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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

#601

Post by dylan604 »

AJ007 wrote: post #423
dithering wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ad blockers are mandatory on my parents computers. They can’t distinguish between what is or isn’t an ad (not speaking specifically of Spotify display ads.) I feel like I hold an opinion no one else reading hacker news has, I believe website owners should be able to deliver ads and website visitors should be able to block them.

I feel like websites should be able to run clearly labeled ads that are not trying to pretend to be anything but an ad.

I also feel like paid for articles should be clearly labeled as such and not hoping people will not notice the review/write up isn't just an ad in sheep's clothing.

I get it. A website needs to make money in order to stay in business delivering "free" content. Why does it have to be a game? Commercials/ads on television are not hidden. We accept that in order to bring broadcast television without a BBC style licensing fee, the broadcasters make money selling air time to advertisers. Sure, some product placement occurs in some of the programming, but that's up to the producers and not the broadcasters.

Why is it any different on the internet?

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

#602

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

fastball wrote: post #518
v_lisivka wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I still have right to NOT use service provided by Spotify or and another third-party service, completely or partially.

You do NOT have a right to use the service "partially" (by blocking ads), as blocking ads on their free plan is against the ToS.

It is my private property (my screen). I absolutely do have the right to use it partially if Spotify is emitting it freely. Their terms of service have utterly no relevance to what I disallow to be shown on my private property.

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

#603

Post by dylan604 »

ddebernardy wrote: post #535
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…

Best I'm aware, radios offer unlimited music broadcasting all day long and are doing just fine without subscribers. I've never used Spotify, but if its free, supported by ads option means serving web-based stuff, then it might want to look into getting rid of that and serving audio ads every few songs instead. Ad Blockers wouldn't be a problem in that scenario, and Podcasters have long shown that the what essentially…

> Best I'm aware, radios offer unlimited music broadcasting all day long and are doing just fine without subscribers.

Unlimited broadcasting of the same set of songs in rotation that they choose for you. That's supposed to be a huge selling point of the streaming services is to offer a larger selection than what corporate radio limits what's broadcast.

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

#604

Post by Siemens »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #521
judge2020 wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least now, Spotify can only be downloaded in the Windows store (they discontinued use of the desktop application on Windows 10). As I understand it, W store apps are sandboxed, so something like this reasonably isn't possible anymore (at least without an escape exploit)?

You could run a network-level ad blocker, ie PiHole [1]. [1]: https://pi-hole.net/

And then you would be banned for blocking ads.

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

#605

Post by kakarot »

TheJazi13 wrote: post #496
kakarot wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Don't pay for the service and block the ads :) That said... Go with #3 everyone. Spotify is horrible for artists.

Correction: The labels are horrible for artists, Spotify payouts are just a symptom of the way labels rip every penny out of the artist.

We don't blame the knife when someone stabs another. Spotify is just another player in this diseased game. They are part of the problem, not a symptom of it.

This is coming from someone who has followed and evangelized Spotify since the beginning, way back when Ludvig joined and it was still P2P.

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

#606

Post by tomjakubowski »

v_lisivka wrote: post #590
munk-a wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal enforceability of the TOS isn't really important here, when you use a service there are conditions with that service. Go ahead and try walking into starbucks, paying for half of a tall americano and walking out the door with half of a tall americano. Service providers have the inherent right to place conditions and limits on the services they provide.

IMHO, the more correct analogy will be to walk into cinema and watch cinema without paying for pop-corn, despite the fact that theater makes most of their profit on pop-corn. I have no obligation to make a business profitable.

Customers who use too many company resources or hurt the bottom line get dropped. Like when a suspected card counter is banned from a casino. That's just what's happening here.

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

#607

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

beering wrote: post #514
kgwxd wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no stealing, it's not even lying. Show me where in the agreement it says exactly "you must to listen to ads from a third-party if you listen to music". There are things like "we retain the right to...", or "by using this service, you agree to allow us to...". There are no commandments, only stuff that covers their ass so you can't sue them for closing your account, exposing your personal information or letting o…

I'm frankly surprised at the level of entitlement that you and others are operating under. Section 8 and 9 of the Spotify T&C is what you are looking for, btw.

I’m frankly surprised you believe terms of service regarding a data stream that a company chooses to freely emit are in any way related whatsoever to a person’s right to restrict what is displayed on a physical device that they own.

My screen is not Spotify’s property. They are allowed to TRY to display something on it, and it will only be displayed IF I LET THEM. There’s no discussion here.

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

#608

Post by amatecha »

I assume paid subscribers aren't affected by that rule? I have a pretty comprehensive /etc/hosts file that blocks a lot of ad networks (particularly ones known to traffic particularly onerous ads and/or malicious code). There's no way I'm nuking that because Spotify has this new rule. But I don't see ads in Spotify anyways due to having a paid subscription. I assume this new "rule" will never affect me. Guess I better make a local backup of my library/playlists just in case? :P

But.. to be honest, can we just have Rdio back? It was vastly superior and when it went under, Spotify was literally not even capable of importing my Rdio library (because Spotify actually limits how many songs you can add to your library, with a ridiculously low limit of _10,000_ songs). Users have been requesting an increase to this since 2014 or earlier, with of course zero changes to this amount. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Your-Music-Incre... (notice it has _451 pages_ of comments)

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

#609

Post by munk-a »

tzakrajs wrote: post #582
munk-a wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within current legal standards you are. Ideally the government is supposed to step in and regulate situations like these to remove bad actors and provide consumer protections, since in a monopoly/oligopoly consumers can be forced to go without a service to comply with onerous conditions for that service and the music industry loves their monopolies. A website is currently absolutely within their rights to decline you…

This is what is frustrating. I will agree that users are subject to civil law, but that is not a moral claim. I am seeing so many people on HN taking a strong, rebuking moral stance on a civil matter. They hand wave the morality of Spotify allowing RCE by third-parties but feel indignant for a person breaking a fucking TOS or EULA.

Also frustrating is being hit by a wave of down votes for even tangentially mentioning libretarianism in a negative light, there is a lot of appeal to libretarianism similar to socialism, and every other governmental or economic approach, refusing to discuss the pros and cons just further cements the partisan divide.

Just to be clear, libretarianism is not incompatible with regulation - I happen to think that a certain amount of regulation and government oversight is required to allow things to function, I am an optimist about human behavior, but the ideal anarchist world with no laws is absolutely unsustainable, IMO. So my barb (and it wasn't even a sharp one) was more about the false painting of libretarianism being incompatible with government regulation and the talking points that ensue, then any desire to allow a focus on individual freedoms.

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