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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

#381

Post by nickthegreek »

macd wrote: post #246
wolco wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ra…

A happy medium for me is google play music. Basically the same song selection and features as spotify, plus the ability to upload your own mp3s that aren't available on the platform (I actually haven't used this feature in a while, but it seems like it still works). And you get ad-free youtube as well.

I am all about Youtube premium. Replaced my spotify with it and I love it. Ad free youtube, my own mp3s along with the google music catalog is great. They even grandfather people in on the original price that they subbed for when the service price increased.

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

#382

Post by selflesssieve »

g45y45 wrote: post #354
michaelmior wrote: post #271

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.

They sell caffeine tabs- 200mg each. A bottle of 80 is $7 at CVS. I agree with you on the subscriptions though. I'd rather buy something for life- not have it buy me for life.

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

#383

Post by g45y45 »

givinguflac wrote: post #372
g45y45 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Hell no to cable TV. Hell yes to piracy.

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

#384

Post by gramstrong »

dithering wrote: post #305
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…

Years ago, a Windows virus slipped on to three family machines I'm the go-to-guy for, due to Spotify using IE to display ads, and not vetting its ads properly. My answer was two-fold - never use Spotify, and always use an ad-blocker.

I've pretty much always paid for Spotify, and from what I can remember when they first started all of their ads were "radio" ads. How were they using IE to display their ads? Did they introduce pop-ups?

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

#385

Post by opencl »

zzzcpan wrote: post #303
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…

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.

Ads only make up ~10% of Spotify's revenue. If they start putting ads on the paid version everyone will just leave for one of the competing ad-free services (Amazon, Apple, Google). I'm sure you're right about the tracking though.

https://adexchanger.com/digital-audio-radio/spotifys-f-1-sho...

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

#387

Post by interestica »

reaperducer wrote: post #347
ar0 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will all depend on how this plays out in practice. For now, this is only some fineprint in a ton of other legalese that might or might not be used in the future. I mean, if they show you a notification that you should really sign-up for a paid subscription or disable your adblocker, this does not really seem a big deal for me and all right for Spotify. However, if they terminate your account because you ha…

These two items do not go together: happened to use Spotify for a while on a system with adblocking enabled drive a lot of potential customers If they're not paying and blocking ads, they're not customers. And if they weren't willing to pay for Spotify, why would they suddenly be willing to pay for Apple Music? being on a Pi-Hole network The number of people setting up home filtering devices isn't even a rounding err…

Their customer bases aren't distinct streams. They want existing users to upgrade to a premium version. They're not going to be helped by banning those that are already in their system and a click away from an upgrade. Or, like myself, someone who tested out other similar systems and then decided to upgrade again. Does trying to use my account on a system with an adblocker (that I may not know about) warrant a ban?

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

#388

Post by nickdandakis »

ouid wrote: post #370
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.

Is that really your problem?

Even if coffee doesn't cost $5, and it costs $2.50, that's 4 coffees.

Or even $1 coffee, that's 10 coffees.

Unlimited music streaming for a month is absolutely worth 10 coffees.

The coffee example is brought up because _most_ people that claim that $120/year is a lot for them, spend a lot more than that a year on coffee.

That's not to say $10/month is trivial. I'm sure it's not a trivial amount of money for some people. The parent isn't denying that. They're saying that they're happy that Spotify is banning people that are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're blaming people that CAN afford 1,2,5,10 coffees a month, and still chose ads or worse, adblockers for a service they can easily pay for as the demise of the internet. Which I wholeheartedly agree with.

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

#389

Post by rchaud »

School-Cotton wrote: post #143
minikites wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're rewarding them for bad behavior with your money. Think about what this does to their incentives.

It's totally unclear to me why you think this should be considered bad behavior. Imagine a grocery store has a promotion - you can get a loaf of bread for free if you listen to a twenty minute advertising presentation. Does this justify not going to the presentation, and just stealing the bread?

Well this would have to be a special kind of bread where the inventory amount does not change when a loaf is consumed.

Bear in mind, this loaf can also only be eaten inside of the grocery store. You cannot leave the store with the bread, because it is welded to the infrastructure of the grocery.

Not paying for a gym membership would be a better example. You're using up available capacity without giving the gym a way to monetize your presence there.

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

#390

Post by pytyper2 »

Changee6 wrote: post #353
kgwxd wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You don't even have to go that far. You could let ads still be html iframes with text/image/video/audio content. Just no javascript or cookies. (enforcable via csp sandbox) And "acceptable ads" policies of blockers could require those properties. They wouldn't even need a fixed whitelist or cooperate with specific companies for that, all they have to do is allow iframes with appropriate CSP rules. I.e. it's a vendor-…

They would not get as much telemetry, they also want all the data, it's not just the showing of an ad, it'c collecting everything the internet knows about the user and their pc. The problem is the tracking, collecting and resale of personal data. NOT simply viewing an ad! Ya dig?
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