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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

#171

Post by Ajedi32 »

sinstein wrote: post #17
krn wrote: post #11

What about the Brave browser[1], which works at the application level? Or Blokada[2], which works at the OS level? Or Pi-Hole[3], which works at the network level? [1] https://brave.com [2] https://blokada.org [3] https://pi-hole.net

As someone mentioned in another comment, I don't think they will care about how the ads are being blocked. As long as you are bypassing ads, you are in breach of their TOS.

So if someone connects to a public Wi-Fi network with a Pi-Hole installed, they'll get banned?

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

#172

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mrkstu wrote: post #14
Laforet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is going to end badly. What if the ISP or corporate network have their own domain blacklists?

I block advertising as a category at our corporate proxy (it saves about 20% of potential web traffic and about 85% of the vectors of infection,)! People definitely aren’t going to be happy if they start losing their accounts for listening at work...

Yeah, corporate filters blocking a number of ad domains is quite common, and a lot of people listen to Spotify at work. This is probably going to go very badly.

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

#173

Post by redwall_hp »

dcbadacd wrote: post #112
___alt wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to run arbitrary third-party software to run ads, period. I'm perfectly fine with ads in an ad-sponsored ads but I'd appreciate if it didn't open my computer to malware infestations.

Can you please link me an ad provider that would allow me to monetize my website without including massive third-party software on my web-page?

If you're the size of Spotify, you have no business using third parties. You should have an ad sales team and be selling inventory directly.

TV companies and print newspapers don't need third parties and invasive tracking to sell ads.

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

#174

Post by move-on-by »

sidyapa wrote: post #7

This is a good move. Even though ads are annoying and frustrating at most times it is not anybody's birth-right to use a product/service for free and block their sources of revenue. If they have a pay-to-remove-ads option, use it.

I have no beef with ads in general. But I do have a concern for user tracking. If the ads are just ads - then that is all fine and well. However, most if not all of these so called ads are tracking users across services and devices. Then 'enriching' that data with more data from other sources and selling that information about me to whoever wants it.

I think privacy is what the majority of people who use these blockers are trying to get. I know that is the reason I use ad blockers at least. I do have a right to privacy, and the amount of information advertisers can learn about me though meta data is a serious violation of that privacy. Unfortunately with targeted advertising, then line between ads and tracking has disappeared, they are one and the same. And yes, I am aware that a lot of advertisers allow you to disable targeted ads- however they still collect the same amount of information, they just claim not to use it for their ad choices.

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

#175

Post by Wowfunhappy »

martimarkov wrote: post #89
bad_user wrote: post #55

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…

> I pay with my time to watch or listen to your stupid ad.

Not if you're using an ad-blocker.

Perhaps the reason you're using an ad-blocker is because you don't want to be tracked, and the only way to do that is to block ads completely. I get it. But you're also using up Spotify's bandwidth and licensing fees (which in turn allow music to be created in the first place), without providing anything in return.

This is only possible because paying and ad-watching customers are subsidizing your behavior. It is the definition of freeloading.

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

#176

Post by wolco »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #85
bicubic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the dwindling Netflix catalog and increasingly hostile subscription service experience on Spotify, I have found myself flying the black flag again. I still have subscriptions to both, but I will be cancelling them this year. I don't want their shitty analytics payloads, I don't want their shitty anti-adblocker tech. I don't want their shitty tactics of deleting random songs off my playlists. I just want the c…

> 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…

Netflix offers too much value for a small amount plus the size of movies makes downloading/previewing the throwaway type of netflix shows make it hard to justify the effort to pirate.

Spotify always seems less useful compared to winamp if you knew what music you liked or like to download everything from one band who's best days are behind them. A hassle for new stuff but if you want the all of the 'yes' albums the rare shows, interviews spotify just doesn't cut it.

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

#177

Post by tomschlick »

redsky17 wrote: post #127
jasonjayr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What kind of industry do you work in that allows unfettered access to the internet but doesn't allow you to have a phone? Seems backwards...

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

#178

Post by redwall_hp »

corint wrote: post #82
hiccuphippo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't they delete it from your device if so they wanted?

Yes; with pinning music offline it's still encrypted & within the Spotify app. The app needs to be connected to the internet at least every 30 days to ensure that your subscription is still current (and, presumably, that all those tracks are still permitted to be on your device). I've suffered the same, as content agreements have changed, tracks have been made unavailable in playlists. There's a setting in Spotify to…

They've replaced original recordings on my playlists with newer rerecordins, too. It's not the same at all when a band rerecords forty years later...

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

#179

Post by messe »

pwaivers wrote: post #69
messe wrote: post #52

There's thousands of free internet radio stations, most of which have none or minimal advertising. I recommend people try them out.

Any links or suggestions?

I recommend searching through the catalogue on http://www.radio-browser.info/gui/

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

#180

Post by metafizikal »

bubblethink wrote: post #105
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #85

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…

a well-encoded mp3, ogg, or aac file will be audibly transparent to almost every end user, even on extremely high-end equipment. mp3 does have the side benefit of being supported on damn near everything.
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