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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

#781

Post by brewdad »

stale2002 wrote: post #683
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know about other users, but I'm not canceling my Spotify account to stand in solidarity with the freeloaders. Ad blocking users are a net negative to Spotify, why shouldn't they ban them?

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

#782

Post by jsmeaton »

logifail wrote: post #759
jsgo wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get married. The agreement between you and your significant other is that both parties will be faithful and to perform various duties within the relationship. Also, if the marriage is ended, both parties leave with their individual things/pay/etc. You decide to play the field. Your significant other decides to leave you and you are now responsible for the tasks/financials that your significant other previously as…

>> Also, if the marriage is ended, both parties leave with their individual things/pay/etc... Q: Would Spotify refund users that they ban?

Sure they would. The $0 the user spent on the service.

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

#783

Post by matwood »

graeme wrote: post #758
matwood wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good point. Where do you get them for $80? If you can buy them in a place with good credit card rewards percentage on the gift card it's even lower.

You just have to keep an eye out. My sub renews over Christmas and I got one from PayPal for $80. I think last year Amazon had a lightening deal for $80 (may have been 2 $50 cards for $40 each). $85 is pretty easy to find though. I think PayPal just had a deal earlier this week.

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

#784

Post by v_lisivka »

logifail wrote: post #761
v_lisivka wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>> I have no obligation to make a business profitable. Do we have an obligation to allow script in our browsers? >90% of my "news reading" on the internet is done with NoScript running; from my point of view it's all good, no ads, no GDPR pop-ups, pages load quickly, fewer worries about tracking. It's probably not what publishers want, though.

I interact a lot with ads on eBay and similar sites. I even subscribe to them! Moreover, I also like ads at Facebook news feed, because they are relevant and delivered at time. I unlike but click sometimes at ads in Google. Everything else is banned with NoScript.

IMHO, ad-driven business model is OK, but implementation matters. If site will _serve_ me with ads, I will use it. If site will try to abuse me with ads, then I will try to shield me from this abuse.

I have ideas how to solve Spotify problems, but it looks like Spotify employee are downvoting opponent comments to death, so they will have my f*ck instead of hint.

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

#785

Post by Havoc »

I can deal with paying for stuff. I can deal with "you are the product being sold" services.

I can't deal with being both simultaneously. Companies that attempt that combo can kindly shove a cactus somewhere.

Maybe this is just a bad article, but to me the no ad-blockers sounds like a blanket ban not just free users.

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

#786

Post by murderfs »

logifail wrote: post #759
jsgo wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get married. The agreement between you and your significant other is that both parties will be faithful and to perform various duties within the relationship. Also, if the marriage is ended, both parties leave with their individual things/pay/etc. You decide to play the field. Your significant other decides to leave you and you are now responsible for the tasks/financials that your significant other previously as…

>> Also, if the marriage is ended, both parties leave with their individual things/pay/etc... Q: Would Spotify refund users that they ban?

Refund them what? They're not paying anything.

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

#787

Post by wicket »

I use a Firefox extension to protect me from CSRF attacks and tracking networks. It basically blocks all content from domains which do not not pertain to the page that I am reading. A side-effect of this is that it blocks most ads. The extension is frequently mistaken by many websites to be an ad blocker. I've no problem with ads per se, I realise that they are often important for funding a website. What I have a problem with is that the overwhelming majority of ads on the internet come from networks that are used for tracking.

I don't think I'm alone. I wonder what percentage people use ad blockers primarily for privacy purposes. In a perfect world, websites would implement their own way of displaying ads that doesn't rely on ad networks. This would make ads much harder to block, websites could potentially take 100% of the ad revenue, privacy advocates would be much happier and there would be less incentive for anyone to develop or use ad blockers.

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

#788

Post by underwater »

kgwxd wrote: post #327
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…

Contrary to popular belief, ads can be delivered without arbitrary code execution. The Spotify app already has the ability to deliver audio and video, that's all they need. The mistake here is letting third-parties onto users devices. It's a disgusting industry-wide practice that needs to stop. Using the existing audio/video delivery system would render "ad blockers" useless. "thrid-party blockers" would still work a…

Hypothetically there are three groups of people: Those who don't block ads, those who block distracting/dangerous ads and whitelist responsible ad delivery, and those who block everything.

In practice the second group is miniscule. There is zero incentive for companies to improve their practices and grow their market by targeting those people. Instead the only path to maximising profit is to increase the value they can get from people without ad blockers.

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

#789

Post by epidemian »

I'm having a hard time understanding the rationale of this being "Good."

It's not like forcing people to watch or listen to the ads will make them click the ads, or like the products sold in those ads. In fact, i'd suspect forcing someone who prefers not to see ads to see them anyway will most likely make them dislike the advertised products, or the service that runs those ads, so it'd be a net loss.

It that not the case? If it is, then what's point of doing this?

(Note: i pay for Spotify. I like the service, and i think providing "extra" features like being able to play exactly the songs you want, or download them is a better way of promoting the paid version than running annoying ads.)

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

#790

Post by hesdeadjim »

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…

Thank you. The entire reason we are subject to as many ads as we are is because people aren't willing to even pay $1 a month for a service that has become indispensable to their lifestyle.
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