Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by EpicEng » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

bliblah wrote: post #309

cletus wrote: post #255

Good. Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. To those who justify wanting the paid service for nothing by saying Spotify won't "take responsibility" or "assume liability" for their ads or those ads "might deliver malware" or are "intrusive" as a weak rationalization, you present a false dichotomy. There are at least three options: 1. Pay for the service 2. Suffer through the ads 3. Don't use…

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

They don't, but you also do not have an inherent right to use their service. What about video game cheats? Should e.g. Blizzard have no recourse should you run software which allows you to cheat in their games? You may say "well fix your bugs!", but it seems simpler and better for the community to just ban the tiny percentage of people who are hell bent on cheating.

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

#362

Post by dvtrn » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #344

dvtrn wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels, for some-odd reason that us audio people have to justify our purchasing decisions and desire for quality and fidelity way more than people who spend hundreds of dollars on 21 inch 144hz monitors and care about things like frame rate and texture resolution do. Or maybe not, but it's a feeling.

Enthusiasts complain about the crappy latency and refresh rates of modern LCD televisions all the time, against people saying "just turn on motion smoothing and most people won't notice." I'm not justifying one or the other, but it happens in both domains.

I suppose I'm glad I offered the caveat that it was a 'feeling', in that case.

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

#363

Post by heinrichhartman » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

The question this boils down to ultimately is:

Who owns the consumption platform (device/OS/Browser)?

If the user owns the platform, it's the responsibility of the service provider to deliver HTML. Nothing more. The user may display the content in any way he/she like. Store it for later consumption. Extract information, etc. This is how the web was initially envisaged. Browser extensions which allow you to inject JS/CSS are still a relict of this era.

If the service provider owns the platform, all the user may do is consume the content in its provided form (inc. Ads) or leave it. This is where the web is currently headed. With company controlled mobile platforms (iOS) the control over the platform is already completely out of the hand of the user. Consolidation of the Browser technology is another step in this direction.

If the regulator does not step in, this paradigm shift will go on, and we will see more and more lock-down of the web.

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

#364

Post by josteink » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

kgwxd wrote: post #327

cletus wrote: post #255

Good. Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. To those who justify wanting the paid service for nothing by saying Spotify won't "take responsibility" or "assume liability" for their ads or those ads "might deliver malware" or are "intrusive" as a weak rationalization, you present a false dichotomy. There are at least three options: 1. Pay for the service 2. Suffer through the ads 3. Don't use…

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

> Contrary to popular belief, ads can be delivered without arbitrary code execution.

All true and all irrelevant to his point.

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

#365

Post by g45y45 » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #245

nixpulvis wrote: post #20

Considering how services like Spotify and Apple Music incourage extra data usage, and randomally delete music as they see fit, I'm finding myself thinking more and more of these services as discovery tools (akin to radio) and less like media players (they aren't). One day very soon I'll be playing all my music in something else entirely again. While it's impossible to brush off the value of streaming services like Sp…

> and randomally delete music as they see fit They don't randomly delete things. They remove content due to licensing expiring. Thank our backwards media licensing system for that.

Its almost like piracy is an important component in preserving the cultural legacy of humanity from IP vandals.

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

#366

Post by graeme » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

bicubic wrote: post #58

dessant wrote: post #13

They allow advertisers to run JS on your device, and ads are a trendy way to deliver malware. People are using ad blockers not just to hide annoyances and to improve performance, but to protect themselves from bad actors. https://spotifyforbrands.com/en-US/ad-experiences/ > JavaScript or iFrame Tags: All third-party tags and tracking URLs need to be in https format. I was on the fence about this because there is a le…

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…

Apple music is pretty good. Has basically everything I want, and you can add your own music via icloud too.

For movies, criterion collection is coming out with a streaming service, if that's your thing. I don't have netflix but I will have that.

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

#367

Post by ProAm » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

polskibus wrote: post #329

What if I have firewall that blocks some IPs and it just so happens that they belong to the ad servers? Will it count as circumvention?

banhammer

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

#368

Post by nchie » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

danijelb wrote: post #60

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.

Should TV networks try to block you if you don't look at the TV while ads are running? Or if you turn it off/switch channel/mute it? Same goes for newspapers and magazines - do you have a right to skip pages filled with ads and not look at them?

No, just like Spotify doesn't ban you for turning off the audio during commercials or looking away from the screen.

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

#369

Post by redsky17 » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #242

redsky17 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing.. I'm already paying for two music streaming services that I use far more often than Spotify. And my wording isn't clear, but I don't listen to it 'a few hours per day every day.' It's more like 'a few hours when I do listen to music at work, which I don't usually do.' I'd guess that it's less than 10 hours per month that I'm listening to Spotify.

why dont you just ditch the other two subscriptions and use spotify exclusively ?

The simple answer is that I don't like Spotify as much as I like GPM and Tidal. Tidal is my go-to for high-quality music when I'm listening at home on my nice speakers. I've found that Tidal has the best radio experience, at least for the type of music I listen to (Spotify and GPM have a bad habit of playing the same exact songs / artists when I do a radio for a particular artist/album/song, Tidal varies it more).

Google play music is simply extremely convenient considering how nicely it works with Google Assistant. Additionally, I have tens of thousands of my own music collection uploaded to GPM that I'm free to download whenever I want without restriction. Spotify lets you play music offline, but it's basically cached and still tied to your premium Spotify subscription.

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

#370

Post by ouid » Fri, Feb 08, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #255

Good. Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. To those who justify wanting the paid service for nothing by saying Spotify won't "take responsibility" or "assume liability" for their ads or those ads "might deliver malware" or are "intrusive" as a weak rationalization, you present a false dichotomy. There are at least three options: 1. Pay for the service 2. Suffer through the ads 3. Don't use…

1-2 coffees? it's 10 bucks. where are you that 1 coffee is 10 dollars?

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