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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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It sounds like they're only suspending free accounts for adblockers. At the same time, I don't mind spotify tracking how I use the application. It generates valuable data for their product managers to improve the overall experience. If there's evidence spotify is using this data to track users across the internet, then there's problem.

Spotify is not a public service, it is a company. They can pay for user testing in order to improve their product or they can use completely anonymous data. Your privacy is not a necessary sacrifice for products to improve nor should it be.

That being said, I find it OK for them to block users who try to get a paid service, for free. What isn't OK is the advertisement model. A better model in my eyes would be for limiting the free element of the service more and/or running unintrusive ads for the service itself. That way you could still push for more paying customers, without sacrificing the users who can't afford the product.

I do think their is a nuance between tracking how you use the app and letting third party systems track what you do, where you are, etc. Still, they are just a company, not a basic human need.

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

#372
post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I typically buy at least 1 coffee a day for $7 at starbucks. Without this, I cannot function. I still cannot justify paying for any media. Certainly not $10+/month for Spotify or Netflix. Sorry. I don't care this seems inconsistent, its consistent to my own beliefs.

Do you pay for cable tv? How do you consume media? Piracy?

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

#373
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bandcamp is definitely my favourite platform for buying music. No DRM, flac format available if that's your thing. Artists can put up both digital and physical merch. Wish they had a more fully-featured experience for streaming music on PC. Downloading to play in foobar is a bit of a faff sometimes!

In case you don't do this already: You can use Bandcamp Downloader [ https://github.com/Otiel/BandcampDownloader ] to download the artist's music – including any or all albums and any of the songs – just by entering the addresses of the pages. Might make getting the audio easier, considering you've already paid.

I've seen that before, thanks. Wish I could find a similar tool to download (or stream) my bought and paid for collection, at the quality I set!

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

#374
post #327
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…

I'm assuming you're using an ads-blocker. Just out of curiosity, if Spotify would serve ads via images only, without JavaScript, would you whitelist it in your ads-blocker?

If no, then the loading of JavaScript isn't really the issue, isn't it?

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

#375
I’m just concerned as a paying customer. I blanket block all known ads and tracking scripts network wide via pihole. Are they going to ban me too because their precious tracking is blocked and their automated system thinks I’m the same as a free user blocking it? Solution that’s less hostile would be to just axe free accounts altogether.

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

#376
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main competition will be Amazon Music as I already have access to it due to my Prime account. I have a Spotify subscription because Amazon Music didn't used to exist and now I am used to Spotify, but if I'm paying for Amazon Prime anyway then why not make the switch?

Because the Amazon music subscription you get through prime is terrible.

It's not "terrible." It's fine if you just basically want background playlists and don't want to pay for a premium service (from Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, etc.). But I agree that Amazon Prime Music isn't really a competitor to Spotify in the sense of using it to search for and play specific music.

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

#377
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop. Any kind of specialty drinks, which most people I would believe get at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, the local coffee shop, end up being $5-8, not even in a major city or metropolitan area.

Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop.

Any size coffee is $1 at McDonald's 24/7. The quality is improving, too, so it's something to remember when you're traveling in unfamiliar territory.

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

#378
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…

4. Don't pay for the service and block the ads :)

That said... Go with #3 everyone. Spotify is horrible for artists.

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

#379
post #317
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bandcamp is definitely my favourite platform for buying music. No DRM, flac format available if that's your thing. Artists can put up both digital and physical merch. Wish they had a more fully-featured experience for streaming music on PC. Downloading to play in foobar is a bit of a faff sometimes!

The selling point of BC for me is the sense of community. You can see reviews of releases from other fans, and you cannot post a review unless you've paid up, which eliminates 99% of trolls/shit-stirrers. It definitely helps that BC is focused on independent artists and doesn't seem interested in pushing grand visions of a global musical monoculture in the way Spotify does (those pretentious Year in Music retrospecti…

Must agree with you here (even though I do like me some Lana del Rey). Majority of Bandcamp music in my collection is retro/synth/new wave, and some "drone" which is nice to have on as white noise while working.

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

#380
post #370
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.

Major city, depends on how fancy the coffee.

Your pre-spotify music budget was less than $10 per month? Pre-streaming music I was definitely buying more than one CD per month, to my recollection those were about $10-15.

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