I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, Spotify is a pretty good service, and worth paying for IMO. It makes sense to me from a business standpoint that they don't want non-paying users...
I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, Spotify is a pretty good service, and worth paying for IMO. It makes sense to me from a business standpoint that they don't want non-paying users to use their service without even getting ad revenue for it.
On the other hand, a TOS clause that permits terminating accounts for using ad-blockers just feels wrong. It's my device, why should they be able to tell me what I'm allowed to do with the data they send me? Just because they send me some javascript shouldn't mean I'm obligated to run it.
Technically, they're not telling you what to do with the data they send you. They're not forcing you to turn off your adblocker with the threat of legal action looming overhead or anything of the...
Exemplary
Technically, they're not telling you what to do with the data they send you. They're not forcing you to turn off your adblocker with the threat of legal action looming overhead or anything of the sort. They're saying that if you use an adblocker they'll refuse to serve you. Which makes perfect sense, they're allowing you to use their service at no cost to you and all they ask is that you listen to some ads. If you don't want to listen to ads, they're happy to sell you a premium, ad-free experience with higher quality audio and other neat perks.
Now, I'm not saying I agree with this approach (I think a tiered sub approach would be nice to have for those who just want to get rid of ads), and I think it sets a lousy precedent for some of the more egregious actors to abuse, but those licensing fees need to be paid and the service needs to be able to put food on its employees tables.
(which, if I'm allowed to digress a bit, brings up an interesting philosophical question: people want things for free, but at the same time people want to be paid a living wage...so if you don't pay for spotify, and you won't let them make money through ads, how could spotify ever pay their employees a living wage? Something's got to give (in this case 90% or so of their profits come from subs, so as a sub holder: you're welcome). But that's neither here nor there.)
Honestly, I wouldn't bat an eye if Spotify decided to ditch free ad-supported accounts completely and go subscription-only. I've had premium for years, and I agree that they have no obligation to...
Honestly, I wouldn't bat an eye if Spotify decided to ditch free ad-supported accounts completely and go subscription-only. I've had premium for years, and I agree that they have no obligation to provide a service for free. Like you said, I'm mostly concerned with the precedent.
There are plenty of sites that refuse service to you if they can't show ads (like pop-ups that say "disable your ad-blocker to continue"), but that turns into an arms race: ad-blocker-blockers, ad-blocker-blocker-blockers, etc. It seems like this might be Spotify's attempt to avoid that. Simply ban users on the first offense, and there won't be the same ever-escalating struggle between users and the service.
That's an understandable point of view, but it also sets a dangerous precedent. What if Google decides to ban accounts for using AdBlockers on Youtube, or Hulu decides to disable your account...
That's an understandable point of view, but it also sets a dangerous precedent. What if Google decides to ban accounts for using AdBlockers on Youtube, or Hulu decides to disable your account because you forgot to turn off your AdBlocker for one video? It's morally grey, and a hard thing to regulate, but IMHO it leans more towards the darker side of grey than the light. There is a reason that AdBlockers exist, because advertisement firms have abused their freedom of advertisements online to the point of an AdBlocker essentially becoming a digital condom for the internet. NoScript, Privacy Badger, UBlock Origin, everyone should be running at least two of these extensions in their browser at all times and willingly give ad-revenue to the sites that they feel deserve your traffic.
I'm not seeing how it's morally grey. Spotify, Youtube, or anyone else have no obligation to accept your requests at all. It's their server, and barring any contract where they have actually...
I'm not seeing how it's morally grey. Spotify, Youtube, or anyone else have no obligation to accept your requests at all. It's their server, and barring any contract where they have actually promised to provide you service, they're completely free to not do so.
It will be interesting to see if they ban (intentionally or incidentally) any paid users who also use an ad-blocker. There an obligation might actually exists for at least the period you've already paid for.
I avoid Spotify and haven't looked too closely at their TOS, but isn't that obligation basically what you agree to when you sign up to the free tier of their service? Obviously a nice...
It's my device, why should they be able to tell me what I'm allowed to do with the data they send me? Just because they send me some javascript shouldn't mean I'm obligated to run it.
I avoid Spotify and haven't looked too closely at their TOS, but isn't that obligation basically what you agree to when you sign up to the free tier of their service? Obviously a nice middle-ground would be to serve a plain JPG or "dumb" audio ad, as podcasts without DAI do, but I assume nobody reading this thread is naive enough to assume Spotify would ever consider that.
Hopefully this doesn't sound like I'm excoriating you and OP in particular -- but I don't understand this way of thinking. If one knew the terms going in, does the service hold the value the provider proposed or doesn't it? It just seems intellectually dishonest to me to quibble over the sort of data coming in. I guess my feeling is that if one is using a service without paying, and the service has the ability to dictate terms (as they are now doing), the resulting obligation set by the service is what one agrees to.
I should add that I've got no qualms with efforts to get one over on the man, up to and including straight up "piracy". But if one is gonna swim in their pool, it just seems weird to me to get picky about the lifeguard.
(edit: Haha, whoops! @my_mo_is_lurk beat me :) That's what I get for opening a bunch of tabs to read through at once.)
I partially agree. I think users should be allowed to install adblockers but service providers should also be allowed to reject these users. So blocking ad block users seems fine but making ad...
On the other hand, a TOS clause that permits terminating accounts for using ad-blockers just feels wrong. It's my device, why should they be able to tell me what I'm allowed to do with the data they send me? Just because they send me some javascript shouldn't mean I'm obligated to run it.
I partially agree. I think users should be allowed to install adblockers but service providers should also be allowed to reject these users. So blocking ad block users seems fine but making ad blockers illegal is not ok.
Its a lot easier to accept because spotify is not a monopoly and there are lots of better services.
I don't get it, why are people complaining? Spotify needs to make money and they allow you to pay them to get rid of ads. What's the problem? The ads don't abuse your cpu or anything like that
I don't get it, why are people complaining? Spotify needs to make money and they allow you to pay them to get rid of ads. What's the problem? The ads don't abuse your cpu or anything like that
I believe that it's my network, my device. I get to say who I want to talk with. Just because Spotify says "talk with those ad servers and display they ads" doesn't meen I need to do it. But I...
I believe that it's my network, my device. I get to say who I want to talk with. Just because Spotify says "talk with those ad servers and display they ads" doesn't meen I need to do it.
But I know the reason Spotify added ads, and why they want users to stop blocking them.
Still, banning me because I refuse to talk to ad servers and execute code from them? This just feels wrong. I cannot explain why, but it absolutely feels wrong and I'm strongly opposing a corporation demanding to execute code from ad and tracker servers.
And as a note, ads do actually eat a portion of processing power and lower my battery life, but the effect is so small it isn't even worth talking about.
They absoluty do. I don't have any logical or racional reason, but these demands to run ads just seem incredibly invasive to me. It's mostly because we're not used to it. If every second app did...
They absoluty do.
I don't have any logical or racional reason, but these demands to run ads just seem incredibly invasive to me.
It's mostly because we're not used to it. If every second app did it, we wouldn't be here discussing it. But it's a new step, and from my perspective (which differs from spotify perspective), it's step to the wrong side, it's step towards Fifteen million merits.
Talk about hyperbole. Out of curiosity, how do you feel about people getting banned from online portions of games because of cheating? Isn't that pretty much the same thing?
it's step to the wrong side, it's step towards Fifteen million merits.
Talk about hyperbole.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about people getting banned from online portions of games because of cheating? Isn't that pretty much the same thing?
Yeah, sorry, it's definitely a little bit off. I think banning people because of cheating is ok. But I don't think cheating and refusing to execute ad code is the same. The same thing would be...
Yeah, sorry, it's definitely a little bit off.
I think banning people because of cheating is ok. But I don't think cheating and refusing to execute ad code is the same. The same thing would be using cracked apks that deliver Spotify Premium experience (which did (do?) exist, I read that Spotify removed tons of them some time ago). And as I've said somewhere here, I consider using these cracked apps unethical and I'm okay with Spotify fighting against it.
But hey, ads? I don't see an ad as a payment, I feel it's on a different level. I see almost as voluntary support to the developer/company. I give them my battery life, my processing power, my privacy, and my attention. So yes, it does make sense for them to block people rejecting ads, and if I was in their situation, I might do the same. But in my opinion, I have right to reject ads. I can install addon, system-wide blocker, or use something like pihole. You tell me "Hey, download & execute this code.". It's up to me whether I want or don't want to support you and sacrifice all the things I mentioned above.
The point is, Spotify has right to reject service to ad blocking users. But I don't like it, because it sets dangerous example. Once Spotify starts doing it, and if it turns out working for them, more and more websites and services will start doing it. That's why I disagree with it, even if they have right to do it and I acknowledge the right. I don't want to experience Internet where I'm blocked from websites for not wanting to execute tracking code and display ads. This is why I don't like the move from Spotify. Because I don't want mandatory ads on the Internet.
I understand why you don't like it, but there's plenty of websites that ban you (well, I suppose more like soft-ban you) from viewing their content if you're using an adblocker; so much for the...
I understand why you don't like it, but there's plenty of websites that ban you (well, I suppose more like soft-ban you) from viewing their content if you're using an adblocker; so much for the precedent.
Would you prefer if they canceled the free version and became a subscription-only service instead?
That's completely irrelevant, though. Not to mention Spotify has been bleeding money for years. If they don't enforce these things (because you obviously can't trust people to honor the agreement...
That's completely irrelevant, though. Not to mention Spotify has been bleeding money for years. If they don't enforce these things (because you obviously can't trust people to honor the agreement they made) they will have to close the shop eventually.
Hey, so it wasn't actually completely irrelevant - freeloaders playing songs without adverts will eventually ruin the game for everyone else, too.
I don't think understanding a company is within their rights and acting for their own self-interest has to be enough to make you okay with their actions.
I don't think understanding a company is within their rights and acting for their own self-interest has to be enough to make you okay with their actions.
They aren't demanding you run code from an ad tracker service, as you're free to just not use Spotify if you disagree with them. They are offering to let you listen to music on their service, and...
They aren't demanding you run code from an ad tracker service, as you're free to just not use Spotify if you disagree with them. They are offering to let you listen to music on their service, and the price you pay is running those ads. This is fundamentally no different from any other transaction. Instead of giving up your money, you're giving up your time and privacy.
Anybody concerned about these things should be avoiding "free" services like the plague. Nothing's free, and I don't see a problem with Spotify enforcing that.
It's two arguments coalescing into one. You have privacy rights/data rights folks who are perfectly in their right and on message for why they shouldn't have to see or be subject to adds they...
It's two arguments coalescing into one. You have privacy rights/data rights folks who are perfectly in their right and on message for why they shouldn't have to see or be subject to adds they don't want.
Then you have people who just want a free ride who sort of tag along and don't really have the same objections but want to get free stuff. Most of these folks are young, the sort who go "hey, it's a big corporation who rips off their artists so why shouldn't I just take my share too it's no big deal".
I agree that privacy people should have the right to block ads if they track them(I even do it myself) but Spotify doesn't use an external ad providers like google so there are no privacy benefits...
I agree that privacy people should have the right to block ads if they track them(I even do it myself) but Spotify doesn't use an external ad providers like google so there are no privacy benefits to using adblock
Banning users for using a browser-level ad-blocker is not okay in my opinion. However, using a cracked apk or anything of the sorts is a perfectly reasonable reason to ban someone from their...
Banning users for using a browser-level ad-blocker is not okay in my opinion. However, using a cracked apk or anything of the sorts is a perfectly reasonable reason to ban someone from their service. It is a free service, after all.
It's ok to forbid users from using cracked apk (they managed to shutdown quite a bit of then). But hey, banning any form of adblockers? This clause could get me banned because of using pihole to...
It's ok to forbid users from using cracked apk (they managed to shutdown quite a bit of then). But hey, banning any form of adblockers? This clause could get me banned because of using pihole to block ad servers. They would detect I run suspiciously low amount of ads, and boom, banned. That's definitelly not OK in my opinion. First Google with crippling Chrome's ability to block ads (and punishing users with captchas that are impossible to complete if they refuse tracking), now Spotify (potentially) banning users for using anything that is used to block certain ad servers (or the ads themselves).
I'm (obviously) pretty anti-advertising, and I've got about 5 different layers of things that an ad has to get through before it'll get to my computer, but I can't really get outraged about...
I'm (obviously) pretty anti-advertising, and I've got about 5 different layers of things that an ad has to get through before it'll get to my computer, but I can't really get outraged about Spotify doing this.
Streaming music to you costs them money directly, both in the costs of hosting and sending that data, as well as the fees they need to pay to the music industry whenever they play a song. They have costs they need to cover, and they're giving you a reasonable choice: either pay us, or listen to our ads. If you don't want to do either of those things, they have no obligation to keep letting you listen to music. You're just costing them money, with no compensation.
That being said, it depends heavily on how they implement it. There's nothing dystopian about it in theory, but if they start doing things like installing software that monitors your computer's volume level to make sure it's not turned down during ads, then maybe it's worth worrying about.
I know why they do that and I get. If I were on their place, I guess I would eventually do it as well. But i'm concerned about this trend. I agree they have every right to do so, but I still...
I know why they do that and I get. If I were on their place, I guess I would eventually do it as well.
But i'm concerned about this trend. I agree they have every right to do so, but I still disagree with their practice. I'm worried that if this ends up working for Spotify, other sites will adopt this behaviour as well. And at that point it starts to be really fucked up. Imagine Internet where you only get service if you allow ad code to run on your machine.
I'm angry at Spotify. Not because they want users to watch ads. But because this behaviour could be applied by others, which would be disasterous.
Part of it might be because I'm from certain central europe country, and the consumer mentality here is wastly different to America (and I guess many other countries as well). We are not used to pay for online content. We don't take online content as "real", so we don't really pay for online services that much, if at all - and that extends to ads as well. I noticed that people in my country (me included) just consider online services to be free by default. And while this isn't rational point of view, it's how it is. This is probably the main reason why I'm angry at Spotify for denying it's service to non-ad watching people. Because in our culture, this behaviour is unprecedented and is simply wrong.
I'm guessing you're Czech. The consumer mentality is different, yes, but that's partly because even ten years ago you pretty much had to pirate stuff. Nowadays the situation is different (although...
I'm guessing you're Czech. The consumer mentality is different, yes, but that's partly because even ten years ago you pretty much had to pirate stuff. Nowadays the situation is different (although paying for Netflix here is still basically a waste of money) and the mentality is slowly changing.
Obviously, you're still gonna have people over forty downloading dubbed DVD-rips from uloz.to but younger generations have no issues paying the ridiculously small amount of money that Spotify is asking for. Hell, if you get a full family plan (and they don't really enforce the family part, trust me) you'll end up paying somewhere around 40 CZK/person/month. I don't understand why anybody would choose to mess with modded APKs or block ads in the free version instead of just doing that.
Well, I know what i'm doing is unethical but I'll chime in and give you a different perspective: I'm a 20something yo student and if i get the chance to save money, no metter how little we're...
Well, I know what i'm doing is unethical but I'll chime in and give you a different perspective: I'm a 20something yo student and if i get the chance to save money, no metter how little we're talking, I'll do it, not out of necessity but as a priciple; call it stinginess if you so desire. I mean, why would i have to pay X amount of money for something if there is a slightly more difficult way to get that same thing for free availible?
I am aware that if everyone did what i'm doing many services whould shut down, but I am also very aware that the great majorty of people are either not knowledgeable enough or can't be bothered to look up how to do it properly so chances are me not paying won't make much of a difference.
Many fellow students look at me like I'm an alien when i tell them i don't have Spotify, but again, why would i have to pay for something like that when i can easily download songs in high quality from Deezer and store them locally? Plus by doing that i also don't have to spend my monthly traffic mobile fee for nothing.
It makes sense Spotify is doing this, but chances are if you're concerned with adblocking in the first place you probably will also be knowledgeable enough to just use some other way to get music for free and without annoyaces.
I do agree though that it's a generational mentality shift as you say: many of my friends would rather pay the fees and be done with it instead of actually looking for the workaround and get stuff illegally...
Honestly, I don't think you can call that anything else at this price point. I mean, I generally don't like to patronize people about piracy. I downloaded so much shit over the past 15 years that...
call it stinginess if you so desire
Honestly, I don't think you can call that anything else at this price point. I mean, I generally don't like to patronize people about piracy. I downloaded so much shit over the past 15 years that I think there's a special place for me in copyright hell. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. But it's forty crowns. Have one less beer next time you go out.
i can easily download songs in high quality from Deezer and store them locally? Plus by doing that i also don't have to spend my monthly traffic mobile fee for nothing.
It's 9,99€ where i live, but your point still stands - guess i am stingy with this kind of services. Would you know if the mp3 files once downloaded locally are directly accessible as files to...
It's 9,99€ where i live, but your point still stands - guess i am stingy with this kind of services.
Would you know if the mp3 files once downloaded locally are directly accessible as files to copy elsewhere from the Spotify app btw? Just out of curiosity.
That's alright, i don't take it personally, plus i know what i'm doing is not exactly agreed upon, i just wanted to point out that it still makes sense to go 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' :)...
That's alright, i don't take it personally, plus i know what i'm doing is not exactly agreed upon, i just wanted to point out that it still makes sense to go 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' :)
Presumably, this is more directed at blockers that directly block Spotify ad content, not just general ad blockers. With that, I have no problem with them banning them. You are stealing their...
Presumably, this is more directed at blockers that directly block Spotify ad content, not just general ad blockers. With that, I have no problem with them banning them. You are stealing their content, and while I don't have a problem with people pirating content, I also don't have a problem with there being consequences for your actions.
Essentially, if you're just using spotify as an easier avenue to pirate content, they're completely within their rights to bar you from using their service. If you're just a lay-customer that happens to have an adblocker installed, they shouldn't penalize you for that.
Why not? Spotify is providing a service. Why shouldn't they be allowed to set the terms by which you're allowed to use the service? You're essentially demanding that Spotify provide free service...
Banning users for using a browser-level ad-blocker is not okay in my opinion.
Why not? Spotify is providing a service. Why shouldn't they be allowed to set the terms by which you're allowed to use the service? You're essentially demanding that Spotify provide free service to certain users.
We'll have to wait and see to be sure, but I would imagine that Spotify would rather not ban any users. I would expect them to give several warnings before actually banning anyone.
We'll have to wait and see to be sure, but I would imagine that Spotify would rather not ban any users. I would expect them to give several warnings before actually banning anyone.
That's great, but if I'm being honest, isn't blocking ads on Spotify Free just piracy with fewer steps? Yes, it absolutely is more convenient to use Spotify than to download your MP3's, and I...
That's great, but if I'm being honest, isn't blocking ads on Spotify Free just piracy with fewer steps?
Yes, it absolutely is more convenient to use Spotify than to download your MP3's, and I don't have a people with people pirating, but why should I or Spotify care if there's one less person stealing their service? For all I know, this could be part of a plan to lower their costs to paying subscribers.
Are you sure you replied to the right comment? I don't use spotify. EDIT: Or I should say my comment is meant as a more general repudiation of all of the streaming music services. I was using...
Are you sure you replied to the right comment? I don't use spotify.
EDIT: Or I should say my comment is meant as a more general repudiation of all of the streaming music services. I was using Amazon Music but even that, which was included at no cost with my Prime membership, grew burdensome. Why should I have to adjust my playlist because you lost the license to the music I like?
I don't really have a problem with this, but i've been a paying member for over half a decade so I guess I am bias. It would be like using a hacked client to bypass a "fremium" game's pay...
I don't really have a problem with this, but i've been a paying member for over half a decade so I guess I am bias. It would be like using a hacked client to bypass a "fremium" game's pay features. Sure, maybe those pay features aren't fair, but you have the choice to not play. There's a reason that whitelists exist on ad-blockers.. if you don't believe any services should be serving ads, then you should stop using services that rely on ad revenue. Especially when they have an affordable alternative to bypassing those ads.
I see no problem with this, it's not like you can't get rid of ads via subscription. Do people honestly think their free service will run on goodwill or something?
I see no problem with this, it's not like you can't get rid of ads via subscription. Do people honestly think their free service will run on goodwill or something?
At my previous job, the corporate proxy blocked Spotify ads, and none of the various anti-adblock measures they've tried worked. I wonder if my former coworkers will end up getting banned (even...
At my previous job, the corporate proxy blocked Spotify ads, and none of the various anti-adblock measures they've tried worked. I wonder if my former coworkers will end up getting banned (even with no adblocker installed) because of this?
Anyone know how to export your spotify library into a spreadsheet or something? I use it quiet a lot for listening to new music and deciding what to get drm free copies of, I don't want to lose...
Anyone know how to export your spotify library into a spreadsheet or something? I use it quiet a lot for listening to new music and deciding what to get drm free copies of, I don't want to lose that if spotify decides to nark me for running a pi hole.
edit:
I found this which lets you no-frills retrieve a playlist.
Just request data download from Spotify. You'll get a really well organised data. It's in JSON, but there are many JSON to CSV converters out there and you can get your spreadsheet that way.
Just request data download from Spotify. You'll get a really well organised data. It's in JSON, but there are many JSON to CSV converters out there and you can get your spreadsheet that way.
I'm shift+click selecting all the contents of my lists and drag/dropping them into excel. The track names come pre-hyperlinked to the song in spotify, so I don't need to copy over anything extra....
I'm shift+click selecting all the contents of my lists and drag/dropping them into excel. The track names come pre-hyperlinked to the song in spotify, so I don't need to copy over anything extra. I can just click each cell and spotify will open right up to the song. LMK if you don't use Excel/Libre-office equivalent and I'm happy to snag your lists for you and send it to you in a CSV or Google Sheet or something.
Maybe you could try to request your personal data, they should give it to you in scriptable format and I bet there will be a nice file with your library.
Maybe you could try to request your personal data, they should give it to you in scriptable format and I bet there will be a nice file with your library.
Pi-hole isn't an ad-blocker (although it's often used to produce similar results) and you won't be banned for using one. That being said, it's always good to have a backup plan.
Pi-hole isn't an ad-blocker (although it's often used to produce similar results) and you won't be banned for using one. That being said, it's always good to have a backup plan.
I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, Spotify is a pretty good service, and worth paying for IMO. It makes sense to me from a business standpoint that they don't want non-paying users to use their service without even getting ad revenue for it.
On the other hand, a TOS clause that permits terminating accounts for using ad-blockers just feels wrong. It's my device, why should they be able to tell me what I'm allowed to do with the data they send me? Just because they send me some javascript shouldn't mean I'm obligated to run it.
Technically, they're not telling you what to do with the data they send you. They're not forcing you to turn off your adblocker with the threat of legal action looming overhead or anything of the sort. They're saying that if you use an adblocker they'll refuse to serve you. Which makes perfect sense, they're allowing you to use their service at no cost to you and all they ask is that you listen to some ads. If you don't want to listen to ads, they're happy to sell you a premium, ad-free experience with higher quality audio and other neat perks.
I don't think people truly appreciate how hellish the music licensing landscape is, nor the fact that they've got really tough competition in the form of Apple Music (and amazon music and yt music et al), or the fact that even with subs they're still hemorrhaging money. So with all that in mind, I reckon Spotify's been pretty dang chill.
Now, I'm not saying I agree with this approach (I think a tiered sub approach would be nice to have for those who just want to get rid of ads), and I think it sets a lousy precedent for some of the more egregious actors to abuse, but those licensing fees need to be paid and the service needs to be able to put food on its employees tables.
(which, if I'm allowed to digress a bit, brings up an interesting philosophical question: people want things for free, but at the same time people want to be paid a living wage...so if you don't pay for spotify, and you won't let them make money through ads, how could spotify ever pay their employees a living wage? Something's got to give (in this case 90% or so of their profits come from subs, so as a sub holder: you're welcome). But that's neither here nor there.)
Honestly, I wouldn't bat an eye if Spotify decided to ditch free ad-supported accounts completely and go subscription-only. I've had premium for years, and I agree that they have no obligation to provide a service for free. Like you said, I'm mostly concerned with the precedent.
There are plenty of sites that refuse service to you if they can't show ads (like pop-ups that say "disable your ad-blocker to continue"), but that turns into an arms race: ad-blocker-blockers, ad-blocker-blocker-blockers, etc. It seems like this might be Spotify's attempt to avoid that. Simply ban users on the first offense, and there won't be the same ever-escalating struggle between users and the service.
That's what I thought too, but then I realized the free is a great demonstration of value to potential customers. I doubt they'll drop it
That's an understandable point of view, but it also sets a dangerous precedent. What if Google decides to ban accounts for using AdBlockers on Youtube, or Hulu decides to disable your account because you forgot to turn off your AdBlocker for one video? It's morally grey, and a hard thing to regulate, but IMHO it leans more towards the darker side of grey than the light. There is a reason that AdBlockers exist, because advertisement firms have abused their freedom of advertisements online to the point of an AdBlocker essentially becoming a digital condom for the internet. NoScript, Privacy Badger, UBlock Origin, everyone should be running at least two of these extensions in their browser at all times and willingly give ad-revenue to the sites that they feel deserve your traffic.
I'm not seeing how it's morally grey. Spotify, Youtube, or anyone else have no obligation to accept your requests at all. It's their server, and barring any contract where they have actually promised to provide you service, they're completely free to not do so.
It will be interesting to see if they ban (intentionally or incidentally) any paid users who also use an ad-blocker. There an obligation might actually exists for at least the period you've already paid for.
What if they instantly reject you from any website using captcha?
I avoid Spotify and haven't looked too closely at their TOS, but isn't that obligation basically what you agree to when you sign up to the free tier of their service? Obviously a nice middle-ground would be to serve a plain JPG or "dumb" audio ad, as podcasts without DAI do, but I assume nobody reading this thread is naive enough to assume Spotify would ever consider that.
Hopefully this doesn't sound like I'm excoriating you and OP in particular -- but I don't understand this way of thinking. If one knew the terms going in, does the service hold the value the provider proposed or doesn't it? It just seems intellectually dishonest to me to quibble over the sort of data coming in. I guess my feeling is that if one is using a service without paying, and the service has the ability to dictate terms (as they are now doing), the resulting obligation set by the service is what one agrees to.
I should add that I've got no qualms with efforts to get one over on the man, up to and including straight up "piracy". But if one is gonna swim in their pool, it just seems weird to me to get picky about the lifeguard.
(edit: Haha, whoops! @my_mo_is_lurk beat me :) That's what I get for opening a bunch of tabs to read through at once.)
I partially agree. I think users should be allowed to install adblockers but service providers should also be allowed to reject these users. So blocking ad block users seems fine but making ad blockers illegal is not ok.
Its a lot easier to accept because spotify is not a monopoly and there are lots of better services.
I guess their reasoning is that no one forces you to run their script, but if you don't you cant use their service
I don't get it, why are people complaining? Spotify needs to make money and they allow you to pay them to get rid of ads. What's the problem? The ads don't abuse your cpu or anything like that
I believe that it's my network, my device. I get to say who I want to talk with. Just because Spotify says "talk with those ad servers and display they ads" doesn't meen I need to do it.
But I know the reason Spotify added ads, and why they want users to stop blocking them.
Still, banning me because I refuse to talk to ad servers and execute code from them? This just feels wrong. I cannot explain why, but it absolutely feels wrong and I'm strongly opposing a corporation demanding to execute code from ad and tracker servers.
And as a note, ads do actually eat a portion of processing power and lower my battery life, but the effect is so small it isn't even worth talking about.
They absoluty do.
I don't have any logical or racional reason, but these demands to run ads just seem incredibly invasive to me.
It's mostly because we're not used to it. If every second app did it, we wouldn't be here discussing it. But it's a new step, and from my perspective (which differs from spotify perspective), it's step to the wrong side, it's step towards Fifteen million merits.
Talk about hyperbole.
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about people getting banned from online portions of games because of cheating? Isn't that pretty much the same thing?
Yeah, sorry, it's definitely a little bit off.
I think banning people because of cheating is ok. But I don't think cheating and refusing to execute ad code is the same. The same thing would be using cracked apks that deliver Spotify Premium experience (which did (do?) exist, I read that Spotify removed tons of them some time ago). And as I've said somewhere here, I consider using these cracked apps unethical and I'm okay with Spotify fighting against it.
But hey, ads? I don't see an ad as a payment, I feel it's on a different level. I see almost as voluntary support to the developer/company. I give them my battery life, my processing power, my privacy, and my attention. So yes, it does make sense for them to block people rejecting ads, and if I was in their situation, I might do the same. But in my opinion, I have right to reject ads. I can install addon, system-wide blocker, or use something like pihole. You tell me "Hey, download & execute this code.". It's up to me whether I want or don't want to support you and sacrifice all the things I mentioned above.
The point is, Spotify has right to reject service to ad blocking users. But I don't like it, because it sets dangerous example. Once Spotify starts doing it, and if it turns out working for them, more and more websites and services will start doing it. That's why I disagree with it, even if they have right to do it and I acknowledge the right. I don't want to experience Internet where I'm blocked from websites for not wanting to execute tracking code and display ads. This is why I don't like the move from Spotify. Because I don't want mandatory ads on the Internet.
I understand why you don't like it, but there's plenty of websites that ban you (well, I suppose more like soft-ban you) from viewing their content if you're using an adblocker; so much for the precedent.
Would you prefer if they canceled the free version and became a subscription-only service instead?
Cheating ruins the game for everyone else. Playing a song without adverts doesn't
That's completely irrelevant, though. Not to mention Spotify has been bleeding money for years. If they don't enforce these things (because you obviously can't trust people to honor the agreement they made) they will have to close the shop eventually.
Hey, so it wasn't actually completely irrelevant - freeloaders playing songs without adverts will eventually ruin the game for everyone else, too.
I don't think understanding a company is within their rights and acting for their own self-interest has to be enough to make you okay with their actions.
They aren't demanding you run code from an ad tracker service, as you're free to just not use Spotify if you disagree with them. They are offering to let you listen to music on their service, and the price you pay is running those ads. This is fundamentally no different from any other transaction. Instead of giving up your money, you're giving up your time and privacy.
Anybody concerned about these things should be avoiding "free" services like the plague. Nothing's free, and I don't see a problem with Spotify enforcing that.
It's two arguments coalescing into one. You have privacy rights/data rights folks who are perfectly in their right and on message for why they shouldn't have to see or be subject to adds they don't want.
Then you have people who just want a free ride who sort of tag along and don't really have the same objections but want to get free stuff. Most of these folks are young, the sort who go "hey, it's a big corporation who rips off their artists so why shouldn't I just take my share too it's no big deal".
I agree that privacy people should have the right to block ads if they track them(I even do it myself) but Spotify doesn't use an external ad providers like google so there are no privacy benefits to using adblock
Banning users for using a browser-level ad-blocker is not okay in my opinion. However, using a cracked apk or anything of the sorts is a perfectly reasonable reason to ban someone from their service. It is a free service, after all.
It's ok to forbid users from using cracked apk (they managed to shutdown quite a bit of then). But hey, banning any form of adblockers? This clause could get me banned because of using pihole to block ad servers. They would detect I run suspiciously low amount of ads, and boom, banned. That's definitelly not OK in my opinion. First Google with crippling Chrome's ability to block ads (and punishing users with captchas that are impossible to complete if they refuse tracking), now Spotify (potentially) banning users for using anything that is used to block certain ad servers (or the ads themselves).
I'm (obviously) pretty anti-advertising, and I've got about 5 different layers of things that an ad has to get through before it'll get to my computer, but I can't really get outraged about Spotify doing this.
Streaming music to you costs them money directly, both in the costs of hosting and sending that data, as well as the fees they need to pay to the music industry whenever they play a song. They have costs they need to cover, and they're giving you a reasonable choice: either pay us, or listen to our ads. If you don't want to do either of those things, they have no obligation to keep letting you listen to music. You're just costing them money, with no compensation.
That being said, it depends heavily on how they implement it. There's nothing dystopian about it in theory, but if they start doing things like installing software that monitors your computer's volume level to make sure it's not turned down during ads, then maybe it's worth worrying about.
I know why they do that and I get. If I were on their place, I guess I would eventually do it as well.
But i'm concerned about this trend. I agree they have every right to do so, but I still disagree with their practice. I'm worried that if this ends up working for Spotify, other sites will adopt this behaviour as well. And at that point it starts to be really fucked up. Imagine Internet where you only get service if you allow ad code to run on your machine.
I'm angry at Spotify. Not because they want users to watch ads. But because this behaviour could be applied by others, which would be disasterous.
Part of it might be because I'm from certain central europe country, and the consumer mentality here is wastly different to America (and I guess many other countries as well). We are not used to pay for online content. We don't take online content as "real", so we don't really pay for online services that much, if at all - and that extends to ads as well. I noticed that people in my country (me included) just consider online services to be free by default. And while this isn't rational point of view, it's how it is. This is probably the main reason why I'm angry at Spotify for denying it's service to non-ad watching people. Because in our culture, this behaviour is unprecedented and is simply wrong.
(cc @Spel)
I'm guessing you're Czech. The consumer mentality is different, yes, but that's partly because even ten years ago you pretty much had to pirate stuff. Nowadays the situation is different (although paying for Netflix here is still basically a waste of money) and the mentality is slowly changing.
Obviously, you're still gonna have people over forty downloading dubbed DVD-rips from uloz.to but younger generations have no issues paying the ridiculously small amount of money that Spotify is asking for. Hell, if you get a full family plan (and they don't really enforce the family part, trust me) you'll end up paying somewhere around 40 CZK/person/month. I don't understand why anybody would choose to mess with modded APKs or block ads in the free version instead of just doing that.
Well, I know what i'm doing is unethical but I'll chime in and give you a different perspective: I'm a 20something yo student and if i get the chance to save money, no metter how little we're talking, I'll do it, not out of necessity but as a priciple; call it stinginess if you so desire. I mean, why would i have to pay X amount of money for something if there is a slightly more difficult way to get that same thing for free availible?
I am aware that if everyone did what i'm doing many services whould shut down, but I am also very aware that the great majorty of people are either not knowledgeable enough or can't be bothered to look up how to do it properly so chances are me not paying won't make much of a difference.
Many fellow students look at me like I'm an alien when i tell them i don't have Spotify, but again, why would i have to pay for something like that when i can easily download songs in high quality from Deezer and store them locally? Plus by doing that i also don't have to spend my monthly traffic mobile fee for nothing.
It makes sense Spotify is doing this, but chances are if you're concerned with adblocking in the first place you probably will also be knowledgeable enough to just use some other way to get music for free and without annoyaces.
I do agree though that it's a generational mentality shift as you say: many of my friends would rather pay the fees and be done with it instead of actually looking for the workaround and get stuff illegally...
Honestly, I don't think you can call that anything else at this price point. I mean, I generally don't like to patronize people about piracy. I downloaded so much shit over the past 15 years that I think there's a special place for me in copyright hell. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. But it's forty crowns. Have one less beer next time you go out.
With premium, you can save music locally too.
It's 9,99€ where i live, but your point still stands - guess i am stingy with this kind of services.
Would you know if the mp3 files once downloaded locally are directly accessible as files to copy elsewhere from the Spotify app btw? Just out of curiosity.
Sorry, I thought you were the OP for some reason so I was speaking in Czech terms.
You can't. It's basically just in-app content.
That's alright, i don't take it personally, plus i know what i'm doing is not exactly agreed upon, i just wanted to point out that it still makes sense to go 'yo ho ho and a bottle of rum' :)
Bummer about that last part tho...
Presumably, this is more directed at blockers that directly block Spotify ad content, not just general ad blockers. With that, I have no problem with them banning them. You are stealing their content, and while I don't have a problem with people pirating content, I also don't have a problem with there being consequences for your actions.
Essentially, if you're just using spotify as an easier avenue to pirate content, they're completely within their rights to bar you from using their service. If you're just a lay-customer that happens to have an adblocker installed, they shouldn't penalize you for that.
Why not? Spotify is providing a service. Why shouldn't they be allowed to set the terms by which you're allowed to use the service? You're essentially demanding that Spotify provide free service to certain users.
What I meant was more along the lines of people accidentally having an adblocker, then spotify just autobanning en masse.
We'll have to wait and see to be sure, but I would imagine that Spotify would rather not ban any users. I would expect them to give several warnings before actually banning anyone.
Another reason I'll be going back to DRM-free MP3s
I never left. Spotify is just a good way to discover new music.
That's great, but if I'm being honest, isn't blocking ads on Spotify Free just piracy with fewer steps?
Yes, it absolutely is more convenient to use Spotify than to download your MP3's, and I don't have a people with people pirating, but why should I or Spotify care if there's one less person stealing their service? For all I know, this could be part of a plan to lower their costs to paying subscribers.
Are you sure you replied to the right comment? I don't use spotify.
EDIT: Or I should say my comment is meant as a more general repudiation of all of the streaming music services. I was using Amazon Music but even that, which was included at no cost with my Prime membership, grew burdensome. Why should I have to adjust my playlist because you lost the license to the music I like?
I don't really have a problem with this, but i've been a paying member for over half a decade so I guess I am bias. It would be like using a hacked client to bypass a "fremium" game's pay features. Sure, maybe those pay features aren't fair, but you have the choice to not play. There's a reason that whitelists exist on ad-blockers.. if you don't believe any services should be serving ads, then you should stop using services that rely on ad revenue. Especially when they have an affordable alternative to bypassing those ads.
I see no problem with this, it's not like you can't get rid of ads via subscription. Do people honestly think their free service will run on goodwill or something?
Dangerous precedent to set in a world where the web is monopolized. But I suspect in the long term it'll just drive users back to torrents or equiv.
At my previous job, the corporate proxy blocked Spotify ads, and none of the various anti-adblock measures they've tried worked. I wonder if my former coworkers will end up getting banned (even with no adblocker installed) because of this?
Anyone know how to export your spotify library into a spreadsheet or something? I use it quiet a lot for listening to new music and deciding what to get drm free copies of, I don't want to lose that if spotify decides to nark me for running a pi hole.
edit:
I found this which lets you no-frills retrieve a playlist.
There are services that allow you to export your playlists into various forms.
Just request data download from Spotify. You'll get a really well organised data. It's in JSON, but there are many JSON to CSV converters out there and you can get your spreadsheet that way.
I'm shift+click selecting all the contents of my lists and drag/dropping them into excel. The track names come pre-hyperlinked to the song in spotify, so I don't need to copy over anything extra. I can just click each cell and spotify will open right up to the song. LMK if you don't use Excel/Libre-office equivalent and I'm happy to snag your lists for you and send it to you in a CSV or Google Sheet or something.
Maybe you could try to request your personal data, they should give it to you in scriptable format and I bet there will be a nice file with your library.
Pi-hole isn't an ad-blocker (although it's often used to produce similar results) and you won't be banned for using one. That being said, it's always good to have a backup plan.
Too late, Spotify. I canceled your app from my phone last week.