Spotify banning ad blockers

[dalekphalm]

5 hours ago, LinusOnLine said:

Now if whitelisting would work I would not mind but the sites I have seen implementing this demand you to uninstall adblocker to be able to browse the site. Personally I find it way to much work to uninstall it and reinstall all the time so I just do not go to these sites.

I've never had that happen, and I run adblock on every computer I use.

 

What I typically see, is a popup or splash page that requests you to disable/whitelist adblock. Some sites let you use the site anywhere, where others won't let you continue until you've whitelisted the site.

 

I've not once had a site ask me to uninstall Adblock.

 

Granted, maybe Spotify is one of those few sites. I doubt it though, so unless there's evidence to suggest they're doing that, I think it's unnecessary to discuss that possibility.

 

To those arguing that Spotify has the lowest rates?

 

Yes it's true. But there are multiple better paying competitors. There's nothing stopping any artist from removing their content from Spotify, and moving over to Apple Music or whatever. Most of them are on all platforms anyway.

[jaggysnake57]

6 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

you can't blame spotify for having the lowest pay per stream and then complain about spotify banning free users who have adblock

 

 

touché

[LinusOnLine]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I've never had that happen, and I run adblock on every computer I use.

 

What I typically see, is a popup or splash page that requests you to disable/whitelist adblock. Some sites let you use the site anywhere, where others won't let you continue until you've whitelisted the site.

 

I've not once had a site ask me to uninstall Adblock.

 

Granted, maybe Spotify is one of those few sites. I doubt it though, so unless there's evidence to suggest they're doing that, I think it's unnecessary to discuss that possibility.

 

To those arguing that Spotify has the lowest rates?

 

Yes it's true. But there are multiple better paying competitors. There's nothing stopping any artist from removing their content from Spotify, and moving over to Apple Music or whatever. Most of them are on all platforms anyway.

The sites I have seen it on will not work unless you uninstall ad blocker. So no reason for me to think Spotify would be different.

[jagdtigger]

On 2/9/2019 at 4:58 PM, RejZoR said:

It just sucks that Europe gets so little content compared to USA on Netflix

Top it off with the BS limitations on resolution and trying to tell what can we do with our phone's if we want to watch their stuff(rooted phones prevented from installing their app). GG netflix, you just converted a lot of paying customers into pirates again........

[79wjd]

40 minutes ago, LinusOnLine said:

The sites I have seen it on will not work unless you uninstall ad blocker. So no reason for me to think Spotify would be different.

I've also never seen whitelist/disable on this domain not work.

[Kawaii Koneko]

On 2/7/2019 at 4:48 PM, Curufinwe_wins said:

Yeah, the moment US wireless carriers stop their ludicrous overcharging of data is the moment I'll consider stopping wipespread use of adblockers.

 

Until then, companies can pretty much f off. I pay for floatplane and similar stuff, but the data cost alone for adds is insane. Wasting 10% of my time on youtube watching adds, even with skips basically negates the point of the platform imo. If I wanted add laden free service I'd watch OTA or listen to the radio.

 

Data prices don't justify stealing from companies and content creators. When you are using a free service that pays the bills by showing ads, you viewing them is your payment. 

 

How is it right to tell a company that has nothing to do with what you pay for data to f off right?

 

Besides, is having to wait five seconds before clicking skip really taking up 10% of your time? That would mean that for every five seconds you wait to click skip, you only get forty-five seconds worth of content. Of course, I know that there are some longer ads that you cannot skip but in my experience when I was a free user, those ads weren't terribly common.

 

Also, please explain how ads negate the point of YouTube. The point was never to be able to watch videos with ads...

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, LinusOnLine said:

The sites I have seen it on will not work unless you uninstall ad blocker. So no reason for me to think Spotify would be different.

Since you are the only point of data that suggests this is an ongoing issue, it's going to be noted as "affects very few users", and thus is not representative of the general user experience.

 

As others have noted above that they have the same experience of myself.

 

So, yes, there's definitely reason to think Spotify would not do that.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 hour ago, Kawaii Koneko said:

Data prices don't justify stealing from companies and content creators. When you are using a free service that pays the bills by showing ads, you viewing them is your payment. 

 

How is it right to tell a company that has nothing to do with what you pay for data to f off right?

 

Besides, is having to wait five seconds before clicking skip really taking up 10% of your time? That would mean that for every five seconds you wait to click skip, you only get forty-five seconds worth of content. Of course, I know that there are some longer ads that you cannot skip but in my experience when I was a free user, those ads weren't terribly common.

 

Also, please explain how ads negate the point of YouTube. The point was never to be able to watch videos with ads...

Paying .01 cents viewing an non-relevant add to a content creator (with the media platform provider already taking the extreme lions share of ad revenue) via paying 100x (in data costs) that to an ISP that already ludicrously overcharges you for services that are almost pure profit isn't a good model for ANYONE except the ISP.  

 

I do wholeheartedly support content creators taking the time to make their own direct baked in ads, because that's fundamentally different than seeing an advertisement for some wifu mobile gambling (oops 'gaming') application every 5 minutes for a month straight on the platform

 

That's why I pay for floatplane.

 

OTA has less repetitive, more relevant adds, fewer malicious ones (most of those being political in nature), and you aren't paying through the nose for the privilege to be served them in the first place. Yeah at that point I'll just watch/listen to OTA programming.

 

Regardless, I am not and do not dispute the right of these administrators to revoke access to the platform if someone doesn't view their adds. I'm just simply not going to use most of the platforms then at all. Which is also why I don't watch ultra-late night OTA where the same thing occurs.

[mr moose]

16 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

 

it would do you well.......Jesus you sound like my dad

 

as for "learning about the industry" Spotify pays, on average, $0.00437 per stream, apple music pays $0.00735 and amazon pays roughly the same. From source to source these numbers fluctuate a bit but every time apple and amazon pay a lot more, even when you look Spotify’s premium tier, they still pay less than apple and amazon. This is from a company with twice the subs of any rival and larger market share than both apple and amazon, and yet artists still get paid pennies, even less after everyone has taken there cut. This is an industry that is amoral and corrupt, fleecing everyone it can so top execs keep their cash and yet you defend them. Spotify pays the least, like for like, to artists and yet you defend them tooth and nail. It’s hilarious. You all want to “support the artist” yet how many of you brought an album in the last year? Specifically, how many of you brought an album you could stream? Yeah id be shocked if the total number of streamable albums purchased with in the last year by all members who commented I this thread broke triple digits.

 

The industry has pumped out so much garbage for the last 20-30 years it has devalued itself. It saturated the market with pop crap for decades and now music is so ubiquitous people don’t want to pay for music. You see that’s the point an object is only worth, what people are prepared to pay for it and people just don’t want to spend money on music anymore.

 

Spotify are morons. If I had a free Spotify account (and I do ad block like a bitch) the very act of stopping from using it would be enough for me to go elsewhere, but I’m a c**t. most people may upgrade to a premium if they were stopped from streaming but if you ban them…..how many do you think will jump ship to amazon or apple?

 

so again tell me how i dont understand the industry?

 

Oh, and just an FYI apple music family plan since they launched it

 

Well done, you can google a few numbers. It appears you missed the fact those are numbers that are being paid.  Your promoting people use adblock and then pirate if that doesn't work.  you clearly don't understand the industry because you think you are entitled to other peoples work without paying for it. 

 

The most amusing thing about your post is you are denigrating the industry, making claims about them putting out garbage for the last 20-30 years yet you are still trying to find ways to consume that content without paying for it.  Do you like garbage? If the "garbage" is worth so little then why are you arguing you have  aright to listen to it? why has content consumption increased?  Are you aware that streaming accounts for more than 75% of the entire industries revenue?  And that in the last 2 years their revenue has actually gone up because of streaming? 

 

Yes, I dare say there is an awful lot about the industry you don't understand.

 

 

 

 

[jaggysnake57]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

Well done, you can google a few numbers. It appears you missed the fact those are numbers that are being paid.  Your promoting people use adblock and then pirate if that doesn't work.  you clearly don't understand the industry because you think you are entitled to other peoples work without paying for it. 

 

The most amusing thing about your post is you are denigrating the industry, making claims about them putting out garbage for the last 20-30 years yet you are still trying to find ways to consume that content without paying for it.  Do you like garbage? If the "garbage" is worth so little then why are you arguing you have  aright to listen to it? why has content consumption increased?  Are you aware that streaming accounts for more than 75% of the entire industries revenue?  And that in the last 2 years their revenue has actually gone up because of streaming? 

 

Yes, I dare say there is an awful lot about the industry you don't understand.

 

 

 

 

 

Your first point is a false equivalency. Having knowledge of the industry and paying for music are not mutually exclusive and one does not lead to the other.

Then you straw man me, no where do I say that all music is garbage.

 

Quote

If the "garbage" is worth so little then why are you arguing you have a right to listen to it?

False equivalency again, music’s worth is not tied to a right to listen

 

Then you prove my point, since streaming started revenues are up more people are paying less and more people are on spotify’s free tier than any other premium.  Music today has little to no value. Deal with it

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, jaggysnake57 said:

 

Your first point is a false equivalency. Having knowledge of the industry and paying for music are not mutually exclusive and one does not lead to the other.

 

Then you straw man me, no where do I say that all music is garbage.

 

 

 

False equivalency again, music’s worth is not tied to a right to listen

 

 

Then you prove my point, since streaming started revenues are up more people are paying less and more people are on spotify’s free tier than any other premium.  Music today has little to no value. Deal with it

 

I quoted and responded exactly to your points,  Nothing you just said actually changes what I have been saying.   The only thing you have successfully proven in this discussion is that you are having trouble justifying your desire to deny artists any payment for their work.  

[Loote]

1 hour ago, jaggysnake57 said:

Music today has little to no value.

I am of the opinion that today, or rather, recently, the amount of good and great music being produced is higher than it ever was.

It is a double-edged blade, people with talent don't need so much money to do anything decent, Internet can provide information that used to be unavailable to most except those lucky enough to know someone in the industry, thus, we get more of the good stuff, but on the same grounds we get more of the bad stuff too. Also, while it's easier to publish songs on soundcloud, it's so simple to get high production value music into our ears, that many just don't care about upcoming artists. Some recording that would be okay to put on from time to time just to hear something different than the 10 hours of music you owned in the 90 and listened to constantly will not be picked with today's vastness of Spotify at hand.

 

 

Don't forget that old music is not gone, so even with one good new song you are that one good new song richer than you were last year.

[dalekphalm]

I never understood this "Modern music is garbage" argument.

 

1. Even if that's true (it's not), that doesn't give you a right to listen to said garbage music for free in any way you want. You already have multiple methods of listening to free music (Radio, YouTube, Spotify Free, etc) - basically all ad supported. Don't want ads? Buy the CD or subscribe to an Ad-Free streaming service.

2. There's more better music now then there's ever been before. There are literally millions of artists that cater to every genre and listening preference. You like K-Pop? Well 50 years ago, you'd be shit out of luck. You like classic rock? All the classics are still available, and there's a bunch of newer artists too. You like EDM? Best it's ever been. You like A Capella? Damn straight it's had a resurgence.

 

If people just wanna pirate music? Then own it. Don't prance around some bullshit excuse that music is garbage and therefore worthy of stealing (seriously, if it's garbage, why are you listening to it at all?)

 

If people aren't happy with the amount of money Spotify pays an artist, find that artist on a competing platform that pays them better.

[Fluxify]

There viewership numbers will go down because of this.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Fluxify said:

There viewership numbers will go down because of this.

And?

 

Those viewers weren't generating them any income anyway. If anything, that would actually cause an increase in operational efficiencies, as less people are using the service but the same number of people are paying (or watching ads).

[jagdtigger]

51 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

And?

Less user == less interest from advertisers.....

[dalekphalm]

7 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Less user == less interest from advertisers.....

I mean... if the advertisers understand that these users were essentially stealing from Spotify? I doubt they're overly concerned. Most of these platforms can tell how many people are actually served (and even if they watch/how much they watch) an ad. I'd be surprised if Spotify were any different.

 

Personally I'm 100% okay with this decision. I occasionally (not much anymore granted) use Spotify free, and I will listen to the ads in order to get the free music.

[jagdtigger]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

these users were essentially stealing from Spotify

Nope... (stealing: take something, which never happened)

 

5 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I doubt they're overly concerned.

Ppl running ad companies cant think rationally so yes, they are concerned. (If they were able to think properly we wouldnt have ad blockers in the first place.)

[AngryBeaver]

On 2/7/2019 at 4:34 PM, dylanthompson2 said:

Spotify is going to start banning ad blockers on march 1st in their new terms of service.

I think that is a big deal because there are 170 million spotify users.

In March of 2018 2 million spotify users use ad blockers that's 2% of their users. Spotify started disabling those accounts.

I also use Spotify and an ad blocker on my PC. I don't agree with the new terms of service for that reason.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215845/spotify-ad-blockers-terms-of-service

Original article from The Verge

Also how many people think this is fair.

Fine by me. I don't use their service and for sure would now. Good thing there are plenty of other options out there.

[dalekphalm]

22 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Nope... (stealing: take something, which never happened)

It's not physical stealing as in you're preventing that "something" from being there anymore.

 

But you damn well knew what I meant. They are accessing the services in an unauthorized manner, by bypassing the contract agreement (You watch ads, we give you free music) in place.

 

So let's just drop the "it's not stealing" crap. We all know it's not "technically" stealing in the physical sense. But we all (I hope) can understand that by using an adblocker on an ad-supported platform like Spotify, you're "accessing" (rather than taking) something you shouldn't.

22 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Ppl running ad companies cant think rationally so yes, they are concerned. (If they were able to think properly we wouldnt have ad blockers in the first place.)

Some of them, certainly. That's quite the blanket statement though.

 

If Spotify and the Ad companies were so concerned with overall blanket numbers, they wouldn't be doing this.

[jagdtigger]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Some of them, certainly. That's quite the blanket statement though.

Adblockers exist because of the obnoxious ads they created. Instead of thinking they opted for even more ads which lead to the spread of said blockers. Even now they refuse to think rationally, instead they spectacularly failed again with their anti-adblock efforts.... (Just like with piracy, they are the ones who are bitching about it, even though they themselves created and escalated the problem.)

 

/EDIT

Oh and since malvertising is a thing adblockers become part of many ppl's "security tool-bag"...

Edited February 13, 2019 by jagdtigger

[dalekphalm]

17 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Adblockers exist because of the obnoxious ads they created. Instead of thinking they opted for even more ads which lead to the spread of said blockers. Even now they refuse to think rationally, instead they spectacularly failed again with their anti-adblock efforts.... (Just like with piracy, they are the ones who are bitching about it, even though they themselves created and escalated the problem.)

 

/EDIT

Oh and since malvertising is a thing adblockers become part of many ppl's "security tool-bag"...

Spotify doesn't have particularly obnoxious ads. They are incredibly short (usually a few seconds long - maybe up to 10 seconds most of the time).

 

So, while many ads are obnoxious (those ads that made noises or laughed when you moused over them, or sites that you can't tell where the download button is vs the ads), but Spotify doesn't particularly suffer from that problem.

 

Lastly, there's no evidence that the majority of adblock users are doing it for security purposes. While some? Perhaps, yes. But I would definitely not assume that to be the majority.

[jagdtigger]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Spotify doesn't have particularly obnoxious ads. They are incredibly short (usually a few seconds long - maybe up to 10 seconds most of the time).

For many that wont matter, the damage is already done and no amount of blocking/banning going to do any good.....

[Thaldor]

11 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Adblockers exist because of the obnoxious ads they created. Instead of thinking they opted for even more ads which lead to the spread of said blockers. Even now they refuse to think rationally, instead they spectacularly failed again with their anti-adblock efforts.... (Just like with piracy, they are the ones who are bitching about it, even though they themselves created and escalated the problem.)

 

/EDIT

Oh and since malvertising is a thing adblockers become part of many ppl's "security tool-bag"...

The age old question still remains, how would you monetize the platform so you can pay for the content publishers/creators if without ads and the platform would still offer free service? Surveys? Cutting the content to the level that the free option could as well be a media player to play your local files?

 

Major things why Spotify has been so successful has been that it offers the free service with ads which allows them to collect some money from the free users that they can use to pay for the record companies and artists, which in other hand has brought the situation where they have managed to get the big companies release their artists and materials in Spotify. For example Netflix has quite bad content amount because Disney, Universal and others aren't 100% behind it and release their content in it and one of the biggest rumours is that the current userbase doesn't bring enouhg money to pay for those big publishers enough. In the case of Netflix they gain way more money from the service because everyone must pay for it and probably quite many opt-in to pay a little more for HD-content or even for 4K-content. In the case of Spotify majority of the userbase is free suers who pay for the service in the way of listening ads and the premium userbase probably couldn't get more money than the free users with their ads through advertisers.

 

Also still the ad-blocking community is 2% from the whole userbase of the Spotify, banning them isn't going to hurt them at all. Only ones banning the ad-blocking accounts hurting are the ones who weren't going to pay anyway and could be far more better to be compared to leeches.

 

And where the fuck people draw malwertizing with Spotify? How fucking stupid people actually are? "It might be because the pornsite that I almost found sextape of XX and YY had poping and glittering christmaslight advertisment that promised moon from the sky had a virus in it, then the Spotify also might have those" Like does people have any kind of understanding what difference there is between running actual service that is based on adrevenue (Google is different, they try to make as much money as possible without paying anything so their whole editor team is 5 bots which all are more or less useless) and running some shady site that's main purpose is to lure people in to get their personal information for criminal use? I don't really know which ones are worser, audiophiles who still believe paying +100$ for HDMI cable gives them better quality picture or people who don't know the difference between the dark side of the net and the normal net...

[jagdtigger]

2 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

without ads

The problem isnt that websites have ads, but the fact that they have a ton of them and usually in very irritating places. Not to mention full overlays/popups....

 

4 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

And where the fuck people draw malwertizing with Spotify?

Pls learn how to read properly. That post was in general about advertisers and its pretty much spot on with very-very few exceptions.