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Spotify Defends Facebook Sign-Up Requirement
An anonymous reader writes "Music service Spotify has got music lovers' tutus in a twist by insisting that new users have a Facebook account in order to sign up. The company has now defended the policy, stating, oddly, that the Facebook obligation would make sign-up easier."
But might it have something to do with the fact that Sean Parker and Peter Thiel, the guys who funded Spotify's recent move to the U.S., also still happen to own a significant percentage of Facebook?
Nah, that's just cynical crazy-talk. It's just to make the sign-up easier for us consumers.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
which is close to what they're saying I guess.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'd like to take you up on your offer. Which alternative to Spotify do you recommend for listeners in the United States?
Pirate Bay.
Don't like it? Use another service.
And in that short post you claimed that all criticism is pointless.
Why criticize a movie? Watch another movie. Why review a game? Play another game. You don't like this Beatles song? How dare you say so - go listen to something else!
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Piracy forever man. Accept no substitute!
Always a superior product. Always in the format the market wants. Even with a negligible price point, these dumb companies are just not agile enough.
No weird-ass, windows only client to download. No signup, lock-in and DRM.
The piracy scene has all the web 2.0 social crap like the commercial sites now, so you can talk about the shit you're pirating.
Pure win.
I really used to Love Spotify.
I'm a premium subscriber and still like it, but this trend is depressing... I noticed a few days ago that I can't play Spotify links off Facebook. "Your platform is not supported." even though I run the native Linux client, and now this?
Gotta hate it when mainstream corporate pressure slowly eats away what once was a Good Thing. :/
.: Max Romantschuk
Indeed. If Facebook wanted Spotify to become Facebook Music, you would have thought that they could have at least had the class to buy Spotify and give the owners a payout. I suppose there's a reason why "Facebook" and "class" aren't words you think of together too often, though.
Part of me wonders if Facebook didn't give them the old Offer You Can't Refuse, the way Microsoft used to do in the old days. Back when Windows was the monoculture, Microsoft could extract enormous concessions from potential partners simply by threatening to dump a competing product into Windows and give it away for free if they didn't play ball. One could certainly see Facebook having similar leverage over any social service; so many people are on Facebook now that if FB picked up a Spotify competitor (say, rdio), rebranded it as Facebook Music, and gave it away 100% free, Spotify's business model would be in serious jeopardy. That gives Facebook a pretty big hammer to wield over Spotify at the negotiating table.
Read my blog.
Or maybe they will feel that a pool of 800m potential subscribers is enough for them.
The pool of Internet users with FaceBook is smaller than the pool of Internet users. However you put it, by requiring FaceBook, they eliminated a lot of potential customers. And I am not sure what they got by doing this...
Not applicable. How about people who would not like the link FaceBook to a service with access to bank or credit card information? Even if you have FaceBook, that does not mean you want them to have more information about you.
I really don't understand what difference it makes to them if the stream end point is my phone or a computer.
They know that people who'll spend $600 on an iPhone won't notice that they're also spending twice as much for their music as someone with a computer.
Complaining is perfectly legitimate. I might want to use the service but not associate it with facebook. If I complain they'll be aware of this, and may decide to change their policy to accommodate.
They have every right not to but it's in my interest if they change, and presumably in their interest to have me as a customer. We're asking for a solution in which we both benefit. Hardly unreasonable.