10 dollars? 10 dollars is not a trivial amount of money, and its WAY above most people's pre-spotify music budget. If you don't spend that money, you have an extra $120 bucks at the end of the year.
- nickdandakis 8y ago
  Is that really your problem? Even if coffee doesn't cost $5, and it costs $2.50, that's 4 coffees. Or even $1 coffee, that's 10 coffees. Unlimited music streaming for a month is absolutely worth 10 coffees. The coffee example is brought up because _most_ people that claim that $120/year is a lot for them, spend a lot more than that a year on coffee. That's not to say $10/month is trivial. I'm sure it's not a trivial amount of money for some people. The parent isn't denying that. They're saying that they're happy that Spotify is banning people that are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're blaming people that CAN afford 1,2,5,10 coffees a month, and still chose ads or worse, adblockers for a service they can easily pay for as the demise of the internet. Which I wholeheartedly agree with.
  - selflesssieve 8y ago
    It's almost as if people have different tastes and consumption profiles.
  - stordoff 8y ago
    > Unlimited music streaming for a month is absolutely worth 10 coffees. Depends on the person. Much of the music I want to listen to isn't on Spotify, so I'd have to supplement it anyway, and I rotate through artists slowly enough that it is about the same to buy CDs anyway.
  - skedaddle 8y ago
    It's because they already get unlimited music streaming for free, from multiple sources. The value added by Spotify's premium plan is ad-free unshuffled playback and the offline option, so you have to see whether you have $10 in your monthly budget for just those features. I see the value there but it's also relevant to note that your phone can already do all that if you just buy music.
kakarot 8y ago
4. Don't pay for the service and block the ads :) That said... Go with #3 everyone. Spotify is horrible for artists.
- TheJazi13 8y ago
  Correction: The labels are horrible for artists, Spotify payouts are just a symptom of the way labels rip every penny out of the artist.
  - kakarot 8y ago
    We don't blame the knife when someone stabs another. Spotify is just another player in this diseased game. They are part of the problem, not a symptom of it. This is coming from someone who has followed and evangelized Spotify since the beginning, way back when Ludvig joined and it was still P2P.
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
This is like saying you cannot mute your TV when a commercial comes on. Actually it’s worse. It’s saying you cannot even look away. It’s my TV / my phone / my screen. Me. MINE. If someone else emits some information they make freely available, that in no way entails they have any say whatsoever about what I permit to be visible on MY screen.
- dx87 8y ago
  Just like you can decide what is shown on your screen, they can decide to not let freeloaders use their service. You always have the option of paying for a subscription if having full control over what is shown on your screen is that important to you.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    What do you mean freeloader? They chose to distribute the content for free, not me. If they mistakenly thought this would allow them to guarantee certain things to appear on some private citizen’s personal property, it sounds like a very foolish decision on their part. It might mean they have to shut down the free version of their content or something. If they try to circumvent my ability to control what is shown on the screen that I own though, it will fail comically, as there will just be an arms race of new technology I can use to ensure my freedom to control what shows up on my screen, to such a degree they would bankrupt themselves trying to control what goes on my screen.. seems a stupid waste on their part, wishing to control someone’s private property like that.
    - umanwizard 8y ago
      > They chose to distribute the content for free, not me. Yes, and now they are freely choosing NOT to distribute the content for free, except to people without adblockers.
      - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
        No you mean to anyone who circumvents the banning mechanism legally.. so like, everyone who wishes to.
DoctorPenguin 8y ago
What about option 4 to not provide a "free" service at all?
imhelpingu 8y ago
Wait! You're telling me that for the price of two coffees a month, I can have unlimited streaming on the go!? How about if marketers want me looking at their ads, they can stop pouring millions of dollars into research about how to spy on me through those ads against my will.
ratling 8y ago
shrug youtube-dl -x --embed-thumbnail ${url}. Run a normalizer across it. Dump into iTunes. Get on with my life. Ad agencies are bad actors. Not intentionally but because they have zero incentive to really police what garbage goes out across their systems. I block them on the client. I block them at the DNS level. I block them at the firewall. I've dealt with the worst case scenario, no thanks. Previously I'd sub to spotify for a month when I was traveling and just deal with the ads that got though my standard setup when I wasn't. Now I just won't bother.
gglitch 8y ago
I generally use option 4: pay for the service, and use a blocker to try to protect myself from risk I don’t see or understand.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Adblockers have been around for more than 20 years. It's only in the last few years that they've started seriously cutting into advertisers' business. There's a reason for that. Most people don't care enough about ads to bother installing an adblocker. It's intrusive, disruptive ads that drive them to do that. It wouldn't have come to this if site owners had taken responsibility for the content of their advertising. And, unfortunately, most people don't bother to change their adblocker's default settings (and raise holy hell if the default settings allow non-intrusive ads), so the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Bad actors ruin the funding model for everyone. How did we ever get to the point where letting anyone slap any ads they want over your content seemed like a good idea? Imagine a newspaper or a TV channel running porn ads and saying "sorry, we don't control the content of our ads." They'd be crucified.
ddebernardy 8y ago
Best I'm aware, radios offer unlimited music broadcasting all day long and are doing just fine without subscribers. I've never used Spotify, but if its free, supported by ads option means serving web-based stuff, then it might want to look into getting rid of that and serving audio ads every few songs instead. Ad Blockers wouldn't be a problem in that scenario, and Podcasters have long shown that the what essentially amounts to radio ads are a perfectly valid way to monetize audio content.
- dylan604 8y ago
  > Best I'm aware, radios offer unlimited music broadcasting all day long and are doing just fine without subscribers. Unlimited broadcasting of the same set of songs in rotation that they choose for you. That's supposed to be a huge selling point of the streaming services is to offer a larger selection than what corporate radio limits what's broadcast.
  - ddebernardy 8y ago
    Regardless. If radios can get away with throwing an ad every few songs, why can't Spotify et al?
    - dylan604 8y ago
      Because my radio playing an ad does not offer the potential for damaging my computer
      - ddebernardy 8y ago
        How can an audio ad served by Spotify served in between two songs possibly damage your computer?
        dylan604 8y ago
        How would an ad blocker affect those ads? Why be obtuse? Ad blockers run in a browser to block ads from the visited website. Those ads have in the past and currently been known to deliver malicious code to the browser. Spotify is threatening to suspend the accounts of someone protecting their system from this attack vector.
colemickens 8y ago
It shameful that people mindlessly spend $1000 on the latest fashion, sorry, tech accessory but can't afford a few dollars a month to enjoy the creative output of others.
- WilliamEdward 8y ago
  I am in this predicament, and every one of these people are making up a blatant lie that they can't afford it. What they really mean is they are stubborn. They don't see money logically and clearly, where if they could they would realise their hidden costs far exceed $10 a month... Things like coffee, gas. They don't realise it racks up $10 $15 and $20 dollars behind the scenes. But theyre happy to pay for that... why? Because they don't have to see it go. They don't have to think about it. That's why people dont like subscriptions. Spotify is extremely affordable, for literally everyone who can afford an internet connection. People are lying about why they don't want to pay for it; I'm young and poor and to tell you the truth even i can afford it, I'm just way too stubborn.
  - jshowa3 8y ago
    People don't want to pay for it because there are mechanisms in place that sustain these businesses outside of ads. Just think about how much VC money is dumped into these services that never or barely generate a profit and they're all free to use and have been for years. Twitter and Snapchat come to mind. Blocking ad blockers is incredibly annoying and is just an excuse for ad spamming. Let me tell you watching Youtube without ads is a dream compared to seeing a 4 second ad on every video start and then 5 mid roll ads. It's insane. Google Play on the other hand does 2 to 3 ads after several minutes of listening. And the ads are make 10 - 15 seconds long. That's proper ad play.
    - colemickens 8y ago
      >People don't want to pay for it because there are mechanisms in place that sustain these businesses outside of ads. Just think about how much VC money is dumped into these services that never or barely generate a profit and they're all free to use and have been for years. Please correct me if this is disingenuous, but I feel like you basically just said you're used to having VCs subsidize your entertainment platforms and that you've extrapolated that entitlement into a justification for never paying for any entertainment acquired over the Internet. At the very least, it seems obvious that it's unsustainable and likely that creative artists will be the first squeezed. Also, I don't think this explanation combat's the parent's observations about spending habits at all.
tzs 8y ago
> This thread is an object lesson in why basically every large service on the Internet is ad-supported. When people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming are you really surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model? Note also that in the case of Spotify, Apple Music, etc., most people will only need to subscribe to one of those services to cover pretty much all of their music streaming needs. With, say, newspapers and magazines they can try to make the argument that to meet their needs they would need to subscribe to a bunch of different papers and magazines and that would get prohibitively expensive very fast. You can even try that argument somewhat with video streaming services. There are enough exclusive deals between movie producers and movie streaming services that picking one service only means you likely miss out on a lot of movies you want. But with music that argument just does not work.
Aeolun 8y ago
15 year old me had basically nothing. Paying $10 per month for pretty much anything was unthinkable. I still wanted to listen to music though, so I found ways. I really don’t think that was so terrible, and neither do I think the few million people that block ads are.
- jimmy1 8y ago
  That's great, but you live in a country that have these things called laws and you have to follow them whether or not you personally think that breaking them "isn't so terrible" or not. If enough people think the laws are terrible, then lobby your representative to have them changed. This is how the system works. Half the reason it doesn't work is admittedly our corrupt officials taking the big media money (RIAA and MPAA subsequently), but the other half the equation is you and me. Everyone just wants things to magically change and be the way they think they are suppose to be without putting any skin in the game.
  - anoncake 8y ago
    > you have to follow them whether or not you personally think that breaking them "isn't so terrible" or not. That's plain incorrect, many people manage to do things that the state considers illegal.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    Actually, I don’t think I ‘have’ to follow any of those laws. It’s just that there may or may not be consequences for not doing so. At the end of the day what I think is moral is a lot more relevant in daily life than what the law says (it just happens to overlap in a lot of places).
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    >That's great, but you live in a country that have these things called laws and you have to follow them whether or not you personally think that breaking them "isn't so terrible" or not. No. There are laws and breaking them may result in actions taken by a group that has claimed the right to infringe on my liberty. The action is right or wrong, independently of the law. In this case the sole consequence is that a person has to create a new spotify account.
x15 8y ago
1. Use an alternative like Deezer.
chrisweekly 8y ago
Yeah, Spotify's premium plan with family member access is $15/mo. It's worth a lot more to me than that. I can't imagine tolerating ad intrusions (or feeling justified in working around their free plan's ads) to save 50 cents a day.
blue4 8y ago
4. I don't want to pay for the data they are collecting, now if there was a paid option for that...
- shocks 8y ago
  There is - it's called not using Spotify.
jancsika 8y ago
"Ad blocker" is #1 thing that should be installed first on every single browser, everywhere, to block third party ads. Then we browse. Heck, that browser Brendan Eich is working on comes pre-installed with one. So this isn't some fringe position I hold. It's basic web hygiene. > When people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming are you really surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model? No. But I get the sense you're trying to express moral indignation at such users, and I don't see the logic behind that. "I like $site_owner therefore I whitelist $arbirary_third_parties whose behavior cannot be controlled nor even really measured by $site_owner" isn't a workable/scalable lesson to try to teach users. To be clear, I also don't see any reasonable argument to be morally indignant about Spotify blocking the blockers. This is the web as it currently exists.
- Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
  > "Ad blocker" is #1 thing that should be installed first on every single browser, everywhere, to block third party ads. Agreed. But I don't block ads just because ads are annoying. I don't even block ads because I don't like being tracked. My reason for blocking ads can be summed up in a single word. Malvertising. As soon as ad networks began trying to spread malware through ads was when ads moved from being a nuisance to a serious security concern.
  - mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
    I block ads simply because I don’t want to see them. If a software annoys me I don’t use it. If a website is annoying, I leave. If a website is ok but ads are annoying, I block them.
  - joshuamorton 8y ago
    Can someone explain to me where these "malverts" come up? I use two chrome profiles, 1 with an adblocker and 1 without, and browse pretty often with both, and while the experience without is undeniably worse (slower, bloated, garbage on the page), I've never gotten malware. What is this stuff and where do I find it?
anonu 8y ago
The "cup of coffee" unit of measurement is becoming increasingly popular when comparing digital subscriptions. Generally these things are incredibly cheap. For some reason people are ok spending 5 bucks on a latte for 30 days a month ($150) versus an order of magnitude less for Spotify, Netflix, etc...
lancesells 8y ago
In the article it doesn't say for free account only does it? So if you pay for the service but you have an ad-blocker running will you be suspended?
cr0sh 8y ago
I wish there was an option to pay a per-day rate. I like Spotify for what it does (it would be nice if I could purchase the CD of the music I listen to - alas), but there are times when I go for days or weeks without listening to it. I'm still debating on if I want to spend $10.00 a month on something I may not use often enough to justify it? For now, in the spirit of everything, and to not be blocked, I turned off my ad-blocker. I can deal with it for now. One thing I think about that is analogous is the fact that every month I donate $5.00 to my local NPR station - but I haven't listened to it in months! But - those are tax deductible (or at least once were? I'm not sure how it works now this tax year), and I do like the station, but I can only take so much of it at a time. Maybe if Spotify weren't a paid service, and instead were "listener supported" with tax deductible donations - I could more readily get behind it...? Ten dollars a month isn't that much, sure - it's something I need to think about more (it would be nice if there were an easy way to track when you use Spotify and for how long; that could help me too).
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  $10/month really isn't much. Compare to buying music, that's less than two album downloads from Bandcamp at normal prices. For those $10 you get completely unlimited access to all the music in Spotify's library, generated playlists and radios based on your tastes and listening habits. Honestly, 10$/month is bordering on suspiciously cheap for what you actually get. It's the same sort of odd psychology when it comes to paying for apps compared to paying for dinner. $2 for an app seems expensive, but $50 for a dinner for two is generally not even questioned.
mechnesium 8y ago
There’s a 4th option that somewhat falls under your number 2. AdNauseum (https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/) spoofs interaction with ads while simultaneously blocking them. I suppose both the service and consumer can reap mutual benefits from AdNauseum. You seem to take sides with business, but never forget the old adage: the customer is always right.
meddlin 8y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but there's one piece of this whole thing I have a big problem with. It's my device. I understand Spotify's motivation to want compensation for their great service, but shouldn't I be able to run my software, on my device, on my terms? I understand this argument doesn't solve anything, and puts Spotify in a bad situation. But...how long until someone creates a solution to scrub the audio of ads in real-time? With a beginning delay for the listening buffer, of course. This isn't trivial, but it sure is repeatable. I wish I had something better. I don't know; this quickly feels like digital [media] in the early 2000's all over again.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Yes, you can run whatever software you want on your device. Who is telling you you can't? In turn, Spotify can prevent whomever they want from streaming their content for free.
- bad_user 8y ago
  What you're witnessing is the inevitable backlash. It's your device. But Spotify also has the right to block your device. > ...how long until someone creates a solution to scrub the audio of ads in real-time? Let me tell you a little open secret. Ad-blocking in general can be circumvented right now. Even the most aggressive ad-blocking techniques can be brought to their knees, because they can be detected and the website can serve the content in such a way as to make ads impossible to block without ruining the content. Not many publishers do it because publishers have chosen to not piss off the minority that has ad-blockers installed. But this minority has been growing and what you're seeing is them fighting back. You ask how long will it take to block audio ads? It's irrelevant, because the publisher can deploy DRM in such a way as to make ad-blocking attempts illegal and easy to trace, since the streaming is done in real time from a central source. And thus users can receive big fines as to stop everyone else from doing it. That publishers don't do this yet, that's only because they preferred to play nice with ad-blockers. But threaten their bottom line long enough and they'll fight back. And who can blame them? Here's Spotify with a pretty good subscription model and users are now up in arms for no longer being able to get their content for free without ads.
jchw 8y ago
Honestly, I wish Spotify just didn't offer a free option. It's cheap enough as it is, and without the free option could probably be even cheaper.
irrational 8y ago
For me it feels like death by a thousand paper cuts. $10 to spotify, $10 to neflix (or whatever they charge now), $10 to some other streaming service, etc.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tradesmanhelix 8y ago
Paying for the service is a red herring since Spotify is specifically targeting the free tier with this policy. Thus, there really are only two options here when it comes to the free tier on Spotify: "Endure our ad experience or no 'free' service for you." However, there is a 3rd option here when it comes to the free tier: Spotify fixes the currently-terrible ad experience on its service. I'd be 100% fine with ads on Spotify if they were bespoke like the ads I see from https://carbonads.net https://carbonads.net. Their ads are relevant, tasteful, and unobtrusive. Oddly, I end up paying more attention to Carbon ads than I've ever paid to a Spotify ad. Sadly, Spotify is only offering consumers two options without any hint that they've even considered that they themselves could do something to address the issues underlying their customers' use of ad blockers.
- jimbokun 8y ago
  Just pay for the service already and stop being so cheap! It is amazing value for money, and at least some of it goes to the artists.
fierro 8y ago
preach!
mschuetz 8y ago
I've been using the paid option for a long time and I'm considering canceling it because the android app is crap. Worked fine in the beginning but now it frequently takes forever to load, sometimes requires a restart, and sometimes when trying to play songs, it takes a minute or two until it actually starts the song. This usually happens only when I'm using it after I've used other apps in between but I see no reason why it would happen. Not one single other app on my phone does this. It also very often does this if connection is bad which is super weird considering all the songs are supposed to be downloaded for offline consumption.
- jasonkillian 8y ago
  Are you storing a large amount of offline music on an SD card? I've had that cause issues for me in the past. Their guide to fixing issues[0] is generally worth giving a shot. [0]: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/COMPLETE-GUIDE-How-to-fix-most-Android-issues/td-p/914257 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/COMPLETE-GUIDE-How-...
reificator 8y ago
And when people use cups of Starbucks coffee as their internal metric for cost and then use that as a value judgement for those who are not paying, it really drives home how out of touch techies are. For the record, I pay $20 or so for Google Play Music for the family plan, despite being single. (Or at least I do until they shut it down, leaving me with no option for mostly streaming plus artists that aren't on any streaming service such as Tool or Neil Cicierega.)
besieged 8y ago
Yeah good, I'll just go back to getting all my music exclusively through the Black flag channels
scoot_718 8y ago
Exactly. Poor musical piracy has been losing users to this service for too long.
scoot_718 8y ago
How dare these users block malware from their machines!
MrStonedOne 8y ago
it boils down further then that. I have the right to selectively choose what code runs on my computer, including code designed to grab ads and display/present them. I also have the right to selectively choose what requests and traffic to allow in and out of my network. Spotify has the right to do the same, including to deny to send me any traffic from their service for any reasons. I also have a right to not like it if spotify does that, and everybody else has a right to not care if I do or don't.
paxys 8y ago
It's funny because whenever the adblock discussion comes up the standard argument is always "why can't the site have a paid subscription option? I would gladly pay for it." Now that a service is offering subscriptions, people still don't want to pay for it, and the goalposts are shifted further.
- stevenwliao 8y ago
  > Why can't they offer it for $8/month? After a price drop... > Why can't they offer it for $5/month? Another price drop. > Subscriptions are expensive. Why can't they offer a free plan? A free plan is released, with ads. > Why can't they offer it for free with less ads? Ad density is reduced. > Why can't they offer it for free with no ads? > I don't want all these songs. Why can't they have an a la carte option? A la carte option has existed for a while, but company gives it a marketing rebranding. > These a la carte songs are kind of pricey. Why can't they be $0.80? > $0.50? > They're just bits. Bits want to be free. > Why are you ignoring your loyal potential customers? I'm going to stop pirating your product and tell everyone I know to avoid you.
hesdeadjim 8y ago
Thank you. The entire reason we are subject to as many ads as we are is because people aren't willing to even pay $1 a month for a service that has become indispensable to their lifestyle.
belorn 8y ago
If Spotify won't respect the users rights and take responsibility and assume liability when Spotify distribute malware, why should should the user respect Spotify rights? Society is built on shared respect and the current online advertisement operates on the opposite model. The reason why every large service on the Internet is ad-supported is that it does not need to follow advertisement laws. They don't even need to follow computer crime laws. If society would start enforce such laws onto online services we would see a major shift away from ad-supported services.
- Operyl 8y ago
  Why should the user then not respect Spotify’s right to terminate their account based on the TOS? Goes both ways if you ask me.
clubm8 8y ago
>Good. >Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. Five dollars a month for the rest of my life is not "cheap". Frugal people look at the total cost of a loan, not just the monthly payment.
- adamrt 8y ago
  $1,200 for 20 years of music, updated constantly. Still seems cheap. Less than 5 grand for a literal life time of music.
- shocks 8y ago
  > Five dollars a month for the rest of my life is not "cheap". It's not five dollars a month for the rest of your life though. It's five dollars a month for as long as you want to listen to music on Spotify without ads... > Frugal people look at the total cost of a loan, not just the monthly payment. It's not a loan.
userbinator 8y ago
...and of course the user who works for Facebook is espousing the position that we must be forced to consume content. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115460 for more context.)
medecau 8y ago
> a false dichotomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising
deleted 8y ago
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55555 8y ago
> ... people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month... Lol it's $10 per month. Who pays $10 for a coffee?
- mdorazio 8y ago
  A large pumpkin spice latte at the starbucks down the street from me is $5.15. So two of them are over $10 and there are a lot of people who buy those. Average price of other things on the menu is around $4.
feelix 8y ago
I'll listen to music everyday for a week then not at all again for the next 8 months. I would happily pay for it on demand, but monthly it'd end up costing me something like $10 per minute of music listened to per year.
tomjen3 8y ago
I used to pay for spotify, but they kept changing the interface and fucking up in other ways. Seriously, I would have continued to pay them, if I could have used the same software I originally got with it. Of course I am also the sole user who ever paid for groveshark premium, and none of the current efforts are even a tiny bit remotely close to its interface, much less its music selection.
3xblah 8y ago
"... are you surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model." I am surprised that they continue to believe that they should have any revenue "[W]hen people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming." It's like realising people do not want to pay for what you are selling and then, instead of owning up to the fact you therefore have no viable business, you turn around and vengefully sell those same people out, keeping them around by reducing price to 0. There is no business regarding that service. You find a new customer (advertisers) and sell something else (ads). Then you portray the original "service" as your business. No matter how popular this has become, it is still a sham. Selling ads is a different service with a different customer. It is not the same business. There are probably some Internet service companies that do manage to sustain themselves on paid subscriptions. Perhaps they are few and far between. Pretending that a successful ad sales business is the same thing as a successful Internet-based paid subscription service is disengenous.

by cletus 8y ago

devy 8y ago

I am on a paid account and I use ad blockers religiously. Will Spotify still terminate my account?!

DangerousPie 8y ago
I'm in the same boat as you and I very much doubt it.
thisisweirdok 8y ago
No because you're paying them more than ads generate
- kingosticks 8y ago
  Not by as much a I'd have thought: > Premium Gross Margin was 27.3% in Q4, up from 26.1% in Q3, and up 200 bps Y/Y. Ad-Supported Gross Margin was 22.1% in Q4, up from 18.6% in Q3, and up 350 bps Y/Y. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190206005298/en/?utm_source=Memberful&utm_campaign=11b188e53b-weekly_article_2019_02_07_free&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d4c7fece27-11b188e53b-111064245 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190206005298/en/?ut...
ijpoijpoihpiuoh 8y ago
Probably not?!
onemoresoop 8y ago
Do they have ads in the paid version??
- umanwizard 8y ago
  No.
- brink 8y ago
  Just banners advertising popular new releases.
  - anoncake 8y ago
    In other words, yes.
    - omegabravo 8y ago
      What's the difference between an ad and a recommendation? I'm not sure but this certainly feels like suggested music to me.
      - anoncake 8y ago
        AFAIK Spotify gets paid for those banners. If they don't then of course they aren't ads.
      - gowld 8y ago
        The difference is whether I have the power to customize it or turn it off, or if it is forced into my attention.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

michaelmior 8y ago

> 1-2 coffees a month Where do you buy coffee that one coffee costs $10?! (or even $5?) I still don't think it's a lot of money, but not quite so trivial.

yial 8y ago
Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop. Any kind of specialty drinks, which most people I would believe get at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, the local coffee shop, end up being $5-8, not even in a major city or metropolitan area.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Basic at my local shop is under $2, including the sweetener bar (cream, raw sugar, nutmeg in a grinder(!) etc) Its actually a family-owned chocolate shop (Winan's) offering Yurgacheffe, Costa Rican, Nicaraguan, Guatamalan and many blends. So a pretty good deal!
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop. Any size coffee is $1 at McDonald's 24/7. The quality is improving, too, so it's something to remember when you're traveling in unfamiliar territory.
  - gowld 8y ago
    Is that better than buying a pack of caffeine pills to travel with?
    - fernandotakai 8y ago
      honestly, i prefer not drinking any coffee if i can only afford mcdonalds coffee.
    - OldSchoolJohnny 8y ago
      Yes. You get to interact with real people and stretch your legs.

ar0 8y ago

I think it will all depend on how this plays out in practice. For now, this is only some fineprint in a ton of other legalese that might or might not be used in the future. I mean, if they show you a notification that you should really sign-up for a paid subscription or disable your adblocker, this does not really seem a big deal for me and all right for Spotify. However, if they terminate your account because you happened to use Spotify for a while on a system with adblocking enabled (does being on a Pi-Hole network count?), I am wondering if they won't just drive a lot of potential customers to Apple Music & Co, which is the last thing they need right now... I mean, if they would terminate my account like this, I definitely would not come crouching back to them asking for mercy to be allowed to sign-up for a paid subscription. I mean, I do have some dignity left. (I usually use Spotify using their apps, so without ad-blocking, but I cannot guarantee that I haven't been using their web player from time to time, too, and of course my browser has an enabled ad-blocker. I don't pay for Spotify because I buy my MP3s and use Spotify primarily to discover new songs.)

alexgmcm 8y ago
I think the main competition will be Amazon Music as I already have access to it due to my Prime account. I have a Spotify subscription because Amazon Music didn't used to exist and now I am used to Spotify, but if I'm paying for Amazon Prime anyway then why not make the switch?
- cglace 8y ago
  Because the Amazon music subscription you get through prime is terrible.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    It's not "terrible." It's fine if you just basically want background playlists and don't want to pay for a premium service (from Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, etc.). But I agree that Amazon Prime Music isn't really a competitor to Spotify in the sense of using it to search for and play specific music.
8y ago

birksherty 8y ago

> 2 coffees for a month Where is that price from? What if I live in a poor country and price of 2 cup of coffee is $0.40?

voidpointercast 8y ago
Yeah I wanna know what kind of coffee this dude is drinking. Even at the most expensive places US side it's <3.50. I know this is semantics, but that's super deceptive. The only thing of value to me from Spotify is their quantification of my musical tastes. That said, full disclosure I'm a notorious pirate on the dread sea qbittorrent with little qualms about denying others profit; so take anything with a massive grain of salt.
- kaikai 8y ago
  > Even at the most expensive places US side it's <3.50 Not true; I live in the US and a coffee from a fancy place is easily >$5. A starbucks frappawhatever is way more.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> There are at least three options: > 1. Pay for the service > 2. Suffer through the ads > 3. Don't use the service Those are the customer's options. What about Spotify's? 1. Offer the service as paid-only, no free with ads option. 2. Offer a paid version and a free version, but some people use ad blockers. 3. Offer a paid version and a free version, block ad blockers and expose your customers to malware. The last is the only one that has "expose your customers to malware" in it, so maybe they should pick one of the other two. Because if all the customers chose either paying or not using, that's the same anyway, and if they didn't, they're actively harming the remainder.

jtuente 8y ago
> 2. Offer a paid version and a free version, but some people use ad blockers, and expose most of your customers to malware.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  So that leaves option one. Or for browser vendors to start shipping ad blockers or third party javascript blockers by default.
  - fastball 8y ago
    How many people have gotten malware from Spotify ads?
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      It is a thing that has happened. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-Free-ads-causes-browser-to-launch-on-malware-virus/idi-p/1461222 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-Free...
dcow 8y ago
Like others have mentioned, you can do #2/3 without the “expose to malware” caveat if you implement responsible ads.

zzzcpan 8y ago

No, paying for service doesn't guarantee ad-free and tracking-free experience at all, especially for VC backed companies. They probably already inject tons of tracking for paying users. And those users are still just users, not customers. The only real customers of spotify are advertisers and sooner or later paying users are going to be sold to advertisers, there is just more money there and they can't ignore that.

bcruddy 8y ago
It sounds like they're only suspending free accounts for adblockers. At the same time, I don't mind spotify tracking how I use the application. It generates valuable data for their product managers to improve the overall experience. If there's evidence spotify is using this data to track users across the internet, then there's problem.
- mosselman 8y ago
  Spotify is not a public service, it is a company. They can pay for user testing in order to improve their product or they can use completely anonymous data. Your privacy is not a necessary sacrifice for products to improve nor should it be. That being said, I find it OK for them to block users who try to get a paid service, for free. What isn't OK is the advertisement model. A better model in my eyes would be for limiting the free element of the service more and/or running unintrusive ads for the service itself. That way you could still push for more paying customers, without sacrificing the users who can't afford the product. I do think their is a nuance between tracking how you use the app and letting third party systems track what you do, where you are, etc. Still, they are just a company, not a basic human need.
- lewiscollard 8y ago
  > It sounds like they're only suspending free accounts for adblockers. Unfortunately, it is unclear from both the article and the revised terms whether this is the case.
opencl 8y ago
Ads only make up ~10% of Spotify's revenue. If they start putting ads on the paid version everyone will just leave for one of the competing ad-free services (Amazon, Apple, Google). I'm sure you're right about the tracking though. https://adexchanger.com/digital-audio-radio/spotifys-f-1-shows-programmatic-makes-18-ad-revenue/ https://adexchanger.com/digital-audio-radio/spotifys-f-1-sho...

dithering 8y ago

Years ago, a Windows virus slipped on to three family machines I'm the go-to-guy for, due to Spotify using IE to display ads, and not vetting its ads properly. My answer was two-fold - never use Spotify, and always use an ad-blocker.

gramstrong 8y ago
I've pretty much always paid for Spotify, and from what I can remember when they first started all of their ads were "radio" ads. How were they using IE to display their ads? Did they introduce pop-ups?
- dithering 8y ago
  Embedded in the desktop app. It was news at the time. "spotify ads malware" looks like a good search term to dig up more information.
AJ007 8y ago
Ad blockers are mandatory on my parents computers. They can’t distinguish between what is or isn’t an ad (not speaking specifically of Spotify display ads.) I feel like I hold an opinion no one else reading hacker news has, I believe website owners should be able to deliver ads and website visitors should be able to block them.
- dylan604 8y ago
  I feel like websites should be able to run clearly labeled ads that are not trying to pretend to be anything but an ad. I also feel like paid for articles should be clearly labeled as such and not hoping people will not notice the review/write up isn't just an ad in sheep's clothing. I get it. A website needs to make money in order to stay in business delivering "free" content. Why does it have to be a game? Commercials/ads on television are not hidden. We accept that in order to bring broadcast television without a BBC style licensing fee, the broadcasters make money selling air time to advertisers. Sure, some product placement occurs in some of the programming, but that's up to the producers and not the broadcasters. Why is it any different on the internet?

bliblah 8y ago

Why should spotify have any say on what software you use on your computer?

bhauer 8y ago
> Why should spotify have any say on what software you use on your computer? They don't, clearly, as there are people who are running software they would prefer people don't run. What they do have a say on is whether you get to have a Spotify account, and they can base that on whether or not you're seeing the ads their software uses for revenue. You of course have the option to pay for the service, which results in the ads being removed from the service. I say all this as someone who doesn't use Spotify at all.
EpicEng 8y ago
They don't, but you also do not have an inherent right to use their service. What about video game cheats? Should e.g. Blizzard have no recourse should you run software which allows you to cheat in their games? You may say "well fix your bugs!", but it seems simpler and better for the community to just ban the tiny percentage of people who are hell bent on cheating.
- discreditable 8y ago
  I don't think cheating in multiplayer games is comparable. Doing so harms the experience of other players.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    The only argument from the GP was >Why should spotify have any say on what software you use on your computer? I agree that cheating is not on par with ad-blocking, but that's neither here nor there. If there are exceptions then the GP should clarify their position.
  - CDSlice 8y ago
    Well, blocking Spotify's ads directly harms their revenue and not just their feelings. So I would say it is comparable.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kgwxd 8y ago

Contrary to popular belief, ads can be delivered without arbitrary code execution. The Spotify app already has the ability to deliver audio and video, that's all they need. The mistake here is letting third-parties onto users devices. It's a disgusting industry-wide practice that needs to stop. Using the existing audio/video delivery system would render "ad blockers" useless. "thrid-party blockers" would still work as intended though.

akerl_ 8y ago
And if the approach is “I won’t use services that want to use 3rd-party-RCE-style ads”, it makes sense to me. But the folks who are blocking ads are taking Spotify’s offer (pay us, let us run our ads, or don’t use our service, pick 1) and trying to shoehorn a 4th option that Spotify doesn’t offer: get the content w/o Spotify getting paid. To tell Spotify “I’d use your service if you added an option where the ads didn’t give 3rd parties the ability to run JS on my system” is different from “I picked your current ad-supported option and then prevented the ads from running”.
- gowld 8y ago
  Pandora and Google Play Music (and maybe Spotify too I don't know) put ads in the audio stream (and video, if you are looking at the app screen while listening to music for some reason). Seems simpler to do this than get into a technical arms race with users.
  - judge2020 8y ago
    They already do this, there are constant interruptions for 30-second audio ads. Currently, you can turn the audio down, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do something akin to the black mirror episode "fifteen million merits" where you have to look at/listen to the ads for them to go away. The main gripe is using adsense which can still often be used to deliver malware.
    - heynk 8y ago
      I've paid for Spotify for a while, so its been some time since I've heard an ad. But from what I remember, if you put the volume below ~30%, the ad pauses.

jbeales 8y ago

Here's the thing(s): 1. It's not just 1 type of ad. In Little Snitch, I have permitted Spotify to connect to 281 different domain names, most of which are ad-related. That's a lot of companies being allowed to run JS in whatever webview Spotify uses to display ads. I don't listen much on my computer anymore. 2. They keep advertising deals to me - $0.99 for a month, or $9 for 3 months, that I can't subscribe to because they don't let people in Quebec sign up for them, (something related to the consumer protection laws here). These ads are audio, in-app visuals, and even E-mails. This leaves a horrible taste in my mouth, and I've let them know several times, but they never change it. That, combined with the fact that I feel like the $10/month subscription is a tad expensive, make me very reluctant to subscribe again, (I was a subscriber through my mobile phone plane for a long time). At $5/month I'd subscribe instantly. $7-8 I'd probably still do it. $9-10 I can buy 10-12 CDs per year that I own in perpetuity. I feel like if they did the ads right, (in-house, with non-insulting geotargeting), or offered a subscription price closer to one latté per month, I would have a lot less animosity and be more supportive of this move.

wool_gather 8y ago
> $9-10 I can buy 10-12 CDs per year This is good in other ways! One of the problems with Spotify is that the musicians don't really get paid a realistically useful amount. I say this as someone who has both a Spotify subscription and musician friends whose music is on Spotify. That said, I personally find the subscription price surprisingly low for what I get, but I wouldn't try to tell you what to do with your money.
- jbeales 8y ago
  There's a strong argument for "$10/month is amazing for unlimited access to this entire catalog!" But I wonder how many songs or artists I actually listen to. Is it really that much more than I would if I were buying CDs? I do enjoy the personalized playlists a lot, though.
  - matwood 8y ago
    For me it's much more than "I could buy CDs". A sub to Apple Music for example lets me go on musical journeys. I listened to the many versions Vivaldi's 4 seasons the other day and enjoyed hearing how different orchestras performed. I have taken a dives into 80s rap/hip hop, or hair bands, or whatever else strikes me. Those types of exploration were not possible in the days on only buying CDs.

simias 8y ago

I agree, I block every ad I possibly can but if I actually benefit from using a service and they provide a (reasonably priced) paid option I'll gladly subscribe. I want the ad-driven model to die but how is it possible if the alternatives don't manage to make as much money?

anoncake 8y ago

You cannot pay for the service, the service is free. You pay for not being forced to watch ads. Not forcing people to watch ads is what decent people simply do, nobody deserves to get paid for that.

ouid 8y ago

1-2 coffees? it's 10 bucks. where are you that 1 coffee is 10 dollars? 10 dollars is not a trivial amount of money, and its WAY above most people's pre-spotify music budget. If you don't spend that money, you have an extra $120 bucks at the end of the year.

nickdandakis 8y ago
Is that really your problem? Even if coffee doesn't cost $5, and it costs $2.50, that's 4 coffees. Or even $1 coffee, that's 10 coffees. Unlimited music streaming for a month is absolutely worth 10 coffees. The coffee example is brought up because _most_ people that claim that $120/year is a lot for them, spend a lot more than that a year on coffee. That's not to say $10/month is trivial. I'm sure it's not a trivial amount of money for some people. The parent isn't denying that. They're saying that they're happy that Spotify is banning people that are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're blaming people that CAN afford 1,2,5,10 coffees a month, and still chose ads or worse, adblockers for a service they can easily pay for as the demise of the internet. Which I wholeheartedly agree with.
- selflesssieve 8y ago
  It's almost as if people have different tastes and consumption profiles.
- stordoff 8y ago
  > Unlimited music streaming for a month is absolutely worth 10 coffees. Depends on the person. Much of the music I want to listen to isn't on Spotify, so I'd have to supplement it anyway, and I rotate through artists slowly enough that it is about the same to buy CDs anyway.
- skedaddle 8y ago
  It's because they already get unlimited music streaming for free, from multiple sources. The value added by Spotify's premium plan is ad-free unshuffled playback and the offline option, so you have to see whether you have $10 in your monthly budget for just those features. I see the value there but it's also relevant to note that your phone can already do all that if you just buy music.

kakarot 8y ago

4. Don't pay for the service and block the ads :) That said... Go with #3 everyone. Spotify is horrible for artists.

TheJazi13 8y ago
Correction: The labels are horrible for artists, Spotify payouts are just a symptom of the way labels rip every penny out of the artist.
- kakarot 8y ago
  We don't blame the knife when someone stabs another. Spotify is just another player in this diseased game. They are part of the problem, not a symptom of it. This is coming from someone who has followed and evangelized Spotify since the beginning, way back when Ludvig joined and it was still P2P.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

This is like saying you cannot mute your TV when a commercial comes on. Actually it’s worse. It’s saying you cannot even look away. It’s my TV / my phone / my screen. Me. MINE. If someone else emits some information they make freely available, that in no way entails they have any say whatsoever about what I permit to be visible on MY screen.

dx87 8y ago
Just like you can decide what is shown on your screen, they can decide to not let freeloaders use their service. You always have the option of paying for a subscription if having full control over what is shown on your screen is that important to you.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  What do you mean freeloader? They chose to distribute the content for free, not me. If they mistakenly thought this would allow them to guarantee certain things to appear on some private citizen’s personal property, it sounds like a very foolish decision on their part. It might mean they have to shut down the free version of their content or something. If they try to circumvent my ability to control what is shown on the screen that I own though, it will fail comically, as there will just be an arms race of new technology I can use to ensure my freedom to control what shows up on my screen, to such a degree they would bankrupt themselves trying to control what goes on my screen.. seems a stupid waste on their part, wishing to control someone’s private property like that.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    > They chose to distribute the content for free, not me. Yes, and now they are freely choosing NOT to distribute the content for free, except to people without adblockers.
    - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
      No you mean to anyone who circumvents the banning mechanism legally.. so like, everyone who wishes to.

DoctorPenguin 8y ago

What about option 4 to not provide a "free" service at all?

imhelpingu 8y ago

Wait! You're telling me that for the price of two coffees a month, I can have unlimited streaming on the go!? How about if marketers want me looking at their ads, they can stop pouring millions of dollars into research about how to spy on me through those ads against my will.

ratling 8y ago

shrug youtube-dl -x --embed-thumbnail ${url}. Run a normalizer across it. Dump into iTunes. Get on with my life. Ad agencies are bad actors. Not intentionally but because they have zero incentive to really police what garbage goes out across their systems. I block them on the client. I block them at the DNS level. I block them at the firewall. I've dealt with the worst case scenario, no thanks. Previously I'd sub to spotify for a month when I was traveling and just deal with the ads that got though my standard setup when I wasn't. Now I just won't bother.

gglitch 8y ago

I generally use option 4: pay for the service, and use a blocker to try to protect myself from risk I don’t see or understand.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

Adblockers have been around for more than 20 years. It's only in the last few years that they've started seriously cutting into advertisers' business. There's a reason for that. Most people don't care enough about ads to bother installing an adblocker. It's intrusive, disruptive ads that drive them to do that. It wouldn't have come to this if site owners had taken responsibility for the content of their advertising. And, unfortunately, most people don't bother to change their adblocker's default settings (and raise holy hell if the default settings allow non-intrusive ads), so the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Bad actors ruin the funding model for everyone. How did we ever get to the point where letting anyone slap any ads they want over your content seemed like a good idea? Imagine a newspaper or a TV channel running porn ads and saying "sorry, we don't control the content of our ads." They'd be crucified.

ddebernardy 8y ago

Best I'm aware, radios offer unlimited music broadcasting all day long and are doing just fine without subscribers. I've never used Spotify, but if its free, supported by ads option means serving web-based stuff, then it might want to look into getting rid of that and serving audio ads every few songs instead. Ad Blockers wouldn't be a problem in that scenario, and Podcasters have long shown that the what essentially amounts to radio ads are a perfectly valid way to monetize audio content.

dylan604 8y ago
> Best I'm aware, radios offer unlimited music broadcasting all day long and are doing just fine without subscribers. Unlimited broadcasting of the same set of songs in rotation that they choose for you. That's supposed to be a huge selling point of the streaming services is to offer a larger selection than what corporate radio limits what's broadcast.
- ddebernardy 8y ago
  Regardless. If radios can get away with throwing an ad every few songs, why can't Spotify et al?
  - dylan604 8y ago
    Because my radio playing an ad does not offer the potential for damaging my computer
    - ddebernardy 8y ago
      How can an audio ad served by Spotify served in between two songs possibly damage your computer?
      - dylan604 8y ago
        How would an ad blocker affect those ads? Why be obtuse? Ad blockers run in a browser to block ads from the visited website. Those ads have in the past and currently been known to deliver malicious code to the browser. Spotify is threatening to suspend the accounts of someone protecting their system from this attack vector.

colemickens 8y ago

It shameful that people mindlessly spend $1000 on the latest fashion, sorry, tech accessory but can't afford a few dollars a month to enjoy the creative output of others.

WilliamEdward 8y ago
I am in this predicament, and every one of these people are making up a blatant lie that they can't afford it. What they really mean is they are stubborn. They don't see money logically and clearly, where if they could they would realise their hidden costs far exceed $10 a month... Things like coffee, gas. They don't realise it racks up $10 $15 and $20 dollars behind the scenes. But theyre happy to pay for that... why? Because they don't have to see it go. They don't have to think about it. That's why people dont like subscriptions. Spotify is extremely affordable, for literally everyone who can afford an internet connection. People are lying about why they don't want to pay for it; I'm young and poor and to tell you the truth even i can afford it, I'm just way too stubborn.
- jshowa3 8y ago
  People don't want to pay for it because there are mechanisms in place that sustain these businesses outside of ads. Just think about how much VC money is dumped into these services that never or barely generate a profit and they're all free to use and have been for years. Twitter and Snapchat come to mind. Blocking ad blockers is incredibly annoying and is just an excuse for ad spamming. Let me tell you watching Youtube without ads is a dream compared to seeing a 4 second ad on every video start and then 5 mid roll ads. It's insane. Google Play on the other hand does 2 to 3 ads after several minutes of listening. And the ads are make 10 - 15 seconds long. That's proper ad play.
  - colemickens 8y ago
    >People don't want to pay for it because there are mechanisms in place that sustain these businesses outside of ads. Just think about how much VC money is dumped into these services that never or barely generate a profit and they're all free to use and have been for years. Please correct me if this is disingenuous, but I feel like you basically just said you're used to having VCs subsidize your entertainment platforms and that you've extrapolated that entitlement into a justification for never paying for any entertainment acquired over the Internet. At the very least, it seems obvious that it's unsustainable and likely that creative artists will be the first squeezed. Also, I don't think this explanation combat's the parent's observations about spending habits at all.

tzs 8y ago

> This thread is an object lesson in why basically every large service on the Internet is ad-supported. When people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming are you really surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model? Note also that in the case of Spotify, Apple Music, etc., most people will only need to subscribe to one of those services to cover pretty much all of their music streaming needs. With, say, newspapers and magazines they can try to make the argument that to meet their needs they would need to subscribe to a bunch of different papers and magazines and that would get prohibitively expensive very fast. You can even try that argument somewhat with video streaming services. There are enough exclusive deals between movie producers and movie streaming services that picking one service only means you likely miss out on a lot of movies you want. But with music that argument just does not work.

Aeolun 8y ago

15 year old me had basically nothing. Paying $10 per month for pretty much anything was unthinkable. I still wanted to listen to music though, so I found ways. I really don’t think that was so terrible, and neither do I think the few million people that block ads are.

jimmy1 8y ago
That's great, but you live in a country that have these things called laws and you have to follow them whether or not you personally think that breaking them "isn't so terrible" or not. If enough people think the laws are terrible, then lobby your representative to have them changed. This is how the system works. Half the reason it doesn't work is admittedly our corrupt officials taking the big media money (RIAA and MPAA subsequently), but the other half the equation is you and me. Everyone just wants things to magically change and be the way they think they are suppose to be without putting any skin in the game.
- anoncake 8y ago
  > you have to follow them whether or not you personally think that breaking them "isn't so terrible" or not. That's plain incorrect, many people manage to do things that the state considers illegal.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  Actually, I don’t think I ‘have’ to follow any of those laws. It’s just that there may or may not be consequences for not doing so. At the end of the day what I think is moral is a lot more relevant in daily life than what the law says (it just happens to overlap in a lot of places).
- tomjen3 8y ago
  >That's great, but you live in a country that have these things called laws and you have to follow them whether or not you personally think that breaking them "isn't so terrible" or not. No. There are laws and breaking them may result in actions taken by a group that has claimed the right to infringe on my liberty. The action is right or wrong, independently of the law. In this case the sole consequence is that a person has to create a new spotify account.

x15 8y ago

1. Use an alternative like Deezer.

chrisweekly 8y ago

Yeah, Spotify's premium plan with family member access is $15/mo. It's worth a lot more to me than that. I can't imagine tolerating ad intrusions (or feeling justified in working around their free plan's ads) to save 50 cents a day.

blue4 8y ago

4. I don't want to pay for the data they are collecting, now if there was a paid option for that...

shocks 8y ago
There is - it's called not using Spotify.

jancsika 8y ago

"Ad blocker" is #1 thing that should be installed first on every single browser, everywhere, to block third party ads. Then we browse. Heck, that browser Brendan Eich is working on comes pre-installed with one. So this isn't some fringe position I hold. It's basic web hygiene. > When people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming are you really surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model? No. But I get the sense you're trying to express moral indignation at such users, and I don't see the logic behind that. "I like $site_owner therefore I whitelist $arbirary_third_parties whose behavior cannot be controlled nor even really measured by $site_owner" isn't a workable/scalable lesson to try to teach users. To be clear, I also don't see any reasonable argument to be morally indignant about Spotify blocking the blockers. This is the web as it currently exists.

Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
> "Ad blocker" is #1 thing that should be installed first on every single browser, everywhere, to block third party ads. Agreed. But I don't block ads just because ads are annoying. I don't even block ads because I don't like being tracked. My reason for blocking ads can be summed up in a single word. Malvertising. As soon as ad networks began trying to spread malware through ads was when ads moved from being a nuisance to a serious security concern.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  I block ads simply because I don’t want to see them. If a software annoys me I don’t use it. If a website is annoying, I leave. If a website is ok but ads are annoying, I block them.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  Can someone explain to me where these "malverts" come up? I use two chrome profiles, 1 with an adblocker and 1 without, and browse pretty often with both, and while the experience without is undeniably worse (slower, bloated, garbage on the page), I've never gotten malware. What is this stuff and where do I find it?

anonu 8y ago

The "cup of coffee" unit of measurement is becoming increasingly popular when comparing digital subscriptions. Generally these things are incredibly cheap. For some reason people are ok spending 5 bucks on a latte for 30 days a month ($150) versus an order of magnitude less for Spotify, Netflix, etc...

lancesells 8y ago

In the article it doesn't say for free account only does it? So if you pay for the service but you have an ad-blocker running will you be suspended?

cr0sh 8y ago

I wish there was an option to pay a per-day rate. I like Spotify for what it does (it would be nice if I could purchase the CD of the music I listen to - alas), but there are times when I go for days or weeks without listening to it. I'm still debating on if I want to spend $10.00 a month on something I may not use often enough to justify it? For now, in the spirit of everything, and to not be blocked, I turned off my ad-blocker. I can deal with it for now. One thing I think about that is analogous is the fact that every month I donate $5.00 to my local NPR station - but I haven't listened to it in months! But - those are tax deductible (or at least once were? I'm not sure how it works now this tax year), and I do like the station, but I can only take so much of it at a time. Maybe if Spotify weren't a paid service, and instead were "listener supported" with tax deductible donations - I could more readily get behind it...? Ten dollars a month isn't that much, sure - it's something I need to think about more (it would be nice if there were an easy way to track when you use Spotify and for how long; that could help me too).

KozmoNau7 8y ago
$10/month really isn't much. Compare to buying music, that's less than two album downloads from Bandcamp at normal prices. For those $10 you get completely unlimited access to all the music in Spotify's library, generated playlists and radios based on your tastes and listening habits. Honestly, 10$/month is bordering on suspiciously cheap for what you actually get. It's the same sort of odd psychology when it comes to paying for apps compared to paying for dinner. $2 for an app seems expensive, but $50 for a dinner for two is generally not even questioned.

mechnesium 8y ago

There’s a 4th option that somewhat falls under your number 2. AdNauseum (https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/) spoofs interaction with ads while simultaneously blocking them. I suppose both the service and consumer can reap mutual benefits from AdNauseum. You seem to take sides with business, but never forget the old adage: the customer is always right.

meddlin 8y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but there's one piece of this whole thing I have a big problem with. It's my device. I understand Spotify's motivation to want compensation for their great service, but shouldn't I be able to run my software, on my device, on my terms? I understand this argument doesn't solve anything, and puts Spotify in a bad situation. But...how long until someone creates a solution to scrub the audio of ads in real-time? With a beginning delay for the listening buffer, of course. This isn't trivial, but it sure is repeatable. I wish I had something better. I don't know; this quickly feels like digital [media] in the early 2000's all over again.

umanwizard 8y ago
Yes, you can run whatever software you want on your device. Who is telling you you can't? In turn, Spotify can prevent whomever they want from streaming their content for free.
bad_user 8y ago
What you're witnessing is the inevitable backlash. It's your device. But Spotify also has the right to block your device. > ...how long until someone creates a solution to scrub the audio of ads in real-time? Let me tell you a little open secret. Ad-blocking in general can be circumvented right now. Even the most aggressive ad-blocking techniques can be brought to their knees, because they can be detected and the website can serve the content in such a way as to make ads impossible to block without ruining the content. Not many publishers do it because publishers have chosen to not piss off the minority that has ad-blockers installed. But this minority has been growing and what you're seeing is them fighting back. You ask how long will it take to block audio ads? It's irrelevant, because the publisher can deploy DRM in such a way as to make ad-blocking attempts illegal and easy to trace, since the streaming is done in real time from a central source. And thus users can receive big fines as to stop everyone else from doing it. That publishers don't do this yet, that's only because they preferred to play nice with ad-blockers. But threaten their bottom line long enough and they'll fight back. And who can blame them? Here's Spotify with a pretty good subscription model and users are now up in arms for no longer being able to get their content for free without ads.

jchw 8y ago

Honestly, I wish Spotify just didn't offer a free option. It's cheap enough as it is, and without the free option could probably be even cheaper.

irrational 8y ago

For me it feels like death by a thousand paper cuts. $10 to spotify, $10 to neflix (or whatever they charge now), $10 to some other streaming service, etc.

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tradesmanhelix 8y ago

Paying for the service is a red herring since Spotify is specifically targeting the free tier with this policy. Thus, there really are only two options here when it comes to the free tier on Spotify: "Endure our ad experience or no 'free' service for you." However, there is a 3rd option here when it comes to the free tier: Spotify fixes the currently-terrible ad experience on its service. I'd be 100% fine with ads on Spotify if they were bespoke like the ads I see from https://carbonads.net https://carbonads.net. Their ads are relevant, tasteful, and unobtrusive. Oddly, I end up paying more attention to Carbon ads than I've ever paid to a Spotify ad. Sadly, Spotify is only offering consumers two options without any hint that they've even considered that they themselves could do something to address the issues underlying their customers' use of ad blockers.

jimbokun 8y ago
Just pay for the service already and stop being so cheap! It is amazing value for money, and at least some of it goes to the artists.

fierro 8y ago

preach!

mschuetz 8y ago

I've been using the paid option for a long time and I'm considering canceling it because the android app is crap. Worked fine in the beginning but now it frequently takes forever to load, sometimes requires a restart, and sometimes when trying to play songs, it takes a minute or two until it actually starts the song. This usually happens only when I'm using it after I've used other apps in between but I see no reason why it would happen. Not one single other app on my phone does this. It also very often does this if connection is bad which is super weird considering all the songs are supposed to be downloaded for offline consumption.

jasonkillian 8y ago
Are you storing a large amount of offline music on an SD card? I've had that cause issues for me in the past. Their guide to fixing issues[0] is generally worth giving a shot. [0]: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/COMPLETE-GUIDE-How-to-fix-most-Android-issues/td-p/914257 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/COMPLETE-GUIDE-How-...

reificator 8y ago

And when people use cups of Starbucks coffee as their internal metric for cost and then use that as a value judgement for those who are not paying, it really drives home how out of touch techies are. For the record, I pay $20 or so for Google Play Music for the family plan, despite being single. (Or at least I do until they shut it down, leaving me with no option for mostly streaming plus artists that aren't on any streaming service such as Tool or Neil Cicierega.)

besieged 8y ago

Yeah good, I'll just go back to getting all my music exclusively through the Black flag channels

scoot_718 8y ago

Exactly. Poor musical piracy has been losing users to this service for too long.

scoot_718 8y ago

How dare these users block malware from their machines!

MrStonedOne 8y ago

it boils down further then that. I have the right to selectively choose what code runs on my computer, including code designed to grab ads and display/present them. I also have the right to selectively choose what requests and traffic to allow in and out of my network. Spotify has the right to do the same, including to deny to send me any traffic from their service for any reasons. I also have a right to not like it if spotify does that, and everybody else has a right to not care if I do or don't.

paxys 8y ago

It's funny because whenever the adblock discussion comes up the standard argument is always "why can't the site have a paid subscription option? I would gladly pay for it." Now that a service is offering subscriptions, people still don't want to pay for it, and the goalposts are shifted further.

stevenwliao 8y ago
> Why can't they offer it for $8/month? After a price drop... > Why can't they offer it for $5/month? Another price drop. > Subscriptions are expensive. Why can't they offer a free plan? A free plan is released, with ads. > Why can't they offer it for free with less ads? Ad density is reduced. > Why can't they offer it for free with no ads? > I don't want all these songs. Why can't they have an a la carte option? A la carte option has existed for a while, but company gives it a marketing rebranding. > These a la carte songs are kind of pricey. Why can't they be $0.80? > $0.50? > They're just bits. Bits want to be free. > Why are you ignoring your loyal potential customers? I'm going to stop pirating your product and tell everyone I know to avoid you.

hesdeadjim 8y ago

Thank you. The entire reason we are subject to as many ads as we are is because people aren't willing to even pay $1 a month for a service that has become indispensable to their lifestyle.

belorn 8y ago

If Spotify won't respect the users rights and take responsibility and assume liability when Spotify distribute malware, why should should the user respect Spotify rights? Society is built on shared respect and the current online advertisement operates on the opposite model. The reason why every large service on the Internet is ad-supported is that it does not need to follow advertisement laws. They don't even need to follow computer crime laws. If society would start enforce such laws onto online services we would see a major shift away from ad-supported services.

Operyl 8y ago
Why should the user then not respect Spotify’s right to terminate their account based on the TOS? Goes both ways if you ask me.

clubm8 8y ago

>Good. >Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. Five dollars a month for the rest of my life is not "cheap". Frugal people look at the total cost of a loan, not just the monthly payment.

adamrt 8y ago
$1,200 for 20 years of music, updated constantly. Still seems cheap. Less than 5 grand for a literal life time of music.
shocks 8y ago
> Five dollars a month for the rest of my life is not "cheap". It's not five dollars a month for the rest of your life though. It's five dollars a month for as long as you want to listen to music on Spotify without ads... > Frugal people look at the total cost of a loan, not just the monthly payment. It's not a loan.

userbinator 8y ago

...and of course the user who works for Facebook is espousing the position that we must be forced to consume content. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19115460 for more context.)

medecau 8y ago

> a false dichotomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising

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55555 8y ago

> ... people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month... Lol it's $10 per month. Who pays $10 for a coffee?

mdorazio 8y ago
A large pumpkin spice latte at the starbucks down the street from me is $5.15. So two of them are over $10 and there are a lot of people who buy those. Average price of other things on the menu is around $4.

feelix 8y ago

I'll listen to music everyday for a week then not at all again for the next 8 months. I would happily pay for it on demand, but monthly it'd end up costing me something like $10 per minute of music listened to per year.

tomjen3 8y ago

I used to pay for spotify, but they kept changing the interface and fucking up in other ways. Seriously, I would have continued to pay them, if I could have used the same software I originally got with it. Of course I am also the sole user who ever paid for groveshark premium, and none of the current efforts are even a tiny bit remotely close to its interface, much less its music selection.

3xblah 8y ago

"... are you surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model." I am surprised that they continue to believe that they should have any revenue "[W]hen people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming." It's like realising people do not want to pay for what you are selling and then, instead of owning up to the fact you therefore have no viable business, you turn around and vengefully sell those same people out, keeping them around by reducing price to 0. There is no business regarding that service. You find a new customer (advertisers) and sell something else (ads). Then you portray the original "service" as your business. No matter how popular this has become, it is still a sham. Selling ads is a different service with a different customer. It is not the same business. There are probably some Internet service companies that do manage to sustain themselves on paid subscriptions. Perhaps they are few and far between. Pretending that a successful ad sales business is the same thing as a successful Internet-based paid subscription service is disengenous.