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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 $4.40 USD/£2.80 GBP) per month to continue streaming music on their service. Last.fm doesn't offer much of a reason as to the change, other than writing on their blog that '[t]here will be a 30 track free trial, and we hope this will convince people to subscribe and keep listening to the radio.' Already, there appears to be quite a backlash in responses so far, amongst subscribers and non-subscribers of all nationalities — has this killed Last.fm's appeal, globally?"
I love Last.fm
I'm a regular listener and found many new interesting bands. Not only have I bought their albums, but also went to local concerts that I wouldn't have heard about otherwise.
I will NEVER pay for an internet service.
Remains the question: Are there any alternatives?
has this killed Last.fm's appeal, globally?
Depends on what they're using it for. I might be a minority, but I hardly ever use the radio feature - I use the site as a way to track what I've been listening to, and use the recommendations to find new artists to buy or download from iTunes or Amazon.
Goo goo g'joob.
They have a huge database of listening habits and cannot make money on it. It will be a good example of incompetence.
Music wants to be free.
(Also movies, games, software and books. Porn is already free.)
I was sickened when Pandora blocked non-US IPs (used to really enjoy that service).
Now this. Oh well.
Azural - instrumentals
Last.fm streams? This is news to me, and I've been using it for about 4 years to "scrobble" music.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
At least you can still access it globally unlike Hulu etc
~/ One man's opinions is a lifetime of pain.
I started using last.fm only a few months ago; I configured amarok to scrobble the music I listen, then once in a while I use last.fm streams to discover new music with my neighbors' radio. I would'nt pay the admittedly low fee of 3$/month only for this, so I will simply stop using it. I guess the vast majority of users will do the same.
There is a service that delivers you complete albums, for free, whenever you want - and works in any country.
Its called 'bittorrent'
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Perhaps advertising simply does not support Last.FM's licensing deals
Yes, it does. One of the comments there, by the same author of the post, says that the revenue from ads in USA, UK and Germany are enough to pay for the bandwidth and licensing fees they have to pay. Everywhere else, it's not enough and that's why they are charging other countries.
This is simply a realization that free won't pay for their massive bandwidth costs (and no doubt the royalties they need to pay).
A million websites have been launched, and died, after their operators realized that advertising could never cover their costs.
If you look around, banners for sites that have 2 million page views p/month go for as low as US$ 45 p/month. Even if you plaster a site with them you can't scrape a living out of this. Sure, some struck it lucky, but most will die.
Facebook, Twitter, cool toys, but dead men walking ; and they will be replaced after they die. Will you pay a monthly subscription fee to use either one of them?
Facebook is just a blog, a few hacks can string existing blogs together and create the same functionality. Twitter can be done in P2P fashion.
The good times were good, now the money men come calling.
I was sickened when Pandora blocked non-US IPs (used to really enjoy that service).
Well, Last.fm will be available outside US, UK and Germany, you just have to pay a fee (or find a nice proxy to stream through it.)
I haven't touched last.fm since I got spotify. I've heard it's not available world-wide, but seeingas it's free and legal, surely this is the future of public music?
It has an iTunes-ish inerface, but has access to millions of artists, and the normal selection of radio-stations. As Well as the great features of being able to make and share play-lists with friends or create an open playlist for a party.
Do many people here use it? IS it a known service? And does anyone want an invite?
The big thing is international licensing. Pandora doesn't limit its services because it's xenophobic or because it thinks foreigners shouldn't be able to listen to online music---they do it because the copyright holders are nutty about controlling the markets abroad. I recall reading somewhere that the licensing costs generally don't justify the expenses for international audiences. (Something like this.) So you can either block access to international traffic, or you can try to make it profitable. Last.fm probably isn't losing much (relatively speaking) by losing its international audience, but apparently they still want to keep their service available overseas.
So, to the posters above, please stop complaining about discrimination. This policy is most likely just the trickle-down piss from the record companies.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Is this IP-based discrimination okay? We should have a (global, of course) law against it...you should neither be discriminated against because of skin, color, race, nor IP :)
Honestly, I *don't* like geographical borders re-emerging in the _global_ Internet world...this is not a good direction. Resist the beginnings!
Pandora, spotify, last.fm, Hulu. None of which are available in canada or most places outside the US. Bittorrent however is still free in both senses. That they couldn't roll these out internationally is bull. Maybe a few months lag time max to fix the deals internationally. Plus last.fm clearly has SOMETHING in place since they used to stream to everyone. It is somewhat amazing that i've been able to illegitimately listen to streaming music for 10 years now and business STILL hasn't got it right. I guess I should expect a good legit streaming show/movie site in about 2030.
I'm actually a Last.fm subscriber, and am more than happy to pay the meagre 3 euros, but being forced into it? Personally I don't use the paid features much at all, it's as much wanting to support the (excellent) service as it is trying to get value for money.
I wonder if they'll lose that sort of support when they move their business toward a more corporate stance.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
About anything. Seriously, it's three dollars a month! I've had a subscription for some time now because I've found TONS of music I would have never found otherwise. Their streaming is great. If my ten cents a day helps keep them afloat and allows me to keep discovering new artists, it's completely worth it. And if you're that cheap anyway, hit up a proxy or do without. There are always shoutcasts and icecasts out there. They suck, but it's an alternative for the financially challenged.
Dear last.fm, I have deleted my account because of this ethnic discrimination.
I've been a subscriber for a while because I liked the added features at the time (artist and tag radios), and 3 (see if you can pay in GBP, that's a lot cheaper ;) a month is close to nothing if you get any value from the service. I pay even more for spotify, and I'm happy with that too.
...and thanks for all the tuna !
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
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.
I have seen this line of reasoning a few times, and I think it is important to get it straight.
It is perfectly normal that the pricing for services and products is different in different countries. I mean, how retarded do you have to be to think that an item X should cost exactly the same in, say, the country it was produced and the country it has been shipped to after paying tolls?
And especially especially when we are talking about copyrights and international licensing, the matters are complex. Say, I had enough money *and* the juristic possibility to get a special kind of contract in two countries which allows me to play the music for free in these countries... am I obliged to pay -- possibly much more money -- to get the same type of agreement in all other countries in the world?
Nope. Look, I am living in Germany, but I'm not a German citizen. Last.fm is not free in the country of my origin. Discrimination / rascism would have been if they refused to provide me with the same service as German citizens. Or if the Germans living in my country of origin were allowed to listen to last.fm for free, whereas other people would have to pay. That would have been discrimination.
There was a similar discussion in regard to iTunes. iTunes music store is always national -- works only in one country. There are plenty of countries where you cannot buy music from iTunes (even within EU). Are they rascist? Nope. Neither is Walmart, even though there is not a single Walmart in Burkina Faso. Or an online pharmacy shop in London even though it does not ship certain drugs to the U.S. -- legal in London, illegal or not allowed for import in the U.S-
The fact that Internet brings different countries together, and allows you to communicate over juristic and national boundaries doesn't mean that these boundaries do not exist. Don't you forget this.
j.
OK the case for me purchasing an account on one of the US vpn providers keeps getting stronger. 4.40*12=52.80. Witopia provides VPN at USD 36/yr, and allows me to use it for the general case of any US service that geolocks (Hulu, Pandora, and the list keeps getting longer)
Why would I give Last more money for effectively less service?
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
...the world wide web gets chopped into bite-sized chunks, to be gobbled up by overweight bonus-grabbers, their quivering jowls dripping slime while they stuff their gassy wobbling guts. Just like with the whole globalisation thing really... borders which are broken down for the grabbers are reinstated for the 'consumers' using licensing and technology. Vote with your wallets, people! It is the only vote which counts in a capitalist world.
--frank[at]unternet.org
We Europeans already have Spotify and plenty of other sources. I'd be MORE inclined to pay if everyone had to pay, not only we. I'm tired of being treated as "less worthy" just because I'm from mainland Europe. I say let them stay cocks, see how many customers they make. What laws prohibit them from making money here? Advertisements are allowed and as far as I know our laws are generally quite lax.
Seems to get worse - they are about the change the API, and streaming to mobile phones will not be allowed.
2.You won't be allowed to use our API to stream to mobile phones. This is unfortunately a limitation of some of our licensing agreements.
I wonder what the rationale for that is.
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
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.
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.