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Spotify now requires a Facebook account to sign up.

423 points by tommypalm 15y ago

VonLipwig 15y ago
Is there anything else to say apart from. Ewwww..
- josefresco 15y ago
  There is actually, and here on HN it's encouraged behavior to expand upon your opinions and debate the subject in detail. Why is it "ewww" for you? What would be a better solution? What are the pros and cons of this decision for Spotify, for FB and for the user?
  - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
    I'll take a guess at the pros and cons for spotify: Pro: some users like the integration and the social features that it gives them. This doesn't explain why it's now mandatory, or why it's become mandatory right now. Pro: Has Spotify done some kind of deal with Facebook, and Facebook insisted on this? I put "pro" since I assume that Spotify also got something out of the hypothetical deal. Con: There are some users (like myself) who think that facebook knows enough about me already, and really do not want to integrate them into anything. I like the face that the web is not an extension of the facebook machine. As an existing Spotify user this policy does not apply to me (yet?) but it's repellent. As a paying Spotify user I don't feel that I would be obliged to put up with that. I don't complain about FB too much since hey, I didn't pay anything for it and no-body actually forced me to use it. I know, "if you're not the customer, you're the product" - but with Spotify, I bloody well am the paying customer, they've got my money, they don't need to sell me to Facebook. They can take their Facebook integration and GTFO. Edit: a friend has suggested that Spotify are angling to be bought by Facebook, and this will help them integrate for that. It's worth noting that Spotify used to have optional facebook integration, i.e. "the standard Facebook - or - Default sign up page", and they have taken the effort to remove this for new signups. There must be some reason for actively removing this choice, and I don't think that "mass-market users are confused by having 2 different choices" is it.
    - estel 15y ago
      Presumed pro: Spotify said at f8 that users who engaged socially with Spotify through their existing facebook functionality bother listened to more music and were much (I think they said 2x) more likely to pay for a premium membership. If a Facebook account is mandatory (at the moment it isn't), they might expect a greater number of users to link their accounts. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that the number of people who additionally link their accounts will exceed the number of subscriptions lost from people who refuse to have a Facebook accounts. If a greater number of people linking accounts => increased Premium registrations, then this could very easily be a purely business decision.
      - VonLipwig 15y ago
        A better business decision would be to use the standard Facebook - or - Default sign up page. This will undoubtedly increase social usage by the Facebook faithful without alienating other users.
      - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
        Correlation is not causation, so forcing all new users into that workflow won't necessarily make them the kind of people who would do that voluntarily. Also, this is a statistical relationship - there will be users who were likely to buy premium membership but don't like facebook, who are now less likely to buy. Or who are now reconsidering their existing spotify subscriptions.
  - VonLipwig 15y ago
    Expand.. OK. Facebook have an increasingly bad reputation. Spotify, now it has made Facebook the only way to sign up, has tarred its own reputation by becoming so closely tied to Facebook. Beyond this they have locked out users who do not have a Facebook or do not wish to tie an essentially private Facebook account to a public service. Looking beyond the sign up page, they are also increasingly pushing Facebook and other social media on to Spotify users with no way to hide some of these features. This, for me at least, is just adding distracting fluff to the Spotify UI. Considering how they got 2 million paid subscribers without this functionality it is baffling that they would essentially disable completely a sign up mechanism that was working perfectly well. As a premium Spotify user I will be switching to Deezer next month if a u-turn is not made on this decision.
guard-of-terra 15y ago
In other words, to use this streaming service you have to submit your real name to a company you'd rather not want to, and stay logged in* so it can spy on your every move on the web. * Not sure about this part. You probably lose your web spotify session if you log off facebook (?), but your desktop app session would probably not be affected.
- dlss 15y ago
  I think it's the opposite. It was already a paid site, so of course they have your billing info. This is the first indication they're coveting my data (at least w/o facebook connect turned on there are no recommendations to speak of on spotify)
  - jonknee 15y ago
    It's not a paid site, they use the freemium model. I have an account and they don't have my billing info. Millions of other people are in the same boat. (I also will never use anything that requires a Facebook login other than Facebook itself.)
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    I'm not sure that paid site is guaranteed to know the payer's real name. I was under impression that most of the time, it doesn't happens. And of course giving my real name via billing to Spotify is a completely different than giving my real name to Facebook to display and use it as they see fit.
jgrahamc 15y ago
I was just about to sign up for Spotify (was on the things to do today list I have in front of me), and now this. Well they can forget about that.
- nlo 15y ago
  Hear hear. Unfortunately I /just/ paid for Spotify premium yesterday evening. While I have a grandfathered non-Facebook account, I've had no end of problems with their mobile client, and I think I'll be switching back to Rdio (which has a vastly superior [existent] web and mobile cilent, IMO.) I wonder if this move is related to the problem I'm having using my login on the desktop client (error code 410, stuck in offline mode. Mobile app on the same wifi networks works fine.)
  - SanjayUttam 15y ago
    UGH. I'm having the same problem (stuck in offline mode), only it is with my android app...
- RexRollman 15y ago
  I agree. Luckily, I already have a Spotify account, because I refuse to use Facebook.
- RyanKearney 15y ago
  I'm sure they will go bankrupt now because you decided not to sign up.
- nupark2 15y ago
  Same. Switching to Spotify from Pandora was on my list of things to try. Now, I guess not. I would have paid them, too. This is absolutely ridiculously stupid of them to do. They alienate potential customers, but more importantly, they do not own their customers. If the Facebook relationship goes sour, Spotify is still permanently tied to them.
  - ebiester 15y ago
altrego99 15y ago
In a way this could be a decision to simplify the login process for the end user. Then again, if that was the case they should have supported Google, Yahoo and all other OpenId providers. Also there seems to be no reason to completely remove the native sign up, especially since they have already made the effort to create full support for it. Guess just like the recent trend in FB, they also just want to do an experiment and see how the users will take it.
dlss 15y ago
Ugh. I signed up two weeks ago and have been recommending them to friends. Now this. Why on earth does this make sense for Spotify?
- josefresco 15y ago
  I would guess this was a requirement to get the partnership with Facebook done. "Either require a FB login or we'll go with someone else" would be a hard condition to say no to if you were Spotify considering how powerful FB is in the US market.
  - technoslut 15y ago
    Are there alternatives to Spotify's current business model of free on the PC?
    - marcocampos 15y ago
      Grooveshark? Although legally, it's in a grey area...
    - zecho 15y ago
      The legality of Grooveshark's business model is Groovehark's problem. Just using it passively as a music consumer is likely fine.
      - technoslut 15y ago
        I'm aware of Grooveshark but, as you said, it is questionably legal. It has long been removed from the iOS App Store. I can't help but wonder if these were the onerous terms that Apple would not agree to with Ping.
    - vegashacker 15y ago
      Check out MOG. They have some sort of free option.
  - Luyt 15y ago
joelhaasnoot 15y ago
I disabled offline access and pushing content to my wall permissions for Spotify on Facebook (under Account Settings, Apps). Mainly because of complaints I was spamming walls... Still works with the most basic permissions, but sleazy it adds them by default.
- joelhaasnoot 15y ago
  I lied, started Spotify again this morning, and all my Facebook friends were gone. Apparently it really does need the "offline" permission.
acak 15y ago
Spotify support staff quote from that discussion thread -- Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. -- Couple of things to note: 1. If you already have a Spotify account, you don't have to connect to Facebook. 2. They seem to be encouraging a bogus Facebook account as a way to use Spotify "privately"?
- josefresco 15y ago
  Hilarious that internal staff are recommending ways to "get around" the requirements. This shows, or possibly proves to me that this decision was a last minute condition set by FB and the Spotify staff are probably not uniformly thrilled about it.
  - michael_dorfman 15y ago
    Or that they realize that a tiny but vocal minority is going to gripe about the decision, and that for these folks a work-around might be the best solution.
    - acak 15y ago
      This means that while one can claim privacy of their listening habits on Spotify from their social circle, absolutely no one can claim privacy of what they do on Spotify from Facebook. Spotify just gave Facebook a terrific amount of analytics data that will help Fb market music and drive sales better than Spotify itself does.
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  Why is empty private Facebook account a "bogus" Facebook account? Is it now required by law to actively use your social network accounts?
RexRollman 15y ago
A reply from Darren, a Spotify employee: "Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. " This is asinine.
- astrodust 15y ago
  If you object to Facebook on other grounds, you're basically screwed. Some people refuse to eat shellfish or ham. Why is not using Facebook any different?
  - skymt 15y ago
    I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. Correctly or not, preferences are given more credence by our society if they're based on religion.
    - jim_h 15y ago
      It could also be food allergies.
    - Triumvark 15y ago
      > I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. I suppose the Amish probably aren't interested in Spotify...
      - vacri 15y ago
        I imagine you're right, that the Amish aren't particularly interested in online music services, but I remember reading an article that pointed out that the Amish aren't really anti-technology per se, they're anti-labour-saving devices. The ethos is apparently to work hard and with your hands, and they have no qualms in letting people with physical issues use tech; the example given in the article was a farmer who had arthritis and whose sons had moved out, who was permitted to use a tractor in order to keep his farm going.
deleted 15y ago
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hugacow 15y ago
I just signed up days ago and they only required email. I guess I got lucky.
theshadow 15y ago
Not a spotify user but I feel gross and icky just reading about this. This is so transparent. I wanna take a shower
deleted 15y ago
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danieldk 15y ago
Let this be a reminder. If you use a streaming music service, they can pull you any stupid trick. If you do not accept, well, you'd better hope there is an alternative the provides a comparable catalog. Once you own non-DRMed music, they can't take it away.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Subscription music streaming is basically a commodity at this point though. One can drop Spotify and join Rdio at no real loss (I think you can even import playlists).
  - FlowerPower 15y ago
    Until Rdio pulls your plug. Streaming services are not reliable, neither is the cloud. Hard currency is the value, its not like storage is expensive any more, there is no reason to not own your own collection and be the boss of your domain.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - chwahoo 15y ago
      > there is no reason to not own your own collection There are reasons. The-all-you-can-eat model certainly makes much more music available, which is better for discovering new music. Also, if you regularly listen to a lot of new/different music, Spotify/Rdio/etc would be cheaper than iTunes/Amazon mp3. Personally, I'm in a kind of "stuck" position where I'm trying to decide whether I should continue to buy music from Amazon, or should switch to an all-you-can-eat streaming service.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - v21 15y ago
      But the ability to own my own music isn't going away because I'm paying for Spotify. If I stop, then I'm in the same position that I was before. I've not got music any more, but I'm not paying any more. If I decide to start paying for Grooveshark instead, then I've not lost anything. Storage isn't expensive, but managing files is a pain. Especially if you have to manage it across multiple devices. I just want to listen to some Nujabes, do I really have to care where it's saved, or whether I'm on my work PC, my laptop, or the media center downstairs? And that's before you get into the pain of syncing stuff onto your phone... I pay for the convenience of not having to pirate. (I picked this example because it is both what I am listening to now, and for the irony of it being unavailable on Spotify.)
waitwhat 15y ago
This is a sign of desperation from Spotify. Their product is far from unique, and only really interesting because it has better PR, more apps, a better library, and a slightly more legit licensing setup than the competition. None of those are big enough barriers to entry to keep even the small players away, meanwhile the big dogs are starting to show a lot of interest in streaming music (admittedly for music you "own" at the moment, but it would surprise noone if this were to change overnight). Apple has the marketing weight and a history of solving music licensing issues, Google has a track record of throwing money at problems to solve them, and Amazon is just about to make a major hardware play. Spotify's only real hope was to latch onto the latest big thing (conveniently an infrastructure provider, so unlikely to launch a direct competitor) and hope to ride to success on someone else's coat-tails. I have no idea what the contracts between the two companies look like, but I would have to imagine that they are heavily in Facebook's favour. After all, it would be a lot easier for Facebook to replace Spotify with another provider than it would be for Spotify to replace Facebook.
- michael_dorfman 15y ago
  Desperation? How do you figure? They have a sweet partnership with Facebook. That doesn't sound desperate to me. Their product is far from unique, and only really interesting because it has better PR, more apps, a better library, and a slightly more legit licensing setup than the competition. Slightly more legit? I think the phrase you are looking for is "completely legit, as opposed to some of the others who are lawsuit-bait-on-a-stick." After all, it would be a lot easier for Facebook to replace Spotify with another provider than it would be for Spotify to replace Facebook. Only if that other provider had the same kind of licenses with the record labels. At this point, Spotify is far ahead of the pack at that game.
  - waitwhat 15y ago
    Desperation? How do you figure? They have a sweet partnership with Facebook. That doesn't sound desperate to me. We don't know it's a sweet deal. My gut feeling is that it isn't, but that's by-the-by. We don't know anything. Slightly more legit? I think the phrase you are looking for is "completely legit, as opposed to some of the others who are lawsuit-bait-on-a-stick. From the point of view of the users it really is only slightly more legit. From the point of view of the content providers, slightly less legit is not the same as illegal, and from the point of view of the service providers, legal and and a one-off court case is better than legal and ongoing licensing fees. You also appear to be assuming that Spotify are the only licensed game in town, and will continue to be. This is, of course, trivially untrue (Rhapsody). Only if that other provider had the same kind of licenses with the record labels. At this point, Spotify is far ahead of the pack at that game. You appear to be assuming that getting those licenses is difficult. It really isn't. If Spotify managed it, any competent competitor can also do it -- after all, the labels have no particular loyalty to a small Swedish online radio network.
ericflo 15y ago
This is the way everything is going, like it or not. The benefit to the publisher is too great. This seems to be one of those things that developers can't stand but normal people either don't care or actually prefer.
- estel 15y ago
  The tradeoff between "Lost registrations" and "Extra engagement through everyone having a linked Facebook account" must be an interesting one.
  - ericflo 15y ago
    Yeah, especially keeping in mind that extra engagement means more registrations as well.
tedjdziuba 15y ago
Good thing I have no desire to use either one.
pilif 15y ago
This is just the beginning. Facebook and Spotify set a nice precedent there to make it en-vogue to just provide a Facebook login for services in the future. For whoever builds the service, it's (marginally) easier to just use FB as an authentication provider and they even get to spin it as "with us, you don't need to store the 1000st password - you can just use Facebook". For Facebook, of course, it's great too as it is one more thing to force people to stay logged in, which in turn is much better data for them. The end users probably wouldn't care either as they are mostly logged into Facebook anyways and if not, it's easy for them to just log in. The only losers are us professionals who know about the implications of such a move and who care about the loss of privacy. And of course the people who had their facebook account suspended for either legitimate reasons or just some oversensitive SPAM protection algorithm. These people are now locked out of their, possibly even paid, account, unable to access it (and remove credit card info). Of course these will be the minority and people won't care. Until it's them that are affected. I can understand that in this day and age you want to provide the users with an option to authenticate with something else than yet another username and password. Google, Twitter, Yahoo or even any OpenID provider (maybe your own). Sure. But just Facebook? This is trouble waiting to happen. I'm saying this as somebody who can't have Spotify anyways due to the complete brokenness of the licensing market, but this still concerns me as it's just another precedent and I'm just waiting for another service I love to force me to use Facebook.
- ericflo 15y ago
  There have been more and more services doing this lately, Spotify isn't really the first (although it may be the biggest to date.)
- Luyt 15y ago
  > The only losers are us professionals who know about the implications of such a move and who care about the loss of privacy. You're right. But there is salvation on the music front: Use Streamripper to download music from a diversity of Internet Radios, and listen to it on your leisure, radically deleting everything that doesn't appeal to you. I guess you'll discover some new music, too! (I did). Somafm.com and Schizoid are good places to start. Streamripper also interprets metadata and will name the downloaded MP3 tracks in a recognizable way.
danielhunt 15y ago
I've yet to see a positive comment regarding this new feature, but I'm wondering, has that anything to do with the type of site that HN is? There's been a lot of anti-Facebook chatter recently, most of which I agree with mind you, but given the backlash so far regarding this new restriction, do you think there's really enough weight behind these online discussions to make them change their minds? Particularly if there's a contract sitting in a drawer, saying they must take this course of action, regardless of user/customer sentiment.
- jerf 15y ago
  It's a fair point. Here's my anecdote: I use Facebook solely via my "spouse firewall"; that is, I don't have an account or use it, my wife just lets me know anything I need to know about through it. She is probably a straight down the middle average Facebook user; daily-but-light use, has learned just enough to squelch people she needs to squelch, the standard mix of friends, family, and old high school co-attendees, etc. The only priming I've done is to remind her that you shouldn't allow Facebook to have the canonical copy of family valuables; upload whatever photo and video you like as long as we still have the originals somewhere. She's definitely been getting increasingly frustrated by their grabbiness, and has been coming to me with stories about Facebook and privacy on the Internet. Granted, that's because she knows I'm interested, but we don't move in the same circles online, which means that these stories are indeed penetrating further than just the HN bubble. She's nowhere near ready to dump the service yet, but the idea is clearly thinkable. (Anecdote? Certainly! Let me know when you figure out how to run a repeatable study on this topic.) To be honest, if Facebook IPO'ed tomorrow, I think I'd pass. I'd probably miss out on an initial increase, but I bet in 2014 Facebook will not be as dominant as it is now, and their growth (not their survival, but their growth) depends on that not happening.
  - danielhunt 15y ago
    Funnily enough, I've noticed a good few of my own non-techy friends have been pinging about a few privacy related topics, and how Facebook have been 'grabby' as you so eloquently put it :) I do have my own account, and certainly use it far too often to share far too much, but I've been almost anal with restricting 3rd party access to my personal feed of posts. That said, I would absolutely stop using Spotify if I felt that my listening habits were being forcibly fed to Facebook, despite my auto-scrobbling to Last.fm edit: typo
meow 15y ago
There are already doubts on number of real users in facebook's 750m user base. I guess things like this will increase the dummy accounts.
artursapek 15y ago
I suppose that because Spotify lives on Facebook now (regularly in my scroll), this move won't be unappealing to most people. I have the impression that HN is much more anti-FB than the population in general. Most of the people Spotify appeals to, such as the college student demographic, all have Facebook and don't really care about their information or privacy, so they won't mind using it to get free music. What I'm curious about is if this was their game plan from the beginning. I wouldn't say it's an act of desperation at all, I bet they celebrated when the FB deal was finalized. They're pushing it pretty hard. I signed up for Spotify weeks before this, but as soon as f8 hit my local Spotify app bothered me about checking what my friends are listening to on Facebook even after I authorized the connection.
- ddw 15y ago
  > Most of the people Spotify appeals to, such as the college student demographic, all have Facebook and don't really care about their information or privacy, so they won't mind using it to get free music. Is this really true? Or do they just not know what us "enlightened" do? I think once people understand what is at stake they'll care. The problem is it's just difficult to visualize and understand. If FB really wants our trust, let us see what they have on us and then let people decide where they stand. But of course they'll never be that transparent.
  - artursapek 15y ago
    By "enlightened" what do you mean exactly? I think everyone is at least passively aware that Facebook probably knows a lot about them and is growing more powerful. Perhaps they can't read the contents of a browser cookie to discern that logging out doesn't actually mean logging out, nor can they really understand the website as a huge mass of code and databases that someone is making billions on, but they know what they're putting in and getting out. For most people that's enough. I really think people of my age (19, but I would venture to say teenagers and people in their 20's) are too young to care about this sort of thing, they're living the most open time of their lives anyway. We have grown up with the internet, and we're pretty much used to it. Not to take a guess at your age, but I have a feeling most HN posters/techbubble bloggers are older and have seen a lot more happen in terms of the internet evolving. I imagine if I had watched the internet materialize from the beginning this would be alarming, but I was practically born into it if you take into account the fact that I haven't been using the internet for more than about 9 years. And while I do understand what Facebook is doing probably a little better than most of my peers, I still can't really let myself care. I personally never felt I give them much of anything significant. My existence online isn't that important to me right now. And free music is pretty great.
0x12 15y ago
This may make good sense from spotify's point of view without knowing all the facts but it looks like it makes very little sense. Spotify and facebook are two unrelated services that users get to apply the 'binary or' truth table on. None, one or both. To force users to use both communicates that spotify sees only one possible exit strategy at this point, facebook or bust, and facebook has just strengthened their hand in the negotiations for any buyout to the point where spotify is now basically just an extension of facebook. If spotify does not want to play ball on fb's terms from now on facebook has the ability to pull the rug right out from under them. I wonder what the missing bits are here, there has to be a lot more than meets the eye for spotify to do this.
- rhubarbquid 15y ago
  Assuming Spotify is not run by stupid people, money would be the obvious reason (and the only one I can think of off hand).
joeycfan 15y ago
Facebook is turning into the Goldman Sachs of the Internet - a vampire squid that sticks it's blood funnel anywhere there's people personal info to be found.
seancron 15y ago
This strikes me as an unwise move on Spotify's part. Allowing integration with Facebook as they had before was fine. But forcing people to sign up with a Facebook account? Not only are they eliminating a large group of people who would like to sign up and don't have a Facebook account, but they're also tying their fate as a company to a third-party. I have a feeling that this was a condition that Facebook insisted on in return for Spotify being used for Facebook Music. I hope the deal turns out to be worth it. I seem to recall a post where they said that people who linked their Facebook accounts bought and share more music. And as a result of the deep integration with Facebook, they'll probably have a sharp increase in their growth. I just hope that this is a temporary condition and that they eventually allow other methods of signing up. Otherwise, they might as well just be acquired by Facebook.
- FlowerPower 15y ago
  They might have been forced to do this, remember, Spotify is not an independent company, they are a puppet of the recording industry, they have a strong interest in connecting with the social graph.
  - deleted 15y ago
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  - Jgrubb 15y ago
    "Spotify is not an independent company, they are a puppet of the recording industry" Well put.
cletus 15y ago
This is a bizarrely short-sighted move. I have to wonder if Spotify has fallen victim to the siren's lure of "social". Perhaps they believe their future lies in integration with the social graph and news feed. If so (IMHO), they are sorely mistaken. I believe some services already have you tweet or post that you've listened to a particular song. Zuckerberg seems to believe in "sharing and more sharing" [1] and automatic sharing. What would be the end result of this? On a particularly music-filled day I might send 100+ posts about songs I've listen to? Really? People will ever look at that? If it's part of the main news feed, it's spam. If it's not, nobody cares... except Facebook, who can mine such data. And maybe Spotify except... they already have access to this data (for their subscribers). It just makes no sense. Spotify is also late to the party (in the US at least). Any kind of restriction like this is incredibly risky. Other established players don't have this restriction. While you can argue that "normal people" don't care, who recommends such services to family and friends? It's us. And any player in the music space would be remiss to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room, being Apple's iTunes. iCloud launches soon. Honestly I think it'll kill a few of these "upstarts". Also, I am less than convinced of the utility of mobile streaming. Bandwidth and connectivity are still issues. Increasing storage and all-you-can-eat subscription models seem like a far better solution (IMHO). [1]: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/zuckerbergs-unspoken-law-sharing-and-more-sharing/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/zuckerbergs-unspoke...
- jmathai 15y ago
  >> don't care, who recommends such services to family and friends? It's us. I completely agree with you but with Facebook they don't need us to tell family and friends.
- prostoalex 15y ago
  >> all-you-can-eat subscription models seem like a far better solution Far better than Spotify? You do realize that Spotify is an all-you-can-eat subscription model?
  - techpeace 15y ago
    I believe he was referring to an unlimited sync-to-mobile, since he references unlimited storage in that sentence, as well. He's probably referring to a model like Rdio's.
jneal 15y ago
This is only going to mean 2 things. A) Less people will sign up to Spotify B) Facebook will gain more users So, what's in it for Spotify? In my opinion, this was a very bad move. Spotify is now relying on Facebook. God forbid Facebook ends up like Myspace and no one cares about them in 4 years, then I guess Spotify will just go down with the ship?
- itswindy 15y ago
  Maybe but they'll get promotion within facebook. Lots of users and they can always split if FB goes under.
- kalleboo 15y ago
  Why would it mean that less people will sign up to Spotify? I'd think that being pushed in everyone's social feed and making a signup be one click away and no text fields to fill out, this will mean they'll gain a massive amount of new users.
- stfu 15y ago
  The certainly did this not just for fun. Would be interesting to know the "incentives" involved...
yock 15y ago
The million-dollar question now seems to be if existing Spotify accounts will be silently converted to Facebook accounts behind-the-scenes. Such accounts might even be created as completely locked-down private Facebook accounts available to no one else, but it opens the door for the slow erosion of the privacy of those accounts into something Facebook can monetize. I'd run, not walk, away from any Spotify subscription.
- runevault 15y ago
  I hadn't considered this, guess I won't be using my spotify account anymore, at least until proven false. Ungh why is everyone tieing into facebook, they are ignoring what, 6.5 billion people (actually, I wonder what % of the world's population is internet connected, since that's the real # they are ignoring).
  - flyt 15y ago
    Roughly 2 billion people in the world have access to the Internet. 800 million of them are active Facebook users (30 day active). Last week 500 million users logged into FB in a single day. Facebook is a very popular service that makes perfect sense to integrate with. Don't forget that they are also "ignoring" anybody that doesn't have broadband; streaming all your music over ppp or metered wireless isn't very desirable.
    - runevault 15y ago
      True but those people aren't a good fit for their service to begin with. Non-facebook users are not, by default, bad fits. Big difference. Hell I would bet at least some of FBs user base is also in that category of crap internet. Cutting off arbitrary users who aren't bad fits for you is a good way to limit your user base. Sure it's 700-800 million people, but not all of the ones who use FB are going to want your service, and if it is any good some who don't use FB will. Why limit yourself that way? Especially when they already supported non-FB accounts for everything but the social features, so the work had already been put in.
skeptical 15y ago
Quote from a spotify employee on the liked page: > Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. I don't know if I find this hilarious, ironic or stupid. He turns towards [potential] costumers and says 'unfortunately' for something that was sole spotify decision. Then suggesting creating bogus/zombie facebook accounts it's just plain pathetic.
domgreen1 15y ago
This is a very poor move, I have linked my two accounts but forcing people to do it is just shocking.
parfe 15y ago
An OpenID solution finally succeeds and people are still upset.
- chrisfarms 15y ago
  OpenID would allow you to sign in via any open-id provider. This is not OpenID.
dendory 15y ago
They should talk to the ton of services that built themselves around Facebook, only to see their app be killed without any given reason, killing their whole business.
xbryanx 15y ago
I know I'm being a total pleeb, but given the remarkable access to the music I want to listen to, at a very cheap cost, I'd probably be willing to sign up for a mandatory mayonaise delivery service to get access to Spotify.
- rhizome 15y ago
  Well, if you'd like to graduate from plebehood, you can run your own mobile music server with something like Subsonic. I have no affiliation, I just discovered them last week: http://www.subsonic.org/ http://www.subsonic.org/
  - djeikyb 15y ago
    I'll second subsonic. I've been using it to stream my music collection the last few weeks. Works well even despite a 40 KBps connection on the source computer.
jgroome 15y ago
Tangentially related, but is anybody else really sick of everybody's Spotifys updating their Facebook pages with every track they're currently listening to?
xiancaldwell 15y ago
It isn't the siren call of "social," it is the dinner bell of 500 million daily users that Spotify is answering.
davidwparker 15y ago
I use Spotify and had been recommending them to friends as well. I know several of my friends don't have Facebook, so this will probably stop them from signing up. As far as automatic sharing goes, I've already told several of my friends that they can change their sharing to the "only me" setting so that they're not spamming what they're playing on Facebook. I enjoy Spotify, but it is kind of a hassle to have to change settings to make it usable.
gdltec 15y ago
Lame.
frankiewarren 15y ago
It's the same with turntable.fm... Talk about an unfortunate trend. I think it's great that facebook can help facilitate the authentication process, but it should definitely be a choice made by the user.
myared 15y ago
Something else must be in play for such a great standalone service to give the keys to their front door to Facebook. I'm sure tons of time went into this decision and the result was either faster adoption or added sugar to a partnership deal. Either way, I'm interested to see how this plays out and to see what the backup plan is if it all goes to shit.
cormullion 15y ago
I've had a spotify free account for some time. Today, the new automatic update presented me with the new default settings for my account. The default is to share publicly starred items and new lists, ie opt-out rather than opt-in.
zaidf 15y ago
While they are at it, might as well announce the acquisition.
______ 15y ago
At the rate things are going, some day soon the government is going to ask the same.
wildmXranat 15y ago
meebo.com just nagged me to link my account for the first time. It showed me a new interface in hoping it would lurk me in. It has to be a coordinated effort.
forgottenpaswrd 15y ago
One of the principal investors in Spotify is... Facebook. There is nothing like having free money thanks to the billions of Golman Sachs, we will see how much they recoup.
s1ugh34d 15y ago
http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/open/ http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/open/ This link is on spotify's help page and enables the open sign up without facebook, the nag screens post there-of, I do not know, I don't use paid or will-attempt-to-make-me-pay services, and to boot, Grooveshark is still free without an account
- teilo 15y ago
  No, it doesn't.
netmau5 15y ago
I once made a site that only allowed sign in via Twitter. That was a huge mistake. Do not segment potential users by login mechanism, more often than not you will raise the barrier of entry from potential to not.
- flyt 15y ago
  or don't rely on a service with only 200 million total (not active) users
s1ugh34d 15y ago
my bad, still forces facebook log in, even enable you to sign up for facebook on spotify's website, dumb move, another player on the Blue F wall
cgag 15y ago
I noticed this a day or two ago when I tried to sign up at the recommendation of a coworker. I decided against it when I realized you had to use your Facebook account to login. I'm going to check out rdio instead.
tdicola 15y ago
Can anyone figure out where to delete their Spotify account in the web UI? I don't even think it's possible. This move to require Facebook is ridiculous IMHO and I want no part in the company's services anymore.
dbin78 15y ago
Is Reed Hastings on their board? Bad business decision!
dr_ 15y ago
Spotify can do whatever it wants. It may seem a bit extreme to require a facebook account to use the service, but honestly - competing with a behemoth like Apple and iTunes, with it's inevitable rollout of a similar service at some point that - it's not an easy thing to do. For Spotify to succeed against its competitors, it's going to have to take drastic measures, and this is pretty drastic. I've actually wanted more of my friends on facebook to get on the service so we could share music, but many don't even know what Spotify is. In fact, on the flipside, there was an article on one of the Apple/Mac blogs suggesting that Apple desperately needs a social network. Music is meant to be shared.
richHN 15y ago
It's worth mentioning that Sean Parker is involved with both Facebook and Spotify.
stfu 15y ago
Interesting. Maybe Facebook is integrating a Mafia based business strategy: Either you become an exclusive Facebook service or we just rip off your idea and offer it as our own. Wasn't there some guy recently on HN who claimed that FB screwed him over with their music service?
kefs 15y ago
If you aren't paying for the product or service, you are the product or service.
- Kastor 15y ago
  Until yesterday, many of us were paying €10 each month for the privelege of being the customer instead of being the product or service. With this move they make it clear that they want us to be the product or service anyway.
  - kefs 15y ago
    Right.. sorry, I was referring to facebook. I guess I wasn't clear.
americandesi333 15y ago
Why doesn't Facebook just buy Spotify...
- flyt 15y ago
  Nobody in their right mind wants to build a business that is 100% beholden to record labels. Facebook is focusing on building a platform first, and anything else would be a [time|money] distraction.
- noarchy 15y ago
  If their agreement is favourable enough for Facebook, perhaps they decided that the level of control that they had was good enough. With Spotify now building its business model around Facebook, Facebook's control is not far from outright ownership, it would seem. Facebook didn't need to spend x millions for any purchase.
RandallBrown 15y ago
For every 1 person that doesn't sign up for Spotify because they need Facebook, there will be 2 people that sign up because they don't need to create yet another account. This obviously stinks if you think Facebook is some super evil company, but if you're a regular person it probably doesn't matter.
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  That does not explains why they had to make Facebook mandatory. Optional Facebook auth would save every one person and still gain those two people.
  - RandallBrown 15y ago
    True.
jhuckestein 15y ago
Facebook give's them an on-stage keynote plus smooth Spotify integration (just check out that gorgeous install flow) and they give Facebook mandatory FB accounts in return. Seems like a deal rather than a "move".
aasarava 15y ago
As a Facebook user, why exactly do I want to see a notification about each and every song that 100 different friends are listening to at any given point in the day? Add in the fact that Rdio does the exact same thing (spam my Facebook "ticker"), and it's even more ridiculous.
wastedbrains 15y ago
I am sick of everything being social. I listen to and read things I enjoy and often don't want to share it with the whole world. For example battle.net in SC2 tries it's damn hardest to make me post achievements and connect with my friends online, and I just want to play a game alone when I happen to have some free time. That kind of game wasn't social for me in the first place, and I don't want it to be. Same with my spotify usage, I want to listen to the radio, I don't want the whole world to know I am listening to jazz radio at the moment.
- antimarketing 15y ago
  I agree, and I have a "nutty" conspiracy theory to explain why things are this way: Social media is simply the middle class and the tax payers paying for investments in technology. The U.S. government inflates the money supply, through bailouts and zero interest loans, for banks, who refuse to lend to the general public. However, this money can not sit on the sidelines, since inflation the cash itself creates cause it to lose value so tons of it end up in wacky technology investments. It does not matter which type the investor is — angel or some other sort of creature. A billionaire or a friendly neighbour. Everybody wants to invest as much money they get from banks as loans and as little of their own as possible. The money the banks give ultimately comes from the middle class that consumes these services (can't really call them products can we?) in the first place. Thus the middle class is paying a bunch of middle men and lucky dorks with it's own money to invent these services and they will be later paying lots more to "enjoy" them. Nevermind the loss of privacy, which is simply an icing on the cake. Question: if these are social technologies shouldn't the State be doing these types of investments in the first place? Or if they are social in the other sense, in terms of authentic grass-roots and anti-state citizenry — shouldn't social media be about personal blogs, news feeds, videos etc..?
Hisoka 15y ago
I got a question. Does Facebook connect give Spotify access to my email address that is linked to my Facebook account? Does it give them access to my first and last name as well? If so, I could understand their stance... it will give their service a higher viral coefficient.. at the expense of a few users..
leoalmighty 15y ago
Seems like Facebook might've asked for this as part of the integration deal. Otherwise I see no obvious reason for Spotify to limit their customer base. Unless the economics of delivering music to a non-facebook user is much less attractive and have much lower conversion to paying user? I find music discovery on Spotify to be poor compared to Pandora, and without my FB connections sharing playlists, I have no incentive to pay for Spotify.
macca321 15y ago
I've just cancelled my premium subscription and mentioned 'too much forced facebook integration' as the reason
alexqgb 15y ago
From the (very pissed) comment thread on getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/can_you_sign_up_for_spotify_without_facebook? "In the 90's we had to deal with Windows-only software. Now we have Facebook-only software. Great."
- antimarketing 15y ago
  Microsoft became dominant because Gates is the most ruthless businessman on the planet. Facebook is becoming dominant because humanity in general can not grow up from its glory days in college-rules.com
iamjoshua 15y ago
While it is annoying, this will exponentially grow the spotify user base. I am a single island of music consumption right now on spotify. IF I were to link my facebook account(which I never use) to it, my feed would be seen by all of my friends encouraging new signups for spotify. Music is extremely social. Facebook is social. Annoying, yes. Smart, definitely.
ginzasparrow 15y ago
Good thing I have absolutely no idea what spotify is.
cmer 15y ago
My prediction is that Facebook will be acquiring Spotify within 6 months. Makes sense for both parties, and last I checked, Sean Parker is a shareholder in both.
bborud 15y ago
Sean Parker must have slipped some Rohypnol in their drinks.
eric-hu 15y ago
This makes me wonder if there was some backroom deal to give Facebook an edge over Google+.
rhubarbquid 15y ago
Is Spotify going to start giving a discount on subscriptions for all this marketing/advertising information they're pushing to Facebook?
teilo 15y ago
First iHeartRadio. Now this.
bdz 15y ago
I live in a country where most of the big music streaming services are not available, only last.fm. With this move, may Spotify open their service to other countries? Yeah, I know music labels are strong but side by side with Facebook they have some power. And I guess, it's hard to ignore 700+ million users.
DannoHung 15y ago
Spotify's selection is awful and they lump tons of unrelated artists together. I've been using MOG for a month and have been 99% satisfied (their new beta doesn't work with my firewall at work for some reason).
tonio09 15y ago
truth is: the majority of end user don't care if they can only sign up with facebook. it's even easier for them as they have less choice to make. This is only a problem for highly privacy and technology aware folks, like tech bloggers or developers. Apparently, they are not the target audience.
8ig8 15y ago
I know it's not completely analogous, but AOL comes to mind. Facebook seems to be this subset of the internet like AOL was. You have to remind people that something bigger exists beyond the walls.
droithomme 15y ago
What is the real reason these companies are doing this? It's obviously not the reasons they claim. There must be some sort of incentive program where Facebook is giving them kickbacks, as well as a gag order that prevents them from stating the agreement they have. It's very close to the old practice of companies that "sponsor" popular software by paying the developers to include their third party adware toolbar installers in the package, often embedding themselves deep within the user's system on a rootkit level, just as Facebook invisibly tracks everything you do.
zackattack 15y ago
1) facebook OWNS spotify. their testimonial, "spotify rocks" - mark zuckerberg, is proof that they bow to mz and are catering to his audience (most of the world, thx Goldman Sachs). 2) it's very smart for facebook to own music and therefore, emotion (Twitter hedge fund? FORGET THAT, I'm going to start a SPOTIFY hedge fund.) 3) the number one reason i use spotify is social: i like being able to listen to a friend's playlist (i have chosen him as an arbiter of cool music...) 4) i still use youtube to search out esoteric sounds that aren't available on itunes/amazon/spotify
mike-cardwell 15y ago
I contacted support@spotify.com and asked them to delete my account. They replied: "If you wish to close your Spotify account, log into your Spotify account profile (https://www.spotify.com/account/profile/ https://www.spotify.com/account/profile/), and add ".del" to your email address. Your account will be closed within 48 hours."
codeboost 15y ago
Facebook is a dangerous social experiment. It's not a 'virtual passport'. Rather, it is a 'virtual bank', except they don't store financial information about the users, but everything else. And that is an unimaginable amount of power. Given that their intentions are different from their user's (they want profits, users want... to share photos), it is not hard to assume that Facebook does and will use the user data in order to maximize profits or grip on power. I think that nothing good will come out of this marriage of Spotify and Facebook. Facebook gains a lot of meta information about the Spotify users (and music taste tells a huge amount about a person), whereas Spotify is reduced to being a convenient and easily replace-able bit pipe. Now they'll be able to run their social algorithms based on music habits and offer us the best, most relevant and unique crap for sale on the market. Or one day the government decides to isolate the listeners of The Doors and deny login to every site that uses facebook as a virtual passport.
SonicSoul 15y ago
i hope that existing users will not be forced to link their Facebook accounts to continue using Spotify
nothis 15y ago
And so it begins...

423 points by tommypalm 15y ago

VonLipwig 15y ago

Is there anything else to say apart from. Ewwww..

josefresco 15y ago
There is actually, and here on HN it's encouraged behavior to expand upon your opinions and debate the subject in detail. Why is it "ewww" for you? What would be a better solution? What are the pros and cons of this decision for Spotify, for FB and for the user?
- StrawberryFrog 15y ago
  I'll take a guess at the pros and cons for spotify: Pro: some users like the integration and the social features that it gives them. This doesn't explain why it's now mandatory, or why it's become mandatory right now. Pro: Has Spotify done some kind of deal with Facebook, and Facebook insisted on this? I put "pro" since I assume that Spotify also got something out of the hypothetical deal. Con: There are some users (like myself) who think that facebook knows enough about me already, and really do not want to integrate them into anything. I like the face that the web is not an extension of the facebook machine. As an existing Spotify user this policy does not apply to me (yet?) but it's repellent. As a paying Spotify user I don't feel that I would be obliged to put up with that. I don't complain about FB too much since hey, I didn't pay anything for it and no-body actually forced me to use it. I know, "if you're not the customer, you're the product" - but with Spotify, I bloody well am the paying customer, they've got my money, they don't need to sell me to Facebook. They can take their Facebook integration and GTFO. Edit: a friend has suggested that Spotify are angling to be bought by Facebook, and this will help them integrate for that. It's worth noting that Spotify used to have optional facebook integration, i.e. "the standard Facebook - or - Default sign up page", and they have taken the effort to remove this for new signups. There must be some reason for actively removing this choice, and I don't think that "mass-market users are confused by having 2 different choices" is it.
  - estel 15y ago
    Presumed pro: Spotify said at f8 that users who engaged socially with Spotify through their existing facebook functionality bother listened to more music and were much (I think they said 2x) more likely to pay for a premium membership. If a Facebook account is mandatory (at the moment it isn't), they might expect a greater number of users to link their accounts. It doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that the number of people who additionally link their accounts will exceed the number of subscriptions lost from people who refuse to have a Facebook accounts. If a greater number of people linking accounts => increased Premium registrations, then this could very easily be a purely business decision.
    - VonLipwig 15y ago
      A better business decision would be to use the standard Facebook - or - Default sign up page. This will undoubtedly increase social usage by the Facebook faithful without alienating other users.
    - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
      Correlation is not causation, so forcing all new users into that workflow won't necessarily make them the kind of people who would do that voluntarily. Also, this is a statistical relationship - there will be users who were likely to buy premium membership but don't like facebook, who are now less likely to buy. Or who are now reconsidering their existing spotify subscriptions.
- VonLipwig 15y ago
  Expand.. OK. Facebook have an increasingly bad reputation. Spotify, now it has made Facebook the only way to sign up, has tarred its own reputation by becoming so closely tied to Facebook. Beyond this they have locked out users who do not have a Facebook or do not wish to tie an essentially private Facebook account to a public service. Looking beyond the sign up page, they are also increasingly pushing Facebook and other social media on to Spotify users with no way to hide some of these features. This, for me at least, is just adding distracting fluff to the Spotify UI. Considering how they got 2 million paid subscribers without this functionality it is baffling that they would essentially disable completely a sign up mechanism that was working perfectly well. As a premium Spotify user I will be switching to Deezer next month if a u-turn is not made on this decision.

guard-of-terra 15y ago

In other words, to use this streaming service you have to submit your real name to a company you'd rather not want to, and stay logged in* so it can spy on your every move on the web. * Not sure about this part. You probably lose your web spotify session if you log off facebook (?), but your desktop app session would probably not be affected.

dlss 15y ago
I think it's the opposite. It was already a paid site, so of course they have your billing info. This is the first indication they're coveting my data (at least w/o facebook connect turned on there are no recommendations to speak of on spotify)
- jonknee 15y ago
  It's not a paid site, they use the freemium model. I have an account and they don't have my billing info. Millions of other people are in the same boat. (I also will never use anything that requires a Facebook login other than Facebook itself.)
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  I'm not sure that paid site is guaranteed to know the payer's real name. I was under impression that most of the time, it doesn't happens. And of course giving my real name via billing to Spotify is a completely different than giving my real name to Facebook to display and use it as they see fit.

jgrahamc 15y ago

I was just about to sign up for Spotify (was on the things to do today list I have in front of me), and now this. Well they can forget about that.

nlo 15y ago
Hear hear. Unfortunately I /just/ paid for Spotify premium yesterday evening. While I have a grandfathered non-Facebook account, I've had no end of problems with their mobile client, and I think I'll be switching back to Rdio (which has a vastly superior [existent] web and mobile cilent, IMO.) I wonder if this move is related to the problem I'm having using my login on the desktop client (error code 410, stuck in offline mode. Mobile app on the same wifi networks works fine.)
- SanjayUttam 15y ago
  UGH. I'm having the same problem (stuck in offline mode), only it is with my android app...
RexRollman 15y ago
I agree. Luckily, I already have a Spotify account, because I refuse to use Facebook.
RyanKearney 15y ago
I'm sure they will go bankrupt now because you decided not to sign up.
nupark2 15y ago
Same. Switching to Spotify from Pandora was on my list of things to try. Now, I guess not. I would have paid them, too. This is absolutely ridiculously stupid of them to do. They alienate potential customers, but more importantly, they do not own their customers. If the Facebook relationship goes sour, Spotify is still permanently tied to them.
- ebiester 15y ago

altrego99 15y ago

In a way this could be a decision to simplify the login process for the end user. Then again, if that was the case they should have supported Google, Yahoo and all other OpenId providers. Also there seems to be no reason to completely remove the native sign up, especially since they have already made the effort to create full support for it. Guess just like the recent trend in FB, they also just want to do an experiment and see how the users will take it.

dlss 15y ago

Ugh. I signed up two weeks ago and have been recommending them to friends. Now this. Why on earth does this make sense for Spotify?

josefresco 15y ago
I would guess this was a requirement to get the partnership with Facebook done. "Either require a FB login or we'll go with someone else" would be a hard condition to say no to if you were Spotify considering how powerful FB is in the US market.
- technoslut 15y ago
  Are there alternatives to Spotify's current business model of free on the PC?
  - marcocampos 15y ago
    Grooveshark? Although legally, it's in a grey area...
  - zecho 15y ago
    The legality of Grooveshark's business model is Groovehark's problem. Just using it passively as a music consumer is likely fine.
    - technoslut 15y ago
      I'm aware of Grooveshark but, as you said, it is questionably legal. It has long been removed from the iOS App Store. I can't help but wonder if these were the onerous terms that Apple would not agree to with Ping.
  - vegashacker 15y ago
    Check out MOG. They have some sort of free option.
- Luyt 15y ago

joelhaasnoot 15y ago

I disabled offline access and pushing content to my wall permissions for Spotify on Facebook (under Account Settings, Apps). Mainly because of complaints I was spamming walls... Still works with the most basic permissions, but sleazy it adds them by default.

joelhaasnoot 15y ago
I lied, started Spotify again this morning, and all my Facebook friends were gone. Apparently it really does need the "offline" permission.

acak 15y ago

Spotify support staff quote from that discussion thread -- Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. -- Couple of things to note: 1. If you already have a Spotify account, you don't have to connect to Facebook. 2. They seem to be encouraging a bogus Facebook account as a way to use Spotify "privately"?

josefresco 15y ago
Hilarious that internal staff are recommending ways to "get around" the requirements. This shows, or possibly proves to me that this decision was a last minute condition set by FB and the Spotify staff are probably not uniformly thrilled about it.
- michael_dorfman 15y ago
  Or that they realize that a tiny but vocal minority is going to gripe about the decision, and that for these folks a work-around might be the best solution.
  - acak 15y ago
    This means that while one can claim privacy of their listening habits on Spotify from their social circle, absolutely no one can claim privacy of what they do on Spotify from Facebook. Spotify just gave Facebook a terrific amount of analytics data that will help Fb market music and drive sales better than Spotify itself does.
guard-of-terra 15y ago
Why is empty private Facebook account a "bogus" Facebook account? Is it now required by law to actively use your social network accounts?

RexRollman 15y ago

A reply from Darren, a Spotify employee: "Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. " This is asinine.

astrodust 15y ago
If you object to Facebook on other grounds, you're basically screwed. Some people refuse to eat shellfish or ham. Why is not using Facebook any different?
- skymt 15y ago
  I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. Correctly or not, preferences are given more credence by our society if they're based on religion.
  - jim_h 15y ago
    It could also be food allergies.
  - Triumvark 15y ago
    > I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook. I suppose the Amish probably aren't interested in Spotify...
    - vacri 15y ago
      I imagine you're right, that the Amish aren't particularly interested in online music services, but I remember reading an article that pointed out that the Amish aren't really anti-technology per se, they're anti-labour-saving devices. The ethos is apparently to work hard and with your hands, and they have no qualms in letting people with physical issues use tech; the example given in the article was a farmer who had arthritis and whose sons had moved out, who was permitted to use a tractor in order to keep his farm going.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

hugacow 15y ago

I just signed up days ago and they only required email. I guess I got lucky.

theshadow 15y ago

Not a spotify user but I feel gross and icky just reading about this. This is so transparent. I wanna take a shower

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

danieldk 15y ago

Let this be a reminder. If you use a streaming music service, they can pull you any stupid trick. If you do not accept, well, you'd better hope there is an alternative the provides a comparable catalog. Once you own non-DRMed music, they can't take it away.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Subscription music streaming is basically a commodity at this point though. One can drop Spotify and join Rdio at no real loss (I think you can even import playlists).
- FlowerPower 15y ago
  Until Rdio pulls your plug. Streaming services are not reliable, neither is the cloud. Hard currency is the value, its not like storage is expensive any more, there is no reason to not own your own collection and be the boss of your domain.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - chwahoo 15y ago
    > there is no reason to not own your own collection There are reasons. The-all-you-can-eat model certainly makes much more music available, which is better for discovering new music. Also, if you regularly listen to a lot of new/different music, Spotify/Rdio/etc would be cheaper than iTunes/Amazon mp3. Personally, I'm in a kind of "stuck" position where I'm trying to decide whether I should continue to buy music from Amazon, or should switch to an all-you-can-eat streaming service.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - v21 15y ago
    But the ability to own my own music isn't going away because I'm paying for Spotify. If I stop, then I'm in the same position that I was before. I've not got music any more, but I'm not paying any more. If I decide to start paying for Grooveshark instead, then I've not lost anything. Storage isn't expensive, but managing files is a pain. Especially if you have to manage it across multiple devices. I just want to listen to some Nujabes, do I really have to care where it's saved, or whether I'm on my work PC, my laptop, or the media center downstairs? And that's before you get into the pain of syncing stuff onto your phone... I pay for the convenience of not having to pirate. (I picked this example because it is both what I am listening to now, and for the irony of it being unavailable on Spotify.)

waitwhat 15y ago

This is a sign of desperation from Spotify. Their product is far from unique, and only really interesting because it has better PR, more apps, a better library, and a slightly more legit licensing setup than the competition. None of those are big enough barriers to entry to keep even the small players away, meanwhile the big dogs are starting to show a lot of interest in streaming music (admittedly for music you "own" at the moment, but it would surprise noone if this were to change overnight). Apple has the marketing weight and a history of solving music licensing issues, Google has a track record of throwing money at problems to solve them, and Amazon is just about to make a major hardware play. Spotify's only real hope was to latch onto the latest big thing (conveniently an infrastructure provider, so unlikely to launch a direct competitor) and hope to ride to success on someone else's coat-tails. I have no idea what the contracts between the two companies look like, but I would have to imagine that they are heavily in Facebook's favour. After all, it would be a lot easier for Facebook to replace Spotify with another provider than it would be for Spotify to replace Facebook.

michael_dorfman 15y ago
Desperation? How do you figure? They have a sweet partnership with Facebook. That doesn't sound desperate to me. Their product is far from unique, and only really interesting because it has better PR, more apps, a better library, and a slightly more legit licensing setup than the competition. Slightly more legit? I think the phrase you are looking for is "completely legit, as opposed to some of the others who are lawsuit-bait-on-a-stick." After all, it would be a lot easier for Facebook to replace Spotify with another provider than it would be for Spotify to replace Facebook. Only if that other provider had the same kind of licenses with the record labels. At this point, Spotify is far ahead of the pack at that game.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  Desperation? How do you figure? They have a sweet partnership with Facebook. That doesn't sound desperate to me. We don't know it's a sweet deal. My gut feeling is that it isn't, but that's by-the-by. We don't know anything. Slightly more legit? I think the phrase you are looking for is "completely legit, as opposed to some of the others who are lawsuit-bait-on-a-stick. From the point of view of the users it really is only slightly more legit. From the point of view of the content providers, slightly less legit is not the same as illegal, and from the point of view of the service providers, legal and and a one-off court case is better than legal and ongoing licensing fees. You also appear to be assuming that Spotify are the only licensed game in town, and will continue to be. This is, of course, trivially untrue (Rhapsody). Only if that other provider had the same kind of licenses with the record labels. At this point, Spotify is far ahead of the pack at that game. You appear to be assuming that getting those licenses is difficult. It really isn't. If Spotify managed it, any competent competitor can also do it -- after all, the labels have no particular loyalty to a small Swedish online radio network.

ericflo 15y ago

This is the way everything is going, like it or not. The benefit to the publisher is too great. This seems to be one of those things that developers can't stand but normal people either don't care or actually prefer.

estel 15y ago
The tradeoff between "Lost registrations" and "Extra engagement through everyone having a linked Facebook account" must be an interesting one.
- ericflo 15y ago
  Yeah, especially keeping in mind that extra engagement means more registrations as well.

tedjdziuba 15y ago

Good thing I have no desire to use either one.

pilif 15y ago

This is just the beginning. Facebook and Spotify set a nice precedent there to make it en-vogue to just provide a Facebook login for services in the future. For whoever builds the service, it's (marginally) easier to just use FB as an authentication provider and they even get to spin it as "with us, you don't need to store the 1000st password - you can just use Facebook". For Facebook, of course, it's great too as it is one more thing to force people to stay logged in, which in turn is much better data for them. The end users probably wouldn't care either as they are mostly logged into Facebook anyways and if not, it's easy for them to just log in. The only losers are us professionals who know about the implications of such a move and who care about the loss of privacy. And of course the people who had their facebook account suspended for either legitimate reasons or just some oversensitive SPAM protection algorithm. These people are now locked out of their, possibly even paid, account, unable to access it (and remove credit card info). Of course these will be the minority and people won't care. Until it's them that are affected. I can understand that in this day and age you want to provide the users with an option to authenticate with something else than yet another username and password. Google, Twitter, Yahoo or even any OpenID provider (maybe your own). Sure. But just Facebook? This is trouble waiting to happen. I'm saying this as somebody who can't have Spotify anyways due to the complete brokenness of the licensing market, but this still concerns me as it's just another precedent and I'm just waiting for another service I love to force me to use Facebook.

ericflo 15y ago
There have been more and more services doing this lately, Spotify isn't really the first (although it may be the biggest to date.)
Luyt 15y ago
> The only losers are us professionals who know about the implications of such a move and who care about the loss of privacy. You're right. But there is salvation on the music front: Use Streamripper to download music from a diversity of Internet Radios, and listen to it on your leisure, radically deleting everything that doesn't appeal to you. I guess you'll discover some new music, too! (I did). Somafm.com and Schizoid are good places to start. Streamripper also interprets metadata and will name the downloaded MP3 tracks in a recognizable way.

danielhunt 15y ago

I've yet to see a positive comment regarding this new feature, but I'm wondering, has that anything to do with the type of site that HN is? There's been a lot of anti-Facebook chatter recently, most of which I agree with mind you, but given the backlash so far regarding this new restriction, do you think there's really enough weight behind these online discussions to make them change their minds? Particularly if there's a contract sitting in a drawer, saying they must take this course of action, regardless of user/customer sentiment.

jerf 15y ago
It's a fair point. Here's my anecdote: I use Facebook solely via my "spouse firewall"; that is, I don't have an account or use it, my wife just lets me know anything I need to know about through it. She is probably a straight down the middle average Facebook user; daily-but-light use, has learned just enough to squelch people she needs to squelch, the standard mix of friends, family, and old high school co-attendees, etc. The only priming I've done is to remind her that you shouldn't allow Facebook to have the canonical copy of family valuables; upload whatever photo and video you like as long as we still have the originals somewhere. She's definitely been getting increasingly frustrated by their grabbiness, and has been coming to me with stories about Facebook and privacy on the Internet. Granted, that's because she knows I'm interested, but we don't move in the same circles online, which means that these stories are indeed penetrating further than just the HN bubble. She's nowhere near ready to dump the service yet, but the idea is clearly thinkable. (Anecdote? Certainly! Let me know when you figure out how to run a repeatable study on this topic.) To be honest, if Facebook IPO'ed tomorrow, I think I'd pass. I'd probably miss out on an initial increase, but I bet in 2014 Facebook will not be as dominant as it is now, and their growth (not their survival, but their growth) depends on that not happening.
- danielhunt 15y ago
  Funnily enough, I've noticed a good few of my own non-techy friends have been pinging about a few privacy related topics, and how Facebook have been 'grabby' as you so eloquently put it :) I do have my own account, and certainly use it far too often to share far too much, but I've been almost anal with restricting 3rd party access to my personal feed of posts. That said, I would absolutely stop using Spotify if I felt that my listening habits were being forcibly fed to Facebook, despite my auto-scrobbling to Last.fm edit: typo

meow 15y ago

There are already doubts on number of real users in facebook's 750m user base. I guess things like this will increase the dummy accounts.

artursapek 15y ago

I suppose that because Spotify lives on Facebook now (regularly in my scroll), this move won't be unappealing to most people. I have the impression that HN is much more anti-FB than the population in general. Most of the people Spotify appeals to, such as the college student demographic, all have Facebook and don't really care about their information or privacy, so they won't mind using it to get free music. What I'm curious about is if this was their game plan from the beginning. I wouldn't say it's an act of desperation at all, I bet they celebrated when the FB deal was finalized. They're pushing it pretty hard. I signed up for Spotify weeks before this, but as soon as f8 hit my local Spotify app bothered me about checking what my friends are listening to on Facebook even after I authorized the connection.

ddw 15y ago
> Most of the people Spotify appeals to, such as the college student demographic, all have Facebook and don't really care about their information or privacy, so they won't mind using it to get free music. Is this really true? Or do they just not know what us "enlightened" do? I think once people understand what is at stake they'll care. The problem is it's just difficult to visualize and understand. If FB really wants our trust, let us see what they have on us and then let people decide where they stand. But of course they'll never be that transparent.
- artursapek 15y ago
  By "enlightened" what do you mean exactly? I think everyone is at least passively aware that Facebook probably knows a lot about them and is growing more powerful. Perhaps they can't read the contents of a browser cookie to discern that logging out doesn't actually mean logging out, nor can they really understand the website as a huge mass of code and databases that someone is making billions on, but they know what they're putting in and getting out. For most people that's enough. I really think people of my age (19, but I would venture to say teenagers and people in their 20's) are too young to care about this sort of thing, they're living the most open time of their lives anyway. We have grown up with the internet, and we're pretty much used to it. Not to take a guess at your age, but I have a feeling most HN posters/techbubble bloggers are older and have seen a lot more happen in terms of the internet evolving. I imagine if I had watched the internet materialize from the beginning this would be alarming, but I was practically born into it if you take into account the fact that I haven't been using the internet for more than about 9 years. And while I do understand what Facebook is doing probably a little better than most of my peers, I still can't really let myself care. I personally never felt I give them much of anything significant. My existence online isn't that important to me right now. And free music is pretty great.

0x12 15y ago

This may make good sense from spotify's point of view without knowing all the facts but it looks like it makes very little sense. Spotify and facebook are two unrelated services that users get to apply the 'binary or' truth table on. None, one or both. To force users to use both communicates that spotify sees only one possible exit strategy at this point, facebook or bust, and facebook has just strengthened their hand in the negotiations for any buyout to the point where spotify is now basically just an extension of facebook. If spotify does not want to play ball on fb's terms from now on facebook has the ability to pull the rug right out from under them. I wonder what the missing bits are here, there has to be a lot more than meets the eye for spotify to do this.

rhubarbquid 15y ago
Assuming Spotify is not run by stupid people, money would be the obvious reason (and the only one I can think of off hand).

joeycfan 15y ago

Facebook is turning into the Goldman Sachs of the Internet - a vampire squid that sticks it's blood funnel anywhere there's people personal info to be found.

seancron 15y ago

This strikes me as an unwise move on Spotify's part. Allowing integration with Facebook as they had before was fine. But forcing people to sign up with a Facebook account? Not only are they eliminating a large group of people who would like to sign up and don't have a Facebook account, but they're also tying their fate as a company to a third-party. I have a feeling that this was a condition that Facebook insisted on in return for Spotify being used for Facebook Music. I hope the deal turns out to be worth it. I seem to recall a post where they said that people who linked their Facebook accounts bought and share more music. And as a result of the deep integration with Facebook, they'll probably have a sharp increase in their growth. I just hope that this is a temporary condition and that they eventually allow other methods of signing up. Otherwise, they might as well just be acquired by Facebook.

FlowerPower 15y ago
They might have been forced to do this, remember, Spotify is not an independent company, they are a puppet of the recording industry, they have a strong interest in connecting with the social graph.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Jgrubb 15y ago
  "Spotify is not an independent company, they are a puppet of the recording industry" Well put.

cletus 15y ago

This is a bizarrely short-sighted move. I have to wonder if Spotify has fallen victim to the siren's lure of "social". Perhaps they believe their future lies in integration with the social graph and news feed. If so (IMHO), they are sorely mistaken. I believe some services already have you tweet or post that you've listened to a particular song. Zuckerberg seems to believe in "sharing and more sharing" [1] and automatic sharing. What would be the end result of this? On a particularly music-filled day I might send 100+ posts about songs I've listen to? Really? People will ever look at that? If it's part of the main news feed, it's spam. If it's not, nobody cares... except Facebook, who can mine such data. And maybe Spotify except... they already have access to this data (for their subscribers). It just makes no sense. Spotify is also late to the party (in the US at least). Any kind of restriction like this is incredibly risky. Other established players don't have this restriction. While you can argue that "normal people" don't care, who recommends such services to family and friends? It's us. And any player in the music space would be remiss to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room, being Apple's iTunes. iCloud launches soon. Honestly I think it'll kill a few of these "upstarts". Also, I am less than convinced of the utility of mobile streaming. Bandwidth and connectivity are still issues. Increasing storage and all-you-can-eat subscription models seem like a far better solution (IMHO). [1]: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/zuckerbergs-unspoken-law-sharing-and-more-sharing/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/zuckerbergs-unspoke...

jmathai 15y ago
>> don't care, who recommends such services to family and friends? It's us. I completely agree with you but with Facebook they don't need us to tell family and friends.
prostoalex 15y ago
>> all-you-can-eat subscription models seem like a far better solution Far better than Spotify? You do realize that Spotify is an all-you-can-eat subscription model?
- techpeace 15y ago
  I believe he was referring to an unlimited sync-to-mobile, since he references unlimited storage in that sentence, as well. He's probably referring to a model like Rdio's.

jneal 15y ago

This is only going to mean 2 things. A) Less people will sign up to Spotify B) Facebook will gain more users So, what's in it for Spotify? In my opinion, this was a very bad move. Spotify is now relying on Facebook. God forbid Facebook ends up like Myspace and no one cares about them in 4 years, then I guess Spotify will just go down with the ship?

itswindy 15y ago
Maybe but they'll get promotion within facebook. Lots of users and they can always split if FB goes under.
kalleboo 15y ago
Why would it mean that less people will sign up to Spotify? I'd think that being pushed in everyone's social feed and making a signup be one click away and no text fields to fill out, this will mean they'll gain a massive amount of new users.
stfu 15y ago
The certainly did this not just for fun. Would be interesting to know the "incentives" involved...

yock 15y ago

The million-dollar question now seems to be if existing Spotify accounts will be silently converted to Facebook accounts behind-the-scenes. Such accounts might even be created as completely locked-down private Facebook accounts available to no one else, but it opens the door for the slow erosion of the privacy of those accounts into something Facebook can monetize. I'd run, not walk, away from any Spotify subscription.

runevault 15y ago
I hadn't considered this, guess I won't be using my spotify account anymore, at least until proven false. Ungh why is everyone tieing into facebook, they are ignoring what, 6.5 billion people (actually, I wonder what % of the world's population is internet connected, since that's the real # they are ignoring).
- flyt 15y ago
  Roughly 2 billion people in the world have access to the Internet. 800 million of them are active Facebook users (30 day active). Last week 500 million users logged into FB in a single day. Facebook is a very popular service that makes perfect sense to integrate with. Don't forget that they are also "ignoring" anybody that doesn't have broadband; streaming all your music over ppp or metered wireless isn't very desirable.
  - runevault 15y ago
    True but those people aren't a good fit for their service to begin with. Non-facebook users are not, by default, bad fits. Big difference. Hell I would bet at least some of FBs user base is also in that category of crap internet. Cutting off arbitrary users who aren't bad fits for you is a good way to limit your user base. Sure it's 700-800 million people, but not all of the ones who use FB are going to want your service, and if it is any good some who don't use FB will. Why limit yourself that way? Especially when they already supported non-FB accounts for everything but the social features, so the work had already been put in.

skeptical 15y ago

Quote from a spotify employee on the liked page: > Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used. I don't know if I find this hilarious, ironic or stupid. He turns towards [potential] costumers and says 'unfortunately' for something that was sole spotify decision. Then suggesting creating bogus/zombie facebook accounts it's just plain pathetic.

domgreen1 15y ago

This is a very poor move, I have linked my two accounts but forcing people to do it is just shocking.

parfe 15y ago

An OpenID solution finally succeeds and people are still upset.

chrisfarms 15y ago
OpenID would allow you to sign in via any open-id provider. This is not OpenID.

dendory 15y ago

They should talk to the ton of services that built themselves around Facebook, only to see their app be killed without any given reason, killing their whole business.

xbryanx 15y ago

I know I'm being a total pleeb, but given the remarkable access to the music I want to listen to, at a very cheap cost, I'd probably be willing to sign up for a mandatory mayonaise delivery service to get access to Spotify.

rhizome 15y ago
Well, if you'd like to graduate from plebehood, you can run your own mobile music server with something like Subsonic. I have no affiliation, I just discovered them last week: http://www.subsonic.org/ http://www.subsonic.org/
- djeikyb 15y ago
  I'll second subsonic. I've been using it to stream my music collection the last few weeks. Works well even despite a 40 KBps connection on the source computer.

jgroome 15y ago

Tangentially related, but is anybody else really sick of everybody's Spotifys updating their Facebook pages with every track they're currently listening to?

xiancaldwell 15y ago

It isn't the siren call of "social," it is the dinner bell of 500 million daily users that Spotify is answering.

davidwparker 15y ago

I use Spotify and had been recommending them to friends as well. I know several of my friends don't have Facebook, so this will probably stop them from signing up. As far as automatic sharing goes, I've already told several of my friends that they can change their sharing to the "only me" setting so that they're not spamming what they're playing on Facebook. I enjoy Spotify, but it is kind of a hassle to have to change settings to make it usable.

gdltec 15y ago

Lame.

frankiewarren 15y ago

It's the same with turntable.fm... Talk about an unfortunate trend. I think it's great that facebook can help facilitate the authentication process, but it should definitely be a choice made by the user.

myared 15y ago

Something else must be in play for such a great standalone service to give the keys to their front door to Facebook. I'm sure tons of time went into this decision and the result was either faster adoption or added sugar to a partnership deal. Either way, I'm interested to see how this plays out and to see what the backup plan is if it all goes to shit.

cormullion 15y ago

I've had a spotify free account for some time. Today, the new automatic update presented me with the new default settings for my account. The default is to share publicly starred items and new lists, ie opt-out rather than opt-in.

zaidf 15y ago

While they are at it, might as well announce the acquisition.

______ 15y ago

At the rate things are going, some day soon the government is going to ask the same.

wildmXranat 15y ago

meebo.com just nagged me to link my account for the first time. It showed me a new interface in hoping it would lurk me in. It has to be a coordinated effort.

forgottenpaswrd 15y ago

One of the principal investors in Spotify is... Facebook. There is nothing like having free money thanks to the billions of Golman Sachs, we will see how much they recoup.

s1ugh34d 15y ago

http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/open/ http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/open/ This link is on spotify's help page and enables the open sign up without facebook, the nag screens post there-of, I do not know, I don't use paid or will-attempt-to-make-me-pay services, and to boot, Grooveshark is still free without an account

teilo 15y ago
No, it doesn't.

netmau5 15y ago

I once made a site that only allowed sign in via Twitter. That was a huge mistake. Do not segment potential users by login mechanism, more often than not you will raise the barrier of entry from potential to not.

flyt 15y ago
or don't rely on a service with only 200 million total (not active) users

s1ugh34d 15y ago

my bad, still forces facebook log in, even enable you to sign up for facebook on spotify's website, dumb move, another player on the Blue F wall

cgag 15y ago

I noticed this a day or two ago when I tried to sign up at the recommendation of a coworker. I decided against it when I realized you had to use your Facebook account to login. I'm going to check out rdio instead.

tdicola 15y ago

Can anyone figure out where to delete their Spotify account in the web UI? I don't even think it's possible. This move to require Facebook is ridiculous IMHO and I want no part in the company's services anymore.

dbin78 15y ago

Is Reed Hastings on their board? Bad business decision!

dr_ 15y ago

Spotify can do whatever it wants. It may seem a bit extreme to require a facebook account to use the service, but honestly - competing with a behemoth like Apple and iTunes, with it's inevitable rollout of a similar service at some point that - it's not an easy thing to do. For Spotify to succeed against its competitors, it's going to have to take drastic measures, and this is pretty drastic. I've actually wanted more of my friends on facebook to get on the service so we could share music, but many don't even know what Spotify is. In fact, on the flipside, there was an article on one of the Apple/Mac blogs suggesting that Apple desperately needs a social network. Music is meant to be shared.

richHN 15y ago

It's worth mentioning that Sean Parker is involved with both Facebook and Spotify.

stfu 15y ago

Interesting. Maybe Facebook is integrating a Mafia based business strategy: Either you become an exclusive Facebook service or we just rip off your idea and offer it as our own. Wasn't there some guy recently on HN who claimed that FB screwed him over with their music service?

kefs 15y ago

If you aren't paying for the product or service, you are the product or service.

Kastor 15y ago
Until yesterday, many of us were paying €10 each month for the privelege of being the customer instead of being the product or service. With this move they make it clear that they want us to be the product or service anyway.
- kefs 15y ago
  Right.. sorry, I was referring to facebook. I guess I wasn't clear.

americandesi333 15y ago

Why doesn't Facebook just buy Spotify...

flyt 15y ago
Nobody in their right mind wants to build a business that is 100% beholden to record labels. Facebook is focusing on building a platform first, and anything else would be a [time|money] distraction.
noarchy 15y ago
If their agreement is favourable enough for Facebook, perhaps they decided that the level of control that they had was good enough. With Spotify now building its business model around Facebook, Facebook's control is not far from outright ownership, it would seem. Facebook didn't need to spend x millions for any purchase.

RandallBrown 15y ago

For every 1 person that doesn't sign up for Spotify because they need Facebook, there will be 2 people that sign up because they don't need to create yet another account. This obviously stinks if you think Facebook is some super evil company, but if you're a regular person it probably doesn't matter.

guard-of-terra 15y ago
That does not explains why they had to make Facebook mandatory. Optional Facebook auth would save every one person and still gain those two people.
- RandallBrown 15y ago
  True.

jhuckestein 15y ago

Facebook give's them an on-stage keynote plus smooth Spotify integration (just check out that gorgeous install flow) and they give Facebook mandatory FB accounts in return. Seems like a deal rather than a "move".

aasarava 15y ago

As a Facebook user, why exactly do I want to see a notification about each and every song that 100 different friends are listening to at any given point in the day? Add in the fact that Rdio does the exact same thing (spam my Facebook "ticker"), and it's even more ridiculous.

wastedbrains 15y ago

I am sick of everything being social. I listen to and read things I enjoy and often don't want to share it with the whole world. For example battle.net in SC2 tries it's damn hardest to make me post achievements and connect with my friends online, and I just want to play a game alone when I happen to have some free time. That kind of game wasn't social for me in the first place, and I don't want it to be. Same with my spotify usage, I want to listen to the radio, I don't want the whole world to know I am listening to jazz radio at the moment.

antimarketing 15y ago
I agree, and I have a "nutty" conspiracy theory to explain why things are this way: Social media is simply the middle class and the tax payers paying for investments in technology. The U.S. government inflates the money supply, through bailouts and zero interest loans, for banks, who refuse to lend to the general public. However, this money can not sit on the sidelines, since inflation the cash itself creates cause it to lose value so tons of it end up in wacky technology investments. It does not matter which type the investor is — angel or some other sort of creature. A billionaire or a friendly neighbour. Everybody wants to invest as much money they get from banks as loans and as little of their own as possible. The money the banks give ultimately comes from the middle class that consumes these services (can't really call them products can we?) in the first place. Thus the middle class is paying a bunch of middle men and lucky dorks with it's own money to invent these services and they will be later paying lots more to "enjoy" them. Nevermind the loss of privacy, which is simply an icing on the cake. Question: if these are social technologies shouldn't the State be doing these types of investments in the first place? Or if they are social in the other sense, in terms of authentic grass-roots and anti-state citizenry — shouldn't social media be about personal blogs, news feeds, videos etc..?

Hisoka 15y ago

I got a question. Does Facebook connect give Spotify access to my email address that is linked to my Facebook account? Does it give them access to my first and last name as well? If so, I could understand their stance... it will give their service a higher viral coefficient.. at the expense of a few users..

leoalmighty 15y ago

Seems like Facebook might've asked for this as part of the integration deal. Otherwise I see no obvious reason for Spotify to limit their customer base. Unless the economics of delivering music to a non-facebook user is much less attractive and have much lower conversion to paying user? I find music discovery on Spotify to be poor compared to Pandora, and without my FB connections sharing playlists, I have no incentive to pay for Spotify.

macca321 15y ago

I've just cancelled my premium subscription and mentioned 'too much forced facebook integration' as the reason

alexqgb 15y ago

From the (very pissed) comment thread on getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/can_you_sign_up_for_spotify_without_facebook? "In the 90's we had to deal with Windows-only software. Now we have Facebook-only software. Great."

antimarketing 15y ago
Microsoft became dominant because Gates is the most ruthless businessman on the planet. Facebook is becoming dominant because humanity in general can not grow up from its glory days in college-rules.com

iamjoshua 15y ago

While it is annoying, this will exponentially grow the spotify user base. I am a single island of music consumption right now on spotify. IF I were to link my facebook account(which I never use) to it, my feed would be seen by all of my friends encouraging new signups for spotify. Music is extremely social. Facebook is social. Annoying, yes. Smart, definitely.

ginzasparrow 15y ago

Good thing I have absolutely no idea what spotify is.

cmer 15y ago

My prediction is that Facebook will be acquiring Spotify within 6 months. Makes sense for both parties, and last I checked, Sean Parker is a shareholder in both.

bborud 15y ago

Sean Parker must have slipped some Rohypnol in their drinks.

eric-hu 15y ago

This makes me wonder if there was some backroom deal to give Facebook an edge over Google+.

rhubarbquid 15y ago

Is Spotify going to start giving a discount on subscriptions for all this marketing/advertising information they're pushing to Facebook?

teilo 15y ago

First iHeartRadio. Now this.

bdz 15y ago

I live in a country where most of the big music streaming services are not available, only last.fm. With this move, may Spotify open their service to other countries? Yeah, I know music labels are strong but side by side with Facebook they have some power. And I guess, it's hard to ignore 700+ million users.

DannoHung 15y ago

Spotify's selection is awful and they lump tons of unrelated artists together. I've been using MOG for a month and have been 99% satisfied (their new beta doesn't work with my firewall at work for some reason).

tonio09 15y ago

truth is: the majority of end user don't care if they can only sign up with facebook. it's even easier for them as they have less choice to make. This is only a problem for highly privacy and technology aware folks, like tech bloggers or developers. Apparently, they are not the target audience.

8ig8 15y ago

I know it's not completely analogous, but AOL comes to mind. Facebook seems to be this subset of the internet like AOL was. You have to remind people that something bigger exists beyond the walls.

droithomme 15y ago

What is the real reason these companies are doing this? It's obviously not the reasons they claim. There must be some sort of incentive program where Facebook is giving them kickbacks, as well as a gag order that prevents them from stating the agreement they have. It's very close to the old practice of companies that "sponsor" popular software by paying the developers to include their third party adware toolbar installers in the package, often embedding themselves deep within the user's system on a rootkit level, just as Facebook invisibly tracks everything you do.

zackattack 15y ago

1) facebook OWNS spotify. their testimonial, "spotify rocks" - mark zuckerberg, is proof that they bow to mz and are catering to his audience (most of the world, thx Goldman Sachs). 2) it's very smart for facebook to own music and therefore, emotion (Twitter hedge fund? FORGET THAT, I'm going to start a SPOTIFY hedge fund.) 3) the number one reason i use spotify is social: i like being able to listen to a friend's playlist (i have chosen him as an arbiter of cool music...) 4) i still use youtube to search out esoteric sounds that aren't available on itunes/amazon/spotify

mike-cardwell 15y ago

I contacted support@spotify.com and asked them to delete my account. They replied: "If you wish to close your Spotify account, log into your Spotify account profile (https://www.spotify.com/account/profile/ https://www.spotify.com/account/profile/), and add ".del" to your email address. Your account will be closed within 48 hours."

codeboost 15y ago

Facebook is a dangerous social experiment. It's not a 'virtual passport'. Rather, it is a 'virtual bank', except they don't store financial information about the users, but everything else. And that is an unimaginable amount of power. Given that their intentions are different from their user's (they want profits, users want... to share photos), it is not hard to assume that Facebook does and will use the user data in order to maximize profits or grip on power. I think that nothing good will come out of this marriage of Spotify and Facebook. Facebook gains a lot of meta information about the Spotify users (and music taste tells a huge amount about a person), whereas Spotify is reduced to being a convenient and easily replace-able bit pipe. Now they'll be able to run their social algorithms based on music habits and offer us the best, most relevant and unique crap for sale on the market. Or one day the government decides to isolate the listeners of The Doors and deny login to every site that uses facebook as a virtual passport.

SonicSoul 15y ago

i hope that existing users will not be forced to link their Facebook accounts to continue using Spotify

nothis 15y ago

And so it begins...