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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

#681

Post by meddlin »

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 agree with your sentiment, but there's one piece of this whole thing I have a big problem with.

It's my device. I understand Spotify's motivation to want compensation for their great service, but shouldn't I be able to run my software, on my device, on my terms? I understand this argument doesn't solve anything, and puts Spotify in a bad situation.

But...how long until someone creates a solution to scrub the audio of ads in real-time? With a beginning delay for the listening buffer, of course. This isn't trivial, but it sure is repeatable.

I wish I had something better. I don't know; this quickly feels like digital [media] in the early 2000's all over again.

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

#683

Post by stale2002 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #653
stale2002 wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is within someone's full legal right to use an ad blocker.

Yep! Just like it's within Spotify's full legal right to ban you for using an ad-blocker.

You know people can just create another account, right?

Also, they can do other things, such as starting a consumer revolt against Spotify, and by giving them bad publicity, that may cause paying users to remember about their unused account and cancel it.

Bad publicity costs companies a lot of money.

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

#684

Post by jchw »

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…

Honestly, I wish Spotify just didn't offer a free option. It's cheap enough as it is, and without the free option could probably be even cheaper.

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

#685

Post by matwood »

jbeales wrote: post #406
wool_gather wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $9-10 I can buy 10-12 CDs per year This is good in other ways! One of the problems with Spotify is that the musicians don't really get paid a realistically useful amount. I say this as someone who has both a Spotify subscription and musician friends whose music is on Spotify. That said, I personally find the subscription price surprisingly low for what I get, but I wouldn't try to tell you what to do with your mone…

There's a strong argument for "$10/month is amazing for unlimited access to this entire catalog!" But I wonder how many songs or artists I actually listen to. Is it really that much more than I would if I were buying CDs? I do enjoy the personalized playlists a lot, though.

For me it's much more than "I could buy CDs". A sub to Apple Music for example lets me go on musical journeys.

I listened to the many versions Vivaldi's 4 seasons the other day and enjoyed hearing how different orchestras performed. I have taken a dives into 80s rap/hip hop, or hair bands, or whatever else strikes me.

Those types of exploration were not possible in the days on only buying CDs.

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

#686

Post by rstupek »

stale2002 wrote: post #642
criley2 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enjoy your ban! I'm always pleased when companies stand up to grifters like you. Go back to stealing mp3s or whatever it is you think you're entitled to.

I am not sure why you are accusing someone of a crime ("stealing"). Installing an ad blocker is within someone's full legal right. Why are you making false statements regarding what is or is not a crime?

It is and it's also within your rights not to use the service, or pay for it. Why should you be allowed to use a service in a way they don't intend you to use it?

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

#687

Post by matwood »

neivin wrote: post #513
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…

I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now. Feels great flying the black flag again with Plex.

> I canceled Netflix a few months ago. Their catalog is really garbage now.

I keep reading this and wonder how much TV watching do people do daily? Netflix already has more content than I will ever get to with just the back catalog of TV shows and originals. It does not even count movies.

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

#688

Post by wolco »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #598
wolco wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to keep the piracy channel alive. Right now you may feel you have choices and options but there are a handful of players who can sell you everything. 2020 may not be as great.

If the media we purchase today is DRM Free, it will be easy to distribute when and if the legal channels disappear. Having easy-accessible piracy channels now works against that goal by incentivizing content providers to invest in more stringent DRM schemes. DRM can rarely prevent piracy completely, of course, but it can make piracy more difficult and less accessible.

DRM never stopped piracy and DRM affected paying customers and drove them toward piracy makincg it more accissible (more people sharing bigger hive). The effect is not the cause in this case.

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

#689

Post by matwood »

graeme wrote: post #366
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…

Apple music is pretty good. Has basically everything I want, and you can add your own music via icloud too. For movies, criterion collection is coming out with a streaming service, if that's your thing. I don't have netflix but I will have that.

The trick I use for AM is they have a single user deal $99/12 months. You can almost always find $100 iTunes gift cards for $80-$85 making your effective price $6-$7/month.

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

#690

Post by logfromblammo »

heynk wrote: post #510
judge2020 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already do this, there are constant interruptions for 30-second audio ads. Currently, you can turn the audio down, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do something akin to the black mirror episode "fifteen million merits" where you have to look at/listen to the ads for them to go away. The main gripe is using adsense which can still often be used to deliver malware.

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.

Buy headphones with their own thumbwheel attenuator and/or mute button, or plug your corded headphones into an extension cord or dongle that has them.

Traditional broadcast radio gets zero feedback from most receivers. Spotify is already a step ahead of that by preventing users from avoiding ads just by changing the radio station, and I think that the clever tricks with the volume are really pushing it in terms of user hostility.

I pay to not get ads, so I'm not really motivated to explore avoiding them.

But if you try to advertise at me no matter what I do, or overestimate what I would pay, I will join in the arms race against your advertisers. I'll block the ads, and block the ad-blocker detectors, and block the ad-blocker-detector-blocker detectors. I'll crunch your cookies, and squash your pixel, and firewall your home-phoner.

Maybe I put a 30-minute buffering program on the audio stream that the music program is allowed to use, and tell that program to skip ahead during the ads. Maybe I also train another program to recognize the ads, and tell the first program exactly how far to skip ahead. Maybe I lock the music program in the matrix, and control all the data it tries to get from the system, to the point that it cannot ever say what reality truly is.

There's something to be said for just playing the ad audio without trying to ensure someone is listening, or identifying who it might be. After all, Spotify could be playing music to a cat in an otherwise empty house, with the mobile device quietly displaying "Now playing 'Meow Mix Theme - Metal Version' on device 'Bluetooth speaker'."

(If that song actually exists, I cannot attest to its quality, because I swear I thought I was making it up.)

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