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Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

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Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#121

But can they block me muting the ads?

Dont give them any ideas. Next they will require you to say the advertised brand name 5 times in order to get back to the content.

Please drink verification can.

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#123

It's fascinating how we, humans, are lazy. We're lazy to the point where we'd gladly allow services like Spotify to control our computers just so they can make sure their ad was delivered. We'll even justify it by "well, I really listen to a lot of music". All I want is to push a button and get some bearable-noise during my 8 hours at work. I don't know about the rest, but I really hate when someone makes a fool out…

What’s fascinating to me is the length people go to in order to justify freeloading. If you don’t like the ads, Spotify has a subscription plan. In my country that’s €5 / month. Surely that’s less money spent than the effort it takes to pirate music for usage with foobar2000.

Surely the capability to deliver JS is still there, even if you're a premium user. This is worrying.

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#124

It's fascinating how we, humans, are lazy. We're lazy to the point where we'd gladly allow services like Spotify to control our computers just so they can make sure their ad was delivered. We'll even justify it by "well, I really listen to a lot of music". All I want is to push a button and get some bearable-noise during my 8 hours at work. I don't know about the rest, but I really hate when someone makes a fool out…

To counter this, I got an email from Spotify a few days ago telling me about their terms of use update, and they were very upfront about the ad-blocker crackdown right in the email. I don't think they were hiding anything behind their ToS at all.

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why don’t you pay for a subscription? If you keep listening to Spotify, surely it brings you value. I know I’m getting value from it. I listen to music all day at work and personally I don’t have many services that I use so often.

Because you already pay with your time and attention when they play ads. Why should you pay for a subscription?

Because a few dollars a month is cheaper than your time lost listening to ads.

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not because I don't want to pay for the content, I'd happily pay 2-3x under the right circumstances. It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation. Can't help you with movies/Netflix, but in the case of Spotify, you could go back to buying mp3's. Google Play, Amazon, iTunes (aac format), etc will all sell y…

mp3s are compressed and lossy. Makes them unsuitable for buying. There are a few sites like bandcamp that sell flacs. Not sure why the big players don't let you buy flacs. It's not like there's an engineering issue. Maybe they get the rights only for lossy files. Edit: Since some will invariably point out that you can't hear flacs, here's a better argument. Even if you prefer lossy music, there are and will be better…

For recent releases they tend to be available, but you might have to look through many channels: next to Bandcamp Beatport, Qobuz, Juno Download, Bleep, Boomkat are stores I check.

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be mistaken, but it was my understanding that those backup codes are one-time-use only, and that using one basically burns it forever. My cookies get cleared every single time I close my browser, so I would have to continually log back in and keep burning more codes. If I'm wrong about this... that would be excellent.

You can keep a sheet of about 5-10 of them, and generate more when needed. It's inconvenient, but if your in an environment that disallows phones or other portable electronics (like 2FA Fobs/USB sticks), it may be the only reasonable way.

I wonder if there's a way to programmatically re-generate the one-time-use codes. It might be a fun project to set something up that emails a one-time-use code to my work email and then regenerates one.

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s fascinating to me is the length people go to in order to justify freeloading. If you don’t like the ads, Spotify has a subscription plan. In my country that’s €5 / month. Surely that’s less money spent than the effort it takes to pirate music for usage with foobar2000.

It's not just about justification of freeloading. It's about a company being able to push arbitrary stuff to your device masked as adverts. Yeah fine I listen to music for free on your service. Does that mean that everyone should be able to spy on me? Nobody is complaining about voice or image or video-based ads. But running JS and iframes is just arrogant. Also I'm very pissed off with people who say freeloading. It…

You don't have to use the service you know. There are alternatives, Spotify doesn't have a monopoly on music.

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont give them any ideas. Next they will require you to say the advertised brand name 5 times in order to get back to the content.

I think Sony has that patent, don't they?

Yeah, this is the one I had in mind:

http://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious-terri...

Re: Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers

#130
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah not to be glib, but that would be a deal breaker for me too.

Well, it's a free service. They have no reason to care about users, who block ads and don't intend to ever become paying customers.

The attitude you describe can easily hurt their business. They may be future paying customers that are exploring your service, or don't have the money yet to subscribe. And even in the latter group there is an opportunity for building brand loyalty.

But to see these opportunities, the first step is to not have a hostile attitude towards your users.

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