Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 963 posts

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

#211

Post by Jhndb »

antoineMoPa wrote: post #35

I dont get why people use spotify instead of listening to free online radios from anywhere in the world. As a bonus, its like travelling. There are ads, but they target other people than you so its not even annoying (you will not be influenced to buy a car at a dealership in another country). Note that if you are the kind who likes targeted ads, this does not apply to you.

I don't want ads while listening to music, and I want all my thousands of weird songs I've added over the years on all my devices wherever I go

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

#212

Post by skiw »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #16

Sounds like a reasonable move. Spotify delivers so much value that I couldn’t imagine not paying for it (or enduring ads). I listened to something like 25 straight days of music last year.

I agree, and I think maybe music has different places in different people's lives.

Personally, I pay for Spotify and use it constantly to listen to everything from game and movie soundtracks (and covers), rock and metal bands, EDM, indie, pop, and more obscure instrumental music.

I understand if you mostly listen to a few bands from the era you grew up in, or don't listen to music too often at all, it might make more sense to keep a paid music collection and use Spotify less frequently (and justify using the free version), but if I paid for all of the music I listen to individually, it would easily rack up to something like 10 times (or more) the amount my yearly Spotify does. IMO, if you aren't a "power user," use a different streaming service or buy your music individually.

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

#214

Post by belorn »

bad_user wrote: post #55
furicane wrote: post #36

It's fascinating how we, humans, are lazy. We're lazy to the point where we'd gladly allow services like Spotify to control our computers just so they can make sure their ad was delivered. We'll even justify it by "well, I really listen to a lot of music". All I want is to push a button and get some bearable-noise during my 8 hours at work. I don't know about the rest, but I really hate when someone makes a fool out…

What’s fascinating to me is the length people go to in order to justify freeloading. If you don’t like the ads, Spotify has a subscription plan. In my country that’s €5 / month. Surely that’s less money spent than the effort it takes to pirate music for usage with foobar2000.

I have no problem with advertisement if they agree to take full liability if any contains malware or breaks the law.

If that requirement is freeloading then I disagree with that definition of the word. They enjoy the benefit of behavior which if it was offline would be illegal, and out competes those service which operate more ethically. Since society currently expect the users to be responsible if their machine get infected by malware, it is fully ethical if they use software like ad-blocks to protect themselves.

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

#215

Post by IloveHN84 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #85
bicubic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It's not because I don't want to pay for the content, I'd happily pay 2-3x under the right circumstances. It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation. Can't help you with movies/Netflix, but in the case of Spotify, you could go back to buying mp3's. Google Play, Amazon, iTunes (aac format), etc will all sell y…

Use Kodi and plugins. Or rent good old DVDs for movies.

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

#216

Post by paulgb »

jamespo wrote: post #93
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…

Access to spotify free tier is not a human right, it's quite easy to just not use it

Exactly. I use an ad blocker (usually I disable it when a site asks nicely, but I turn it right back on if their ads are intrusive) but I don't get the sense of entitlement that seems to come with ad blocking for some people. If I want to use an ad blocker, that's my right; if a service wants to block me for it, that's theirs.

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

#217

Post by mattl »

dcbadacd wrote: post #209
mattl wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Deck was one such network. https://digiday.com/media/low-tech-ad-network-deck-ad-blocki... I tried to get a similar thing started for free software and it ran for a while https://www.fsf.org/news/ad-bard

But now there isn't anything available?

I'm not aware of one but I'm no longer in an environment where I keep tabs on things like that.

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

#218

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

vaylian wrote: post #61
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, since most ad blocker detection can't tell the difference, and the difference is irrelevant to an ad vendor anyways.

I am looking forward to the day when the ad provider has an outage and spotify detects that 100% of their users do not load ads. Or when popular antiviruses start blocking suspicious website contents.

Honestly, this would be an amazing way to take out Spotify.

Denial of Service at the ad provider, cripple the user base, advertise your service with a "don't get spoti-screwed"

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

#219

Post by cdubzzz »

snuxoll wrote: post #199
redsky17 wrote: post #29

The only reason I use an ad-blocker with Spotify in the first place is that they have an abundance of NSFW ads that play. I'm not really comfortable with Trojan advertisements while I'm sitting in the office plugging away. It's definitely their right to deny service if people are freeloading... but there could be other people like me who wouldn't use an ad blocker in the first place (on Spotify, at least) if the ads…

My wife is an avid Pandora user, recently there's been ads from Adam & Eve on the service. It's been fantastic to sit down and eat dinner as a family, then hear an ad for a sex shop play after a couple of songs. It's not like I'm offended at there being an ad for an adult store or anything, but it's just really offputting? I guess? to hear about some buy one get one on adult toys or whatever while I'm eating.

> It's not like I'm offended at there being an ad for an adult store or anything, but it's just really offputting? I guess? to hear about some buy one get one on adult toys or whatever while I'm eating.

It sounds like you are offended. How else would you characterize being "offput" by something? We also use Spotify in our household and I vaguely recall hearing A&E ads as well, but they just jumble together in my subconscious with all the other ads.

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

#220

Post by peapicker »

oligopoly wrote: post #120
yreg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's a free service. They have no reason to care about users, who block ads and don't intend to ever become paying customers.

You have lot of students and people who can't afford it as of now but can convert to paying customers later on. If you buy into the system you are more dependant on it than just going another route and you end up not giving a damn about Spotify

Students are $5 a month. Same as one Starbucks coffee a month. It is cheap already.
Post reply on HN