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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

#251

The amount of people here outraged that Spotify is preventing them from blocking ads on the free tier is astounding. Pay for the service if you don't want ads.

I think the outrage is more so that Spotify thinks it can tell you how your computer is operating. Other companies have found ways to circumvent adblockers, which is the route they should be taking here... Not telling users that their computers have to conform to some set of standards so that they can inject ads into your experience.

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

#252
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…

The simple solution is that Spotify accept liability for any malware delivered via their ad system.

woah woah woah, you can't go expecting a company to take responsibility for what their service does. I think there's a constitutional amendment about that.

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

#253
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…

Bandcamp is another option. They have multiple download formats, including FLAC. Lately I've been seeing more albums from artists on ("major" indie) labels, not just self-released.

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

#254
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…

> They allow advertisers to run JS on your device, and ads are a trendy way to deliver malware. I wonder if the ad industry is onboard with HTTPS yet? In 2013 when I was last looking at ads as an attack vector, none did, and many executed JS, or gave privileged access to system APIs on device via JS, which meant that it was fairly trivial to intercept ad delivery, return malicious JS, open a "reverse JS shell" and po…

iOS/MacOS block HTTP requests by default unless you request (and for apps on the App Store, are granted) an exception. So, I’d think that in-app advertisers on iOS would want to support HTTPS.

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

#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 the service

This thread is an object lesson in why basically every large service on the Internet is ad-supported. When people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for a month of unlimited music streaming are you really surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model?

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

#256
Spotify: Provide service that costs labor, resources, licensing, etc.

Spotify: Use ads for non-paying users to help cover the costs

Freeloading Users: Use third party software to sidestep this source of revenue, essentially getting the product for free.

Spotify: Ban these users.

Freeloading Users: shocked_pikachu.jpg

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

#257
I'm surprised at the amount of entitlement hiding behind "I'm worried about the security concerns of allowing 3rd party JS to run on my device." If you don't want that happening, use one of the many alternatives and take the usability hit. Pandora, online portals for actual radio stations (like BBC Radio 1), and Youtube all work, but maybe don't have as great of a user experience as Spotify (or another paid streaming service). And let's be honest, the small minority of people here who evangelize "Spotify is evil" to friends/family is not going to have a meaningful impact on their user numbers.

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

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about justification of freeloading. It's about a company being able to push arbitrary stuff to your device masked as adverts. Yeah fine I listen to music for free on your service. Does that mean that everyone should be able to spy on me? Nobody is complaining about voice or image or video-based ads. But running JS and iframes is just arrogant. Also I'm very pissed off with people who say freeloading. It…

> I pay with my time to watch or listen to your stupid ad. Not if you're using an ad-blocker. Perhaps the reason you're using an ad-blocker is because you don't want to be tracked, and the only way to do that is to block ads completely. I get it. But you're also using up Spotify's bandwidth and licensing fees (which in turn allow music to be created in the first place), without providing anything in return. This is o…

Advertising can be done without arbitrary code execution. Magazines, broadcast TV, radio, podcasts, movie theaters, billboards, news papers, etc. all manage to do it without that. Spotify already has a way to deliver audio and video to the machine, nothing else is required, and if they used that existing avenue, blockers couldn't stop it.

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

#259
post #221

But Spotify is only $10 a month....Your time spent pirating vs. time saved on Spotify has to be worth something.

My time searching for and discovery albums is invaluable to me. Spotify removes that satisfaction.
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