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

Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by ar0 on Friday February 08, 2019 @11:18AM (#19115620)

I think it will all depend on how this plays out in practice. For now, this is only some fineprint in a ton of other legalese that might or might not be used in the future.

I mean, if they show you a notification that you should really sign-up for a paid subscription or disable your adblocker, this does not really seem a big deal for me and all right for Spotify. However, if they terminate your account because you happened to use Spotify for a while on a system with adblocking enabled (does being on a Pi-Hole network count?), I am wondering if they won't just drive a lot of potential customers to Apple Music & Co, which is the last thing they need right now... I mean, if they would terminate my account like this, I definitely would not come crouching back to them asking for mercy to be allowed to sign-up for a paid subscription. I mean, I do have some dignity left.

(I usually use Spotify using their apps, so without ad-blocking, but I cannot guarantee that I haven't been using their web player from time to time, too, and of course my browser has an enabled ad-blocker. I don't pay for Spotify because I buy my MP3s and use Spotify primarily to discover new songs.)

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by reaperducer on Friday February 08, 2019 @11:37AM (#19115894)

These two items do not go together:

happened to use Spotify for a while on a system with adblocking enabled

drive a lot of potential customers

If they're not paying and blocking ads, they're not customers. And if they weren't willing to pay for Spotify, why would they suddenly be willing to pay for Apple Music?

being on a Pi-Hole network

The number of people setting up home filtering devices isn't even a rounding error to a service the size of Spotify. All of those people could disappear and they wouldn't even be noticed.

Ditto for the number of people who might just happen to end up on an ad-restricted network at a friend's house.

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by ar0 on Friday February 08, 2019 @01:57PM (#19117500)

> If they're not paying and blocking ads, they're not customers. And if they weren't willing to pay for Spotify, why would they suddenly be willing to pay for Apple Music?

Well, because they have been terminated by Spotify, of course. I mean, it is pretty easy to imagine that your preferences are "free Spotify with blocked ads is better than Spotify / Apple Music / etc. for 10+$", but that after the "free with blocked ads" option disappears you will (grudgingly) end up paying.

And the right move by Spotify would be to support this transition in a way that does not drive this business to their competitors. If you end up moving these people to choose between "ok, now I have to contact customer support to get my account unblocked so that I can then start entering my credit card details" versus "ok, I can just use this big 'Start Free Trial' button here on Apple Music", I don't think that is a very difficult choice.

Also, while Pi-Hole might be quite niche, the point I was trying to make was more that many people use adblockers (about 20% in Europe[1], far bigger than a rounding error), but many of those probably don't do so specifically for Spotify, this is just a side-effect of running Spotify in the same browser. So they might be amenable to a warning that they should disable their adblockers on Spotify, while just terminating their accounts will just drive these users to competitors.

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-percentage-of-Internet-use...

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by interestica on Friday February 08, 2019 @11:49AM (#19116066)

Their customer bases aren't distinct streams. They want existing users to upgrade to a premium version. They're not going to be helped by banning those that are already in their system and a click away from an upgrade. Or, like myself, someone who tested out other similar systems and then decided to upgrade again. Does trying to use my account on a system with an adblocker (that I may not know about) warrant a ban?

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by scarejunba on Friday February 08, 2019 @12:28PM (#19116532)

This is just the “exposure” argument. Not every client converts to being a paid user. The kind that use free service and then block ads may not convert at a high enough rate to justify providing the service. Especially since it also cannibalizes the other product (paid streaming). The marketing team can then decide they’re not worth it.

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by interestica on Friday February 08, 2019 @01:20PM (#19117098)

It's much deeper than exposure. It's closer to an "ecosystem" model. You're likely to create playlists in a service. You will find channels that you like. You will find that some artists are not available in other services. You will find that an interface is better. You might find their "you-might-also-like" algorithm is better. I tried Google's music system for about a year before switching back to Spotify (the irony being that Google Play Music didn't play well with Google's Assistant if you have more than one Google account).

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by reaperducer on Friday February 08, 2019 @02:30PM (#19117800)

They want existing users to upgrade to a premium version

IME, cheap people are cheap. Nagging them doesn't change their minds.

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by isoskeles on Friday February 08, 2019 @12:32PM (#19116572)

If you get banned because of an adblocker you didn't know about, assuming you care enough to contact their customer service, I'm guessing they'd unban you.

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by amatecha on Friday February 08, 2019 @02:26PM (#19117767)

The users disappearing might not be noticed, but the PR crapstorm that would arise would definitely be noticed, especially over a long enough timeline.

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by alexgmcm on Friday February 08, 2019 @11:25AM (#19115721)

I think the main competition will be Amazon Music as I already have access to it due to my Prime account.

I have a Spotify subscription because Amazon Music didn't used to exist and now I am used to Spotify, but if I'm paying for Amazon Prime anyway then why not make the switch?

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by cglace on Friday February 08, 2019 @11:31AM (#19115805)

Because the Amazon music subscription you get through prime is terrible.

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Re:Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds a... by ghaff on Friday February 08, 2019 @11:46AM (#19116016)

It's not "terrible." It's fine if you just basically want background playlists and don't want to pay for a premium service (from Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, etc.). But I agree that Amazon Prime Music isn't really a competitor to Spotify in the sense of using it to search for and play specific music.

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