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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

#911

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #834
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Ad blocker" is #1 thing that should be installed first on every single browser, everywhere, to block third party ads. Agreed. But I don't block ads just because ads are annoying. I don't even block ads because I don't like being tracked. My reason for blocking ads can be summed up in a single word. Malvertising. As soon as ad networks began trying to spread malware through ads was when ads moved from being a nuisa…

Can someone explain to me where these "malverts" come up? I use two chrome profiles, 1 with an adblocker and 1 without, and browse pretty often with both, and while the experience without is undeniably worse (slower, bloated, garbage on the page), I've never gotten malware. What is this stuff and where do I find it?

The Wikipedia page on Malvertising has several examples listed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising

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

#913

Post by tomjen3 »

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…

I used to pay for spotify, but they kept changing the interface and fucking up in other ways.

Seriously, I would have continued to pay them, if I could have used the same software I originally got with it.

Of course I am also the sole user who ever paid for groveshark premium, and none of the current efforts are even a tiny bit remotely close to its interface, much less its music selection.

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

#914

Post by caymanjim »

pnutjam wrote: post #404
givinguflac wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Piracy!? Perish the though.. Is it piracy if I buy cable tv and timeshift with a torrent my dvr missed?

Yes, it is.

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

#915

Post by mygo »

scotty79 wrote: post #900
nojvek wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it was black mirror style. You had to listen to the goddamn ad. I used to take off the earphones when the ad played. It was an annoying enough experience. Although I mostly upgraded to paid option for the high bit rate audio. Music sounds so much crispier. Making users pay for no ads may not be enough to nudge them over. Offering a premium pro is definitely a viable model.

> It was an annoying enough experience. For me it was annoying enough to stop using spotify.

sometimes annoying UX can turn users away instead of leading the users to give them money.

They know the ads are annoying and can turn users away. So they nudge the users with one of those "hey, these ads suck don't they? pay us for an ad-free experience" during ad spots or in place of ad spots.

I don't think I've used another service that uses so many of their prime ad spots to try to advertise getting rid of ads.

This may also suggest that Spotify makes much much much less than $10/user/month on ads. So much less that they can afford not to show paid ads in an ad spot if it'll lead to more paying users. Which I'd agree. Or maybe supply and demand kicks in and they just up their ads pricing as a result of showing less ads. But I don't think the ad-buying market can bear increases in ad pricing, otherwise facebook could just up their ads pricing instead of destroying the newsfeed with so many ads, which hurts user retention.

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

#916

Post by Sebb767 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #882
Sebb767 wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stealing is taking property with the intention of permanently depriving the rightful owner of said property. > One cannot steal data by not watching ads because you can't deprive the owner of said data. Well, it is. Spotify grants you the temporary license to play the copyrighted song for you listening to their ads. They _pay_ for the right to distribute that song. It's like taking something from a store and refusi…

Stealing is a term of art for the legal arena. Just like a million idiots who call their entire tower a cpu doesn't serve to redefine a technical term you "feeling" like not watching ads is stealing food from your mouth doesn't mean that it is. There are a number of pieces of actual property involved but the user isn't carting off Spotify's servers and spotify isn't breaking into the users home and stealing their lap…

Well, stealing is be defined as[0]:

> a: to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully

Using Spotify without paying them, either directly or by watching ads, falls under that definition. The fact that there is no actual object being taken does not impact this.

If you create a great piece of software and I copy and then sell it, would you not consider it stealing? After all, you still have your copy.

Or, if a client contracts you to configure his network and then refuses to pay, is that not stealing your work? After all, you just used knowledge and time. Nothing stolen here, you still have your knowledge and you can surely make a copy of the configuration files :)

> The fact that you actually believe that you can buy their thoughts, their autonomy, their attention, and their time with your cheap crap doesn't mean if they opt not to give you those things you have been stolen from because those things were never for sale and you can't own them.

I don't believe you can buy their thoughts and I don't think Spotify attempts to. But you can definitely buy their time. That's exactly what you sell when you're employed.

> The best you can do is not do business if you feel like the deal isn't mutually beneficial. Take your ball and go home if you like but don't be dumb enough to call your users thieves for claiming unalienable rights to their own brains and machines.

Again, I totally agree. I would not use Spotify with Ads either. But if I'm not willing to fulfill my side of the deal, be it paying with time or money, I'm in no way entitled to their service.

[0] From: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/steal

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

#917

Post by Spoom »

nojvek wrote: post #796
heynk wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've paid for Spotify for a while, so its been some time since I've heard an ad. But from what I remember, if you put the volume below ~30%, the ad pauses.

Yeah it was black mirror style. You had to listen to the goddamn ad. I used to take off the earphones when the ad played. It was an annoying enough experience. Although I mostly upgraded to paid option for the high bit rate audio. Music sounds so much crispier. Making users pay for no ads may not be enough to nudge them over. Offering a premium pro is definitely a viable model.

They could get past that by quizzing you on the ad.

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

#919

Post by PopeDotNinja »

chucksmash wrote: post #487

Unfortunately their web player has issues with recognizing some paid accounts. I have a grandfathered $5/mo no ads account. My corporate firewall settings prevent me from using the desktop Spotify client. The web player still plays ads for me when I'm signed in to my account. When I raised this issue with Spotify support, they were friendly and professional but the answer boiled down to "use the desktop client, the f…

Could you set up an SSH tunnel and use the client through that?

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

#920

Post by mononcqc »

amatecha wrote: post #617
jbeales wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing(s): 1. It's not just 1 type of ad. In Little Snitch, I have permitted Spotify to connect to 281 different domain names, most of which are ad-related. That's a lot of companies being allowed to run JS in whatever webview Spotify uses to display ads. I don't listen much on my computer anymore. 2. They keep advertising deals to me - $0.99 for a month, or $9 for 3 months, that I can't subscribe to becaus…

Dang, it's pretty telling that they don't provide their paid offerings to users due to the consumer protection laws in the respective region...

they do. I'm a paying user in the specific region mentioned. The thing they do not offer is the first month free. Quebec law forbids companies from "offering one month free" and then auto-billing you whether you consent or not at that point.

What companies frequently do instead is offer "pay N months, get N+1 months", such as getting 13 months for a yearly subscription. Spotify just never felt like modifying their offer for local laws, but I've nevertheless been a premium member for years now.

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