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Last.fm To Start Charging International Users
tdobson writes "The popular online radio service Last.fm has announced that users outside of the UK, USA and Germany will need to start paying 3 Euros (about $4.40 USD/£2.80 GBP) per month to continue streaming music on their service. Last.fm doesn't offer much of a reason as to the change, other than writing on their blog that '[t]here will be a 30 track free trial, and we hope this will convince people to subscribe and keep listening to the radio.' Already, there appears to be quite a backlash in responses so far, amongst subscribers and non-subscribers of all nationalities — has this killed Last.fm's appeal, globally?"
I love Last.fm
I'm a regular listener and found many new interesting bands. Not only have I bought their albums, but also went to local concerts that I wouldn't have heard about otherwise.
I will NEVER pay for an internet service.
Remains the question: Are there any alternatives?
They have a huge database of listening habits and cannot make money on it. It will be a good example of incompetence.
If your business's main appeal is not charging users, then unless you are extremely lucky you are not going to stay in business past when your VC runs out. Free is mostly fantasy, no matter how much cheap-ass users think otherwise.
Now, whether 3 Euros is too much or too little is up for debate. Even while it's free for me, I've find little appeal to it -- too inconvenient to get music I want, yet the installed app is too intrusive. The playlist stuff was mucked up in my short time as an active user, and that was the catchy thing about it - being able both to track your list, show it to people (e.g., on dating and social sites), and look at other people's lists.
Frankly, I have better luck just buying CDs and singles from iTunes and Amazon and I'm willing to pay much more for the convenience and quality.
Last.fm streams? This is news to me, and I've been using it for about 4 years to "scrobble" music.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
At least you can still access it globally unlike Hulu etc
~/ One man's opinions is a lifetime of pain.
I started using last.fm only a few months ago; I configured amarok to scrobble the music I listen, then once in a while I use last.fm streams to discover new music with my neighbors' radio. I would'nt pay the admittedly low fee of 3$/month only for this, so I will simply stop using it. I guess the vast majority of users will do the same.
I recently was in the market for a new soundcard. Not just a soundcard but one that does 5.1 and EAX support for the games I play.
This is harder then it sounds because Creative is shooting straight for the bottom. Their new X-fi chip is so bad they had to allow a third party to use it to get a decent soundcard out. Oh well, luckily I am dutch and I could test the X-fi myself, simply by buying it, running it over the weekend, then returning it on monday when it didn't work out. Full money back. Tried another sound card, returned that too, money back.
Free internet services can pull all kind of crap but the moment I pay for something I am protected by dutch law. Not american "companies own your ass" laws, not british "we want to be american" laws, but dutch laws. The only country in the world where Sony was FORCED to replace ALL PSP's with any defective pixels and this policy has affected all LCD's for years. Pixel warranty? Only for those silly enough not to know the law.
Can Last.FM stand up to this? Can they provide a service with which I will be satisfied 100% or money back, no questions asked? Of course not.
That for me is the difference between paying for something and something being free. I expect and demand and have the law on my side to get my money worth. Even if it is "only" three euro. Frankly I have tried last.fm several times and their service is pretty bad. Spotty loading, slow, lack of pre-buffering and their recommendation system is hazy. It can't even tell bands apart so it will happily mix completely opposite music styles just because one band that is in the style you look for has the same name.
3 euro's? No thanks.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Last.fm is owned by CBS, a company that's so desperate for ca$h right now (due to Sumner Redstone's poor investment choices) that they would remove the gold fillings from dead people and melt them down if they could.
One lesson I have learned the hard way is simply that once you offer a service for free you can not charge for it in the future. You loose too many clients that way.
In this case, however, it appears to me that this is a good way for them to get rid of unwanted users. They are not loosing their main base. It would be interesting for me to see what the user base looks like geographically - I suspect the bulk of their users are from the "free" countries.
Whatever the actual reason - there are still plenty of options. No love lost here...
Need an ISP in South Africa?
Seems like there are plenty of ways to make money from last.fm users without charging them directly.
- a craigslist/ebay style setup to buy/sell/trade music/show tickets/whatever - take a cut from the ads/transaction fee - there are forums but these are token and there isn't a Buy/Sell section anywhere AFAIK.
- use music recommendations to sell people music directly rather than linking to amazon/itunes whatever. Particularly for smaller bands that can't get recording contracts - work to hook them up with gigs and sell merchandise through the site and take a cut - essentially cut out the record labels as middle men and still provide a service that makes it easy to find smaller bands.
- they have recommendations for events in the local area but I never see them handle ticket sales at all - well why the heck not - local shows are much smaller scale than giant stadium shows and they could get a larger turnout and
Of course setting up this kind of infrastructure costs money, particularly to do it globally, but use your user base to add events in the region and use them to review and categorize bands and just make it easy for bands to offer goods through the site. Charging users directly is a good way to lose them because there are plenty of free alternatives and we've all gotten used to not paying for radio. Music fans are among the most passionate - give them services they can actually use and take a reasonable cut and they'll probably embrace it in droves.
They just do not get social networking at all.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
As an artist that uploaded my music with the intent that it can be listened to for free, I don't remember being asked about this.
Furthermore, it seems I have to pay to listen to music on a website where I contributed some fo the content.
Thank you last.fm.
while i understand the premise behind this move (its always about money, aint it ? ;) ), it will have serious consequences: ;) ).
less users from countries that do not get the service for free.
this leads to less of an incentive for bands from those countries to sign up, publish their music for free (or for money - doesn't really matter).
and that means that the sole reason for which i love last.fm - the amazing variety of music from every corner of the globe available on it - will be gone.
it will become just like any bog standard radio station, pushing britney spears, pussycat dolls and just5 (no disrespect - the mentioned are just not my thing
im sure that others will agree that the amazing variety of music in the system is an enormous advantage of last.fm, and loosing it will lead to a slow decay of the service.
having said that - im in the UK, and will be receiving the service for free.
and having said _THAT_ i wouldn't mind at all if the service became a globally paid service, and everyone was required to pitch in to keep/raise the quality - i would pay for it myself.
Service will be closed or heavily resized, I don't want to pay for listening music, It's a pity because service is good and nice but a lot of folks like me will switch to something else, for free.
Ben