Spotify will now suspend or terminate accounts it finds are using ad blockers - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/08/spotify-will-now-suspend-or-terminate-accounts-it-finds-are-using-ad-blockers/ <comment><USER3> Good.

Spotify has a pretty cheap paid option that removes all of that. To those who justify wanting the paid service for nothing by saying Spotify won't "take responsibility" or "assume liability" for their ads or those ads "might deliver malware" or are "intrusive" as a weak rationalization, you present a false dichotomy. There are at least three options:

1\. Pay for the service

2\. Suffer through the ads

3\. Don't use the service

This thread is an object lesson in why basically every large service on the Internet is ad-supported. When people aren't willing to pay for 1-2 coffees for _a month of unlimited music streaming_ are you really surprised that companies have no choice to use an advertising revenue model?

<comment><USER4> > 1-2 coffees a month

Where do you buy coffee that _one_ coffee costs $10?! (or even $5?) I still don't think it's a lot of money, but not quite so trivial.

<comment><USER5> Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop.

Any kind of specialty drinks, which most people I would believe get at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, the local coffee shop, end up being $5-8, not even in a major city or metropolitan area.

<comment><USER6> _Using US prices, a black basic coffee is probably $2-3 at a coffee shop._

Any size coffee is $1 at McDonald's 24/7\. The quality is improving, too, so it's something to remember when you're traveling in unfamiliar territory.

<comment><USER7> Is that better than buying a pack of caffeine pills to travel with?

<comment><USER8> Yes. You get to interact with real people and stretch your legs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They allow advertisers to run JS on your device, and ads are a trendy way to deliver malware. People are using ad blockers not just to hide annoyances and to improve performance, but to protect themselves from bad actors.

[https://spotifyforbrands.com/en-US/ad- experiences/](https://spotifyforbrands.com/en-US/ad-experiences/)

> JavaScript or iFrame Tags: All third-party tags and tracking URLs need to be > in https format.

I was on the fence about this because there is a legitimate need to bring in revenue from free users, but they should stick to audio, video and image ads.

<comment><USER10> Between the dwindling Netflix catalog and increasingly hostile subscription service experience on Spotify, I have found myself flying the black flag again. I still have subscriptions to both, but I will be cancelling them this year. I don't want their shitty analytics payloads, I don't want their shitty anti-adblocker tech. I don't want their shitty tactics of deleting random songs off my playlists. I just want the content I paid for.

It's not because I don't want to pay for the content, I'd happily pay 2-3x under the right circumstances. It's because no one wants to take my money and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark patterns, insane region segmentation, and manipulative cross-sell tactics.

Whatever arguments were made about piracy detracting from sales are laughable now. The copyright and ad lobbies are detracting from those sales, piracy is just a symptom of the cancer that they are.

Sonarr + Couchpotato + Plex + Subsonic is somehow a more consumer-friendly experience than their 'legitimate' counterparts. The fact that the premium subscription cost for those services is more than netflix+spotify, and yet people are willing to pay that much for their piracy, that should be pretty telling to any industry analyst.

<comment><USER11> > It's not because I don't want to pay for the content, I'd happily pay 2-3x > under the right circumstances. It's because no one wants to take my money > and provide the content I want without bundling it with drm, ads, dark > patterns, insane region segmentation.

Can't help you with movies/Netflix, but in the case of Spotify, you could go back to buying mp3's. Google Play, Amazon, iTunes (aac format), etc will all sell you DRM Free tracks at $1.30 a piece, and the ad-free songs become yours forever to listen to however you wish.

<comment><USER12> Netflix offers too much value for a small amount plus the size of movies makes downloading/previewing the throwaway type of netflix shows make it hard to justify the effort to pirate.

Spotify always seems less useful compared to winamp if you knew what music you liked or like to download everything from one band who's best days are behind them. A hassle for new stuff but if you want the all of the 'yes' albums the rare shows, interviews spotify just doesn't cut it.

<comment><USER13> A happy medium for me is google play music. Basically the same song selection and features as spotify, plus the ability to upload your own mp3s that aren't available on the platform (I actually haven't used this feature in a while, but it seems like it still works). And you get ad-free youtube as well.

<comment><USER14> I am all about Youtube premium. Replaced my spotify with it and I love it. Ad free youtube, my own mp3s along with the google music catalog is great. They even grandfather people in on the original price that they subbed for when the service price increased.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's fascinating how we, humans, are lazy. We're lazy to the point where we'd gladly allow services like Spotify to control our computers just so they can make sure their ad was delivered. We'll even justify it by "well, I really listen to a lot of music". All I want is to push a button and get some bearable-noise during my 8 hours at work.

I don't know about the rest, but I really hate when someone makes a fool out of me. I'm a lazy person too, if a service that I like asked me bluntly "hey dude, wanna give us all your info and let us sniff your traffic so we can stick ads in, we're even gonna sell it" \- I'd say - sure, you were honest enough, screw it - go ahead, I didn't have to navigate through a wall of text critting me for 9000000 to get that piece of info.

But no. No one behaves like that. Long user agreements, service agreements, catchy call-to-actions on websites that promise wonderland filled with unicorns shitting M&M's and what not just so they get those few bucks out of me...

Oh well, hello foobar2000 my old friend, seems like I'll un-lazy myself just to spite these prying assholes.

<comment><USER16> What's fascinating to me is the length people go to in order to justify freeloading.

If you don't like the ads, Spotify has a subscription plan. In my country that's €5 / month.

Surely that's less money spent than the effort it takes to pirate music for usage with foobar2000.

<comment><USER17> So you're rewarding them for bad behavior with your money. Think about what this does to their incentives.

<comment><USER18> It's totally unclear to me why you think this should be considered bad behavior.

Imagine a grocery store has a promotion - you can get a loaf of bread for free if you listen to a twenty minute advertising presentation. Does this justify not going to the presentation, and just stealing the bread?

<comment><USER19> You go to the presentation and someone demands you empty your pockets into a bowl that they will take into another room while you watch the presentation, wallet, phone, keys, etc.... You decline and leave, but you already ate the bread! Did you steal it?

<comment><USER18> No. That's analogous to choosing to leave Spotify after you already listened to some music because you decide you don't like their ads. Which is fine.

<comment><USER19> I'd say it's more akin to using Spotify with an ad blocker before this change. If Spotify wants to switch to only handing out bread after the presentation obviously that's fine too, but it doesn't make the whole proposition any less shady.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Long time premium spotify user, but it seems they are more interested in their ad-tech than anything else. They introduce 0 new features or improvements and in fact actually remove things over time. It's amazing to see a product continue to get worse.

Before you could send your friends a message _within_ Spotify to send a song for them to listen while in the application and could even carry on a discussion. It was slick. It was amazing and worked very well. They totally gutted it and made no indication of bringing it back. Now we're stuck with this ridiculous arcane method of sending a link through a text message that now opens up in a browser (sometimes?) instead of the application itself.

Too much work to maintain this beloved feature, better fire all the engineers working on it and hire people to prevent ad-blocking for the non-paying customers.

<comment><USER21> Remember when subscribing to artists would give you alerts for when they released new content? It was a fantastic way of keeping up with new music. For me it was a killer feature. They replaced it with the terrible "Release Radar" playlist that shows a small sample of whatever this week's ML algo recommends. It's garbage.

<comment><USER22> For me it usually does what you describe. When opening the application it shows me the new release of an artist I follow if it finds one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Most of the discussion here is making this far too one-sided.

I reserve the right to control how content is delivered to my devices by blocking ads, and spotify reserves the right to block my account for doing so. Both of those practices are completely fair in my opinion. I have no problem with this (also I pay for spotify)

</comment><comment><USER24> Sounds like a reasonable move.

Spotify delivers so much value that I couldn't imagine not paying for it (or enduring ads). I listened to something like 25 straight days of music last year.

<comment><USER25> I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find someone talking any sense. Is it really the case that most of HN are listening to Spotify all day every day and blocking the ads?

Why not just pay for it!?

<comment><USER26> Seems to me a lot of hackers/tech people get off getting around paying for stuff, even if they make well over six figures.

<comment><USER27> This is the real issue here. If you can afford to be on hackernews, you can afford $10 a month. People just have cheapness deeply ingrained into their psyche as a pleasure response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Considering how services like Spotify and Apple Music incourage extra data usage, and randomally delete music as they see fit, I'm finding myself thinking more and more of these services as discovery tools (akin to radio) and less like media players (they aren't).

One day very soon I'll be playing all my music in something else entirely again. While it's impossible to brush off the value of streaming services like Spotify, it's a huge step backwards on many levels.

We must demand better.

<comment><USER29> It feels weird to say but the zune marketplace was the best music platform so far. Who knows if it would have stayed that way if it ever got a decent market share though.

<comment><USER30> Grooveshark

<comment><USER31> Audio Galaxy [1] !

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiogalaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiogalaxy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Spotify: Provide service that costs labor, resources, licensing, etc.

Spotify: Use ads for non-paying users to help cover the costs

Freeloading Users: Use third party software to sidestep this source of revenue, essentially getting the product for free.

Spotify: Ban these users.

Freeloading Users: shocked_pikachu.jpg

<comment><USER33> Spotify: Serves arbitrary, third-party content through known malware vector.

Users: Blocks known malware vector.

Spotify and 'the usual' HN crowd: shocked_pikachu.jpg

<comment><USER34> At least now, Spotify can only be downloaded in the Windows store (they discontinued use of the desktop application on Windows 10). As I understand it, W store apps are sandboxed, so something like this reasonably isn't possible anymore (at least without an escape exploit)?

<comment><USER35> You could run a network-level ad blocker, ie PiHole [1].

[1]: [https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

<comment><USER36> And then you would be banned for blocking ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Unfortunately their web player has issues with recognizing some paid accounts.

I have a grandfathered $5/mo no ads account. My corporate firewall settings prevent me from using the desktop Spotify client. The web player still plays ads for me when I'm signed in to my account.

When I raised this issue with Spotify support, they were friendly and professional but the answer boiled down to "use the desktop client, the frontend sees your legacy paid account as a free one and we're not going to update our code to handle it."

I use an adblocker on Spotify to get the ads-free experience I pay the company for.

<comment><USER38> Could you set up an SSH tunnel and use the client through that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is a good move. Even though ads are annoying and frustrating at most times it is not anybody's birth-right to use a product/service for free and block their sources of revenue. If they have a pay-to-remove-ads option, use it.

<comment><USER40> Should TV networks try to block you if you don't look at the TV while ads are running? Or if you turn it off/switch channel/mute it? Same goes for newspapers and magazines - do you have a right to skip pages filled with ads and not look at them?

<comment><USER41> ...all the examples you gave are services you pay for. Spotify is preventing users from blocking ads on their _free tier_.

<comment><USER40> Not necessarily. There are free TV channels and free newspapers as well. Spotify is trying to prevent people from choosing which data packets will their devices process or not. Which is exactly the same as a publisher trying to prevent you from not looking at a page with ads, or cutting it out. In my opinion, users have a right of modifying anything they get - whether free or paid, which includes processing and filtering data that comes to their devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The amount of people here outraged that Spotify is preventing them from blocking ads on the _free tier_ is astounding. Pay for the service if you don't want ads.

<comment><USER42> +1 spotify literally costs (per month) < 2 venti lattes from your favorite cafe, and less than a beer at most bars in NYC and 1/2 of this thread is complaining

<comment><USER40> I'm one of those that are complaining, but at the same time I pay for Spotify, Netflix and HBO GO, and I didn't pirate almost anything for years. It's not about the cost, it's about their obsession with control. If they can't provide free service without privacy intrusion (monitoring what you do with the data they send to your network) they shouldn't provide a free service at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The only reason I use an ad-blocker with Spotify in the first place is that they have an abundance of NSFW ads that play. I'm not really comfortable with Trojan advertisements while I'm sitting in the office plugging away. It's definitely their right to deny service if people are freeloading... but there could be other people like me who wouldn't use an ad blocker in the first place (on Spotify, at least) if the ads weren't such garbage.

<comment><USER16> Then why don't you pay for a subscription?

If you keep listening to Spotify, surely it brings you value.

I know I'm getting value from it. I listen to music all day at work and personally I don't have many services that I use so often.

<comment><USER43> So the reason for that has more to do with my corporate firewall than anything. I _do_ pay for subscription services that I enjoy more than Spotify (currently, Google Play Music and Tidal). However, I cannot have a phone at work, so I can't log into GPM (2FA requires the phone), and Tidal is blocked for other reasons. So that basically just leaves Spotify. I don't want to pay for a third subscription service that I only use for a few hours per day tops.

<comment><USER44> I was with you until > I don't want to pay for something I only use for a few hours per day tops.

A few hours a day adds up pretty quickly. Though I can understand not wanting _two_ music streaming service subscriptions.

<comment><USER43> That's the thing.. I'm already paying for two music streaming services that I use far more often than Spotify. And my wording isn't clear, but I don't listen to it 'a few hours per day every day.' It's more like 'a few hours when I do listen to music at work, which I don't usually do.' I'd guess that it's less than 10 hours per month that I'm listening to Spotify.

<comment><USER42> why dont you just ditch the other two subscriptions and use spotify exclusively ?

<comment><USER43> The simple answer is that I don't like Spotify as much as I like GPM and Tidal. Tidal is my go-to for high-quality music when I'm listening at home on my nice speakers. I've found that Tidal has the best radio experience, at least for the type of music I listen to (Spotify and GPM have a bad habit of playing the same exact songs / artists when I do a radio for a particular artist/album/song, Tidal varies it more).

Google play music is simply extremely convenient considering how nicely it works with Google Assistant. Additionally, I have tens of thousands of my own music collection uploaded to GPM that I'm free to download whenever I want without restriction. Spotify lets you play music offline, but it's basically cached and still tied to your premium Spotify subscription.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> What about the Brave browser[1], which works at the application level? Or Blokada[2], which works at the OS level? Or Pi-Hole[3], which works at the network level?

[1] [https://brave.com](https://brave.com)

[2] [https://blokada.org](https://blokada.org)

[3] [https://pi-hole.net](https://pi-hole.net)

<comment><AUTHOR> As someone mentioned in another comment, I don't think they will care about how the ads are being blocked. As long as you are bypassing ads, you are in breach of their TOS.

<comment><USER46> Yea, but there is no way to distinct why ads don't reach the target, and as it's worded, they can't block service for technical difficulties but for intentional behaviour.

I haven't seen even if they specified whether it must be the account user or not. E.g. your network host or isp can do it.

So that seems interesting, unless they can do it on a whim anyways and dont have to prove anything. Though they could just say, "no free service if we cant serve ads".

<comment><USER47> > they can't block service for technical difficulties but for intentional > behaviour

They can block service for whatever reason they want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I dont get why people use spotify instead of listening to free online radios from anywhere in the world. As a bonus, its like travelling. There are ads, but they target other people than you so its not even annoying (you will not be influenced to buy a car at a dealership in another country). Note that if you are the kind who likes targeted ads, this does not apply to you.

<comment><USER49> Radio stations at least around the midwest here in the US only seem to play ~20 different songs, and it gets really repetitive, really fast, just ask anybody working retail.

Plus the genre's are rather limited, it's usually one or two pop stations (with 90% song overlap), one or two country, maybe NPR or something in a podcast format, etc. Meanwhile all of the ads.

Personally I'm on the student plan, and for what I like the listen to it's a steal for 5$ (and free hulu?) Any of the alternatives, deezer, apple music, etc would likely work too, but I can't imagine only using fm radio stations.

<comment><USER50> Most radio stations are crap, but the world is a huge place. Listen to say WFMU out of NYC and you will hear a very wide selection of odd stuff.

<comment><USER51> And most of that odd stuff is also crap. I value the ability to discover music that is relevant to my tastes.

<comment><USER50> I find novelty to be it's own reward. However, that's literally just 1 of ~100,000 radio stations out there. Spotify is decent, but if you want to try something else their really are great options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > All types of ad blockers, bots and fraudulent streaming activities are not > permitted.

I feel like the bigger issue here is Spotify's conflating the use of "ad blockers" with other (clearly illegal) activities like "fraudulent streaming". If you don't allow ad blockers on your service, fine. But lumping them in the same sentence with criminal activities...seems like a very slippery slope.

Hey Spotify: Instead of just throwing gasoline on the fire, why don't you spend some of that venture capital to address the underlying issues here, namely: Why are people running ad blockers in the first place? Are they concerned about privacy or malvertising? Are your ads obnoxious? The only reason we're in this boat is because the modern internet is pretty darn unusable without an ad blocker - consumers are sending a clear message with their use of ad blockers. Wake up and do something to help fix the problem.

As it stands, all you've done is throw down the gauntlet. Now, ad blockers will probably just get more sophisticated to work around your detection systems, and round and round we'll go.

As for me, I'm done. I've deleted my Spotify account and will spend my time/money supporting other services that are trying to improve the advertising situation on the internet instead of telling users to suck it up, turn off their ad blocker, and support a crappy ad ecosystem that's especially predatory toward our less-technical friends and family members.

And hey - if you want to see an example of how to do internet advertising right, check out [https://carbonads.net](https://carbonads.net). There's no reason Spotify couldn't pioneer the audio equivalent of what the awesome folks at Carbon have done. Props (and a whitelist in my ad blocker) to them.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is your friendly reminder to make backups of things you don't want to lose. This happened to me when Grooveshark quit, so now I have a small script that pulls all song metadata from my Spotify account. I can always still buy music, switch services, etc., but I can't get my collection back if they see my account mistakenly as blocking ads (I'm a paying customer but you never know).

Same with Telegram (or your favorite chat service) by the way. Almost nobody backs that up. Especially if you're not paying and they can read your plaintexts (and find something potentially unwanted in there), be sure to make regular backups.

</comment><comment><USER54> Relevant South Park: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z696bTiP8Ro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z696bTiP8Ro)

<comment><USER55> Ridding the world of non-US viewers too apparently. ("Not available in your country")

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I pay for Spotify, and I'm about ready to drop it.

Offline play is the primary feature I pay for, and it's SUCKS!!!

They simply DONT allow you to search an index of the songs that are saved to the device.

The major bug is, a song is generally only found via the index you saved it in.

Ie: if you save a song in a playlist, you can't find it by searching for the artist.

If you save 3 albums by an artist, but not the artist, you try and view the artist, nothing appears.

On top of that, Spotify is the slowest flakiest app regarding internet connection. It regularly says "offline" or "can't connect" when every other app works just fine.

On top of that, twice while upgrading the app it has deleted my ENTIRE saved library.

</comment><comment><USER57> I assume paid subscribers aren't affected by that rule? I have a pretty comprehensive /etc/hosts file that blocks a lot of ad networks (particularly ones known to traffic particularly onerous ads and/or malicious code). There's no way I'm nuking that because Spotify has this new rule. But I don't see ads in Spotify anyways due to having a paid subscription. I assume this new "rule" will never affect me. Guess I better make a local backup of my library/playlists just in case? :P

But.. to be honest, can we just have Rdio back? It was vastly superior and when it went under, Spotify was literally not even capable of importing my Rdio library (because Spotify actually limits how many songs you can add to your library, with a ridiculously low limit of _10,000_ songs). Users have been requesting an increase to this since 2014 or earlier, with of course zero changes to this amount. [https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Your- Music-Incre...](https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Your-Music- Increase-maximum-Songs-allowed-in-Your-Music/idi-p/733759) (notice it has _451 pages_ of comments)

</comment><comment><USER58> There's thousands of free internet radio stations, most of which have none or minimal advertising. I recommend people try them out.

<comment><USER59> Any links or suggestions?

<comment><USER60> [http://radio.garden/](http://radio.garden/)

It's what you get when you smush internet radio and a virtual globe together. I really enjoy exploring different parts of the world and listening to their music.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> The question this boils down to ultimately is:

Who owns the consumption platform (device/OS/Browser)?

If the user owns the platform, it's the responsibility of the service provider to deliver HTML. Nothing more. The user may display the content in any way he/she like. Store it for later consumption. Extract information, etc. This is how the web was initially envisaged. Browser extensions which allow you to inject JS/CSS are still a relict of this era.

If the service provider owns the platform, all the user may do is consume the content in its provided form (inc. Ads) or leave it. This is where the web is currently headed. With company controlled mobile platforms (iOS) the control over the platform is already completely out of the hand of the user. Consolidation of the Browser technology is another step in this direction.

If the regulator does not step in, this paradigm shift will go on, and we will see more and more lock-down of the web.

</comment><comment><USER62> Will it also block my account when I have pi-hole/openwrt adblock? which blocks ads on DNS level

</comment><comment><USER63> That's really not enough. There should be some kill signal, so that the operator on the other end is electrocuted, and/or their equipment is destroyed if they violate the Terms and Conditions. For example:

. Ad blocker usage

. Preventing telemetry / data funneling by using DNS blackholing or port blocking

. Anything else specified in the Terms and Conditions*

* - Which the user clicked Yes / OK / The Checkbox willingly, entering into a contract. They didn't have to, right?

Up to, and including physical harm and death. How are companies supposed to make any money? Doesn't everyone know the entire Internet would be non- existent without the ad-supported model? Don't be selfish. Submit!

</comment><comment><USER64> I still miss Rdio :( Apple Music's playlists are great though! But iTunes is such a hot mess. I love how if you double click a song name in the right place, it gives you an interface to change the name of the song, album and artist.

</comment><comment><USER65> Nice alternative to Spotify is Apple Music. They recently opened up their API ([https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi)) which has been used to create a nice web interface by [https://musi.sh/](https://musi.sh/)

Their suggestions AI is quite a bit behind Spotify's unfortunately. Dunno if that's by a lack of design or because of Apple's privacy stance -- probably the former.

<comment><USER66> I wonder how long it'll be before using Apple's logo on their page blows up in their face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I got this email notice today and my first thought was "why do I still have a Spotify account?" then I remembered I was unable to get rid of it when I tried a few years ago. I found you can delete it here[1]: Account -> I want to close my account permanently. Then there are a bunch of confirmations, including an email.

[https://support.spotify.com/us/contact-spotify- support/](https://support.spotify.com/us/contact-spotify-support/)

</comment><comment><USER68> I assume this only applies to the _free_ version of spotify

<comment><USER30> They have a web player linked from the bottom of their home page, and ad blockers work while using it.

<comment><USER69> Are you sure that's for paid accounts? I'm using it right now on a browser with no ad blocker and I don't get ads.

<comment><USER30> I don't understand your question. If you pay, they don't serve you ads, no?

<comment><USER69> OP was asking if it was limited to the free version, and your answer seemed to imply that the web player served ads for all versions, since it didn't specify the account type. If that wasn't the implication, then my question is no longer valid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> No one is allowed to guarantee that an ad shows up on a screen I own. They can TRY to show an ad on my screen, and I might let them. But the conditions of use of any type of free service they emit out into nature emphatically does not include being allowed to control what appears on my screen. Nope. Never.

I am perfectly allowed to consume their free service AND ALSO control what I allow to appear on the screen that I own. It's my screen.

<comment><USER71> And Spotify can control their service how they please, next.

<comment><USER70> As a point of fact, they cannot, because their goal with "controlling their service" is to control what is displayed on someone else's personal property as a condition of listening to the free data stream they decided to emit.. and so Spotify (or anyone else) is not capable of making that a reality.

They could change their service to try to block users who protect their personal property from having certain harmful pieces of information (like ads) mixed in with otherwise freely available data sources. But it would just be a silly failure, since lots of people already circumvent that type of thing easily and legally with technology all the time.

The only thing they could actually do is to entirely shut down their emitted free stream of data all together, both content and ads alike. Of course they are free to do that if they want. Nobody suggested they have to emit a free stream of data.. only that _if they choose to_ then people will just keep consuming it without allowing ads to appear, and the ads will keep being legally and successfully blocked regardless of any type of ban that Spotify tries to implement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Where's the point when you can simply create new accounts? You do not even need to verify new accounts, so you could simply push some garbage email.

<comment><USER73> you'd loose your liked songs library, playlists... the whole profile that makes the suggestion system work okay-ish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Time to stop using it, I guess. Their ads blast my head off with double the volume and make the whole thing unusable.

~$120/year to remove ads is a lot of money just so I can listen to the odd pop song someone mentions that isn't on YouTube. I don't listen to much big label music. "Big label music in one place" is basically Spotify's value proposition. $120 buys a _lot_ on Bandcamp.

</comment><comment><USER75> We have been thinking, admittedly for a few months, about paying for a Spotify subscription and this sort of makes me lean more against -- particularly as a Pi-hole user (though it doesn't block Spotify's audio ads).

I wish Bandcamp would start a radio-style service. I have tried in the past to use it that way but it always tends to fall out of my mind because I can't just hit play and let it run.

</comment><comment><USER76> Apparently the new TOS says that they _may_ do it, not they they will do it.

</comment><comment><USER77> I use a Firefox extension to protect me from CSRF attacks and tracking networks. It basically blocks all content from domains which do not not pertain to the page that I am reading. A side-effect of this is that it blocks most ads. The extension is frequently mistaken by many websites to be an ad blocker. I've no problem with ads per se, I realise that they are often important for funding a website. What I have a problem with is that the overwhelming majority of ads on the internet come from networks that are used for tracking.

I don't think I'm alone. I wonder what percentage people use ad blockers primarily for privacy purposes. In a perfect world, websites would implement their own way of displaying ads that doesn't rely on ad networks. This would make ads much harder to block, websites could potentially take 100% of the ad revenue, privacy advocates would be much happier and there would be less incentive for anyone to develop or use ad blockers.

</comment><comment><USER78> Are they still going to take all sorts of telemetry and 'share' (read:sell) it to third parties if I pay for the service? Yes? Okay, then I'll continue to support the most dastardly peglegs to ever sail the seven seas. I value my personal data at twice the value of their service, so technically I'm paying more than my fair share by not collecting on it. I'm saving THEM money - <USER2> would owe me the cost of their service if I didn't block ads. And just like Spotify, I don't have an opt-out option, so I don't take it personally if they cease to provide service. I mean, technically, I DO require a 3 month notice and reserve the right to collect a $50,000 early termination fee, but I'm a nice guy.

It's funny how automated systems that are impossible to oversee operate. It's almost as if it shouldn't be allowed, but, hey, they have my info and could have contacted me.

You get my data or my money, not both. There was a time when I would be fine with data collection - when it actually improved the product - but now that it's another revenue stream to sell all that off to random third parties I have no control over, sorry, no dice. I have zero qualms with people not wanting advertising thrown at them 24/7 while their life is continuously data mined.

Advertising is mental pollution. It's not even junk food, since it offers no sustenance. It's predatory. People need to stop pretending it's an inconsequential option to throw it on a mediocre product no one would actually buy. If someone told me the apps/programs I paid for bumped their prices up by 10x, I would still buy them. If I installed your app and chose the ad-riddled version, it's because I barely care that it exists or didn't want to bother with sifting through 10,000 clones.

This is what we get for the mobile app race-to-the-bottom. Mentally, "$0.99 vs free _" is much closer to "$20 vs free_", than "$20 vs $40". But, now we're stuck. No one's going to up their price to something reasonable, and if stores eliminate the free tier, then the ads will just migrate to the lowest priced tier. I 100% expect that ads will require camera permissions and force you to look at them within 10 years, maybe 5. Are people still going to be singing the startup-saving praise of ads when Pepsi is permanently burned into their retinas? "I mean, you're already looking at your phone, and you get this neat flashlight button!"

</comment><comment><USER79> I wonder if they'll penalise paying users who also happen to be running an ad blocker. I pay for a Spotify family subscription but also block advertising and analytics domains in the hosts file on each of my devices. Spotify queries Scorecard Research regularly in the background even when it's ostensibly not running (on Android).

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm just concerned as a paying customer. I blanket block all known ads and tracking scripts network wide via pihole. Are they going to ban me too because their precious tracking is blocked and their automated system thinks I'm the same as a free user blocking it? Solution that's less hostile would be to just axe free accounts altogether.

</comment><comment><USER81> To the other (currently) highly-positioned comment here who proposes "just pay for it or don't use it":

How do they know if you close your eyes or look away? How do they know if you plug your ears? How do they know you are actually paying attention to the ads and not just ignoring them? Are those actions, none other than the human free will, not essentially a form of adblocking?

My biggest concern with the "just pay for it or don't use it" attitude is not how much it costs. That's irrelevant. It's the idea that it's wrong to not "consume" ads somehow, or that it's acceptable for companies to use increasingly intrusive techniques to monitor users for "compliance" of this consumption.

Not a Spotify user, so I have no skin (or ears...) in this game. But now I'm even more unlikely to become one.

</comment><comment><USER82> I think more companies with a free and paid teir should start doing this. The answer to ads shouldn't be an ad blocker, it should be to pay for the service. The big problems we have to solve with this is making it easier and safer to pay for online services, and giving more services a paid and a free tier.

</comment><comment><USER83> It blows my mind that an advertiser would present their product on Spotify's ad network. The audience selects for people unwilling to spend even very little money on high-quality goods.

(In my social circles, avid consumers subscribe to Spotify by default. Several even subscribe to both Spotify and Apple Music.)

</comment><comment><USER84> People here on HN are confused and believe that breaching a TOS is some sort of moral peril.

Calm down. It's business and no one is going to jail because they blocked an advertisement. Society at large doesn't think piracy is even worth punishing, so why and when did we become obsequious for RIAA or MPAA?

</comment><comment><USER85> So... they just became profitable, and now they're about to spite a lot of users for about 10% of their revenue? I hope this day haunts them.

I can't believe how many people are discussing this as if ads are the utmost legitimate moneymaker. Ads are parasitic by their very nature, their purpose is to forcibly occupy some mind real-estate. Nobody wants to see ads, yet a large industry exists based on making people see them anyway.

I'm happy when I learn that more and more people are using adblock, and I hope companies that rely on ads to survive disappear. Spotify has chosen to put itself in that camp. I think it's foolishly short-sighted, and I hope time proves me right. The alternative is a future where the ads win... who really wants that?

<comment><USER86> They have an ad-free service option available

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I get where they are coming from, but I've never seen this kind of strategy work. If someone wants to keep listening to their songs for free they will find a way to do it, possibly with a different vendor.

There's also the possibility this is just talk to keep the advertisers happy.

</comment><comment><USER88> I'm having a hard time understanding the rationale of this being "Good."

It's not like forcing people to watch or listen to the ads will make them click the ads, or like the products sold in those ads. In fact, i'd suspect forcing someone who prefers not to see ads to see them anyway will most likely make them dislike the advertised products, or the service that runs those ads, so it'd be a net loss.

It that not the case? If it is, then what's point of doing this?

(Note: i pay for Spotify. I like the service, and i think providing "extra" features like being able to play exactly the songs you want, or download them is a better way of promoting the paid version than running annoying ads.)

</comment><comment><USER89> I have never used one of these subscription services because I hate renting my music. I buy my music. I frequently buy CDs in bars and rip them. I know when I buy a CD from an indie artist, they usually only paid $1 ~ $2 for that CD and get the full amount I pay them minus that. Bandcamp is seocnd best, because they only take 15% (compared to over 30% from Amazon/Apple/Google).

Buy your music people! You can get 250GB microSD cards. Back when the limit was 128GB, sure I couldn't get all my music on my phone (I just had A-V .. W - Z just had to wait), but now I have all of it on there and probably won't max out until larger cards are affordable.

</comment><comment><USER90> I'm surprised at the amount of entitlement hiding behind "I'm worried about the security concerns of allowing 3rd party JS to run on my device." If you don't want that happening, use one of the many alternatives and take the usability hit. Pandora, online portals for actual radio stations (like BBC Radio 1), and Youtube all work, but maybe don't have as great of a user experience as Spotify (or another paid streaming service). And let's be honest, the small minority of people here who evangelize "Spotify is evil" to friends/family is not going to have a meaningful impact on their user numbers.

</comment><comment><USER91> Anyone know if there's a host file blacklist for malicious domains only? Most of the ones I've seen block all ads.

The first time I experienced a malicious ad in Spotify on my Linux machine, I started blocking them via my hosts file [1]. I was only hoping to block malicious sites but it ended up giving me a completely ad-free experience in Spotify.

As a free user I accept that I will be exposed to ads in exchange for not paying for the service, but they seriously need to do a better job vetting for malicious ads.

[1] [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts)

<comment><USER92> Malicious advertisements are served off of normal ad distribution networks, which is what gives them their power - they're being hosted using the normal process, not from anybody new or special. The server used for the malware is disposable and ephemeral. Vetting advertisements would interfere with the real-time auction process, so nobody does any more than is required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> I wonder how Spotify's revenue sharing agreement between themselves, record labels, and independent music producers compars with Spotify's ad agreements between themselves and people buying ads.

</comment><comment><USER94> Why doesn't spotify just stop playing the music if it "detects" ad blocking? It sounds like they don't know how to detect ad blockers and are resorting to fear tactics like this instead.

</comment><comment> move-on-by Isn't the latest versions of Firefox blocking ads and trackers by default now? Is Spotify just going to block every Firefox user now? This seems extreme, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

</comment><comment><USER95> They also changed their terms regarding reverse engineering.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18978825](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18978825)

<comment><USER96> Isn't that unenforceable in the EU?

<comment><USER95> Parts of it certainly, but I am not sure about the "disclosed or communicated" part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> It's laughable how much of a fraud "intelletual property" has become.

Smile everybody! We're gonna be in a 30th century encylopiedia article about the stupidity of the 21th century..

</comment><comment><USER98> I used Spotify for a few years (with an ad blocker at the DNS-level) and never heard a single ad. I was constantly blown away by how great the service was, and free! Then I was on a road trip and heard the ads on my phone because I wasn't using my at-home DNS. The ads were so annoying, came on after ever 3-4th song. Ad blockers were really effective on Spotify.

I've been a paying member for a few years now.

Curious if they will block paid users too.

</comment><comment><USER99> I don't have an adblocker per se, but I do have a great deal of ad domains rerouted to localhost in my hosts files (not intended for Spotify but for the web in general). This occasionally causes issues with Spotify, like the playlist not continuing because an ad can't be loaded properly, but I still do get some ads (which I don't really mind). I wonder if this will affect my account or not.

</comment><comment><USER100> Just to be sure, this is only for free accounts, right? Having a paid account suspended because a friend runs a pi hole would be pretty annoying.

<comment><USER101> I'm wondering the same thing. I've paid for a premium account, and run a pi- hole on my home network. The way I interpret the language in the terms of service (IANAL) is that the act of blocking an ad is forbidden, but not the running of the ad-blocker itself. Since a premium accounts are not delivered ads in the first place, I would hope that this means paying users will be unaffected.

I am very interested to hear a more qualified interpretation of the situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Using an ad-blocker to listen to Spotify for free because you "don't believe in their malware serving practices!" is sort of like being vegan but eating meat anyway. If you really can't accept Spotify on some fundamental level you shouldn't be using Spotify.

All these people up in arms about ad-blockers on Spotify are just trying to justify being cheap.

</comment><comment><USER103> They have threatened to do this on Android for a long time[1], unfortunately, this affects alternate clients as well as piracy.

[1] [https://www.neowin.net/news/spotify-disables-modified- apps-m...](https://www.neowin.net/news/spotify-disables-modified-apps-may- suspend-accounts-of-repeat-offenders/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I basically see two schools of thought in the discussion:

1\. People that believe ads are strictly a source of revenue. If you don't like them but want to use the service, pay for the service

2\. People who believe that ads are more than a banner on the page, its permission for ad networks and services to run potentially malicious content on their computer

<comment><USER18> Even if 2 is true, how does that change the point? "Either pay us for our content, or let our ad networks run whatever they want on your browser" sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Would you thing it was more ethical if Spotify just got rid of the free option completely?

<comment><USER104> What if Spotify ran the ads from their own servers as to not give advertisers free reign on your data?

<comment><USER18> What if? What's your point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> I can deal with paying for stuff. I can deal with "you are the product being sold" services.

I can't deal with being both simultaneously. Companies that attempt that combo can kindly shove a cactus somewhere.

Maybe this is just a bad article, but to me the no ad-blockers sounds like a blanket ban not just free users.

</comment><comment><USER106> I like spotify, I pay for a family subscription which gives us an account each for my partner and I, plus a bunch of spare accounts for things like Sonos and Alexa to use. Never hear an ad because I pay for the service.

If they _did_ start shooting ads at me, I'd cancel in a flash, same goes for Netflix etc.

</comment><comment><USER107> But Spotify is only $10 a month....Your time spent pirating vs. time saved on Spotify has to be worth something.

<comment><USER104> My time searching for and discovery albums is invaluable to me. Spotify removes that satisfaction.

<comment><USER107> That's a valid reason. I don't think that most people have the same view, and after people experience Spotify playlists like Discovery, it's hard to go back to the old way of finding music.

<comment><USER108> I find those spotify generated playlists are really bad. I think they try to prefer music that's cheaper for them to play or something. Definitely not a great discovery tool for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> I have no idea what the ads on Spotify are like now as I haven't used it in over 3 years but it was pretty annoying where you're listening to heavy metal and then an ad for a pop band comes on. And are they still doing that crap where a free account can't pick any specific songs?

</comment><comment><USER110> I just hit Mute as soon as an ad comes on, and unmute when the ads are done... joke's on you, Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER111> Cool. For all those hating on grifters, I don't think anyone's in the moral right or wrong here. Spotify is trying to monetize a free service, some people don't like that. This won't affect Spotify's profits meaningfully, and the grifters will always grift.

</comment><comment><USER112> I don't agree with blocking users with ad block. Just embed ads in stream, it makes so much more sense. This is just an excuse so Spotify can run ad spam on their clients. I'll stick with Google Play. 100 times better. Only play a few embedded stream ads (like Pandora).

</comment><comment><USER113> I wonder how this works with things like Pi-hole. I block ads at the DNS level for my whole house with dnsmasq. Any guest who connects to my WiFi AP gets this benefit through their DHCP configuration. Will Spotify ban their accounts for using the service while visiting me?

<comment><USER114> I also wonder about this. I'm a paying Spotify member who uses DNS-level ad blocking. Without a clear explanation of how they detect as blocking or if this applies to paid members, I can't tell if things I'm doing for web safety will get me banned from a service I was never trying to block ads for in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> This is the music industry. Spotify should be happy playing music for me in exchange for exposure.

<comment><USER116> [https://andymacdonald.bandcamp.com/track/exposure- dollars](https://andymacdonald.bandcamp.com/track/exposure-dollars)

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> But can they block me muting the ads?

<comment><USER118> Dont give them any ideas. Next they will require you to say the advertised brand name 5 times in order to get back to the content.

<comment><USER96> I think Sony has that patent, don't they?

<comment><USER118> Yeah, this is the one I had in mind:

[http://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious- terri...](http://fortune.com/2013/04/30/sony-patent-is-hilarious-terrifying/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I hate ads and they are often brain melting / malicious / resource hogging anyway. I also cannot afford to pay $5-10 for dozens of separate services a month at the moment. Guess I'll be listening to other sites if they ban me. You win Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER119> Every time someone says, "ugh, I'd pay for FB just to remove the ads" ... well, here you are.

This is spotify's action to protect its revenue for its ad-supported free offering. _You can pay to be rid of it_.

Absolutely no one is strong-arming you into this.

</comment><comment><USER63> There are so many complaints about Amazon's power and reach, but does anyone else here see an in for Amazon Music? I've been a Spotify paying member for years, but even though it only affects free members it makes me raise my eyebrows.

</comment><comment><USER120> It will be interesting to see how this goes.

If the users are serious about the right to choose for themselves. If they dislike adverts. Spotify may experience some business shrinkage.

That could signal a reversal of one catastrophic aspect of the current Internet.

</comment><comment><USER121> Interesting. I wonder if this includes paid customers. 'cause I pay for Spotify, but run ad / tracker block on my network. If they suspend or terminate me they'll be losing a paying customer.

</comment><comment><USER122> Monthly paid service for all the music I can possibly want is such a good deal vs. the old days of collecting CDs. This is one specific area where the Internet as absolutely delivered on it's potential.

</comment><comment><USER123> I recently cancelled my Spotify subscription because of their low quality audio. But i was reverting to it for music i couldn't find on Tidal. I guess I'm going to have to nuke it entirely now.

I'm assuming they are going to consider my use of outbound traffic restrictions on the Spotify app "ad blocking". Spotify makes all kind of ridiculous outbound requests for ad services, and many of those requests are over plain text http. Given that Spotify is a webkit app, that's a nice little attack vector Spotify is providing. Not to mention malicious ads often make their way into the ad networks. So i just block anything other than 443 to *.spotify.com domains.

Just deleted the app. I'll use Youtube instead.

<comment><USER124> YouTube ? Audio Quality ?

Anyway, I also dislike that my premium subscription is only 320kbit vorbis. I can hear a difference between that and a lossless flac on my 2016 OnePlus 3 and 15$ KZ ZSN Headphones. Obviously even bigger difference on my desktop DAC and over ear monitors. I guess I have to build an offline lib and sync it with syncthing and use Spotify like soundlcoud only to discover new stuff

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> So, I block Spotify ads by adding entries in the hosts file on Linux, Mac, and Windows... will Spotify still ban me since I'm not using an ad blocker or a modified app?

</comment><comment><USER126> Isn't spotify family plan expensive? Netflix & Amazon prime - both are < $15 per month for HD family plan. But spotify just for music is $15. Is it fair?

</comment><comment><USER127> Boo. Anti consumer practices like this are a slippery slope.

</comment><comment><USER128> 1.3% of the userbase is hardly a major problem, imho; it's just another cost of doing business.

Spotify must be trying to bury some other bad news to their investors.

</comment><comment><USER129> I use uBlock Origin and I still receive ads on Spotify. Am I in the clear or not? (I would pay for it but Spotify keeps delaying Indian launch)

</comment><comment><USER130> Simple solution is to allow paid accounts to run adblockers and block free account users who block ads without banning their accounts.

<comment><USER131> Paid accounts don't have ads.

<comment><USER130> Right, but most folks have an adblocker just on all the time. So, the paid users shouldn't get penalized in any way if it happens to be on while browsing Spotify. I'd wager this is the case, but the article doesn't specify.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER132> What qualifies as adblocking? Would connecting to the WiFi of someone using PiHole constitute adblocking and get you account banned?

</comment><comment><USER133> There goes the accounts of anyone working in a place that blocks ads for their entire wifi network for anti-malware purposes.

</comment><comment><USER134> It is my prerogative to decide which media files my browser consumes. It is my right to enforce security protections in my browser instance. All those that say 'good spotify is blocking the freeloaders' \-- this is not the point. They are requiring you to consume specific media which you do not wish. Advertising is coercive, and Spotify is applying violence (threats) to enforce their business model. Not my problem. Not that I would pay any of this trash anyway.

</comment><comment><USER135> If enough of us set out to click every ad we saw I think we could make a really interesting change to the internet...

</comment><comment><USER136> That took pretty long. I've been using a modified Spotify client that worked exceptionally well until it was shut down.

</comment><comment><USER137> I notice a ton of stuff is being piholed when I'm listening to Pandora, even though I still hear ads.

</comment><comment><USER138> And what if I pay for the service AND have an ad blocker installed? Are they going to suspend my account?

</comment><comment><USER93> What if a paid account is using an ad blocker? Does the account holder get banned then?

</comment><comment><USER139> Makes sense, given they pretty much depend on either ads or pay to remove ads to survive

</comment><comment><USER140> Yet FM radio is still free and no one can tell if you turn the radio down during ads

</comment><comment><USER17> If the service Spotify uses to host/serve ads get hacked and delivers malware to my computer, they should be held responsible for the cost and time spent addressing the malware. If I actually brought this up with them, I assume I would be laughed out of their office. Spotify can't have it both ways.

</comment><comment><USER141> Free accounts or all accounts? (is this a precursor to adverts for paid accounts?)

</comment><comment><USER142> I wonder if this also applies to people who edit their hosts file.

<comment><USER143> Probably, since most ad blocker detection can't tell the difference, and the difference is irrelevant to an ad vendor anyways.

<comment><USER144> This is going to end badly. What if the ISP or corporate network have their own domain blacklists?

<comment><USER145> I block advertising as a category at our corporate proxy (it saves about 20% of potential web traffic and about 85% of the vectors of infection,)!

People definitely aren't going to be happy if they start losing their accounts for listening at work...

<comment><USER143> Yeah, corporate filters blocking a number of ad domains is quite common, and a _lot_ of people listen to Spotify at work. This is probably going to go very badly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER146> Next step is smarter ad blockers.

Where is this arms race headed?

</comment><comment><USER147> This is an arms race that Spotify will loose.

</comment><comment><USER148> Are there ad blockers on iOS for Spotify ?

<comment><USER149> Not for Spotify directly. However, I do use Purify for iOS as a content blocker for Safari. It might work depending on if Spotify has any web views embedded in its app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> on a side note, that's going to be 2 million less users in their ML feeds (1.3 percent of the user base)

</comment><comment><USER150> What if I have firewall that blocks some IPs and it just so happens that they belong to the ad servers? Will it count as circumvention?

<comment><USER151> banhammer

</comment></comment><comment><USER152> I just want the content I paid for.

</comment><comment><USER153> I never liked Spotify anyways!

</comment><comment><USER154> Ah, the imminent decline of Spotify. I've been wondering what was taking so long to get that going.

</comment><comment><USER155> I predict an arms race.

</comment><comment><USER156> Spotify has a really crap mobile app both iOS and macOS.

</comment><comment><USER157> Adios Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER158> Another good reason to not use Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER159> lol bye spotify

</comment><comment><USER160> ha watch their total subscriber count drop

</comment><comment><USER161> With an ad blocker on your browser, you can skip all ads. If you're afraid of getting banned and losing your playlists, then create your playlists using one Spotify account, set them as collaborative, then import them from another Spotify account, and run them from there.

</comment><comment><USER162> I pay on credit card so they can expect a chargeback if they pull this shit on me

<comment><USER163> I don't think it applies to paid accounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, paid subscribers don't have to deal with ads anyway I guess?

<comment><USER155> for now</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you find projects to contribute to that were not your own? - <AUTHOR> It is well-known that contributing to other people's projects (e.g. open source) is a great way to get some experience. How have you found projects to contribute to in the past? <comment><USER2> I primarily contribute to projects I use myself (or sometimes, have used in the past). Most of the time I get started with a bug impacting me or a feature I want, and when I have some experience with the code base through that it's easier to contribute on other parts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you use many (and mostly) open source projects? I am starting to wonder if I am not exploring enough of this type of projects to find one I could add something to.

<comment><USER2> While programming I use a lot of libraries, most of them are open-source. A lot of developer tools are also open-source. I use a few open-source "desktop applications", although I haven't really contributed to any of them (I tried hacking on one or two of them, but not to the point that it lead to a contribution). I use a bunch of web sites that are open-source (forum of a community I'm involved with, stuff like that). A few browser plugins I've actually contributed to as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Look for a project that holds your interest and that has bugs which seem within your reach to fix or it has missing functionality which you would use (and be willing to implement). If you're not looking for a coding role try to lend a hand with what skills you currently are trying to build.

One project that I'm currently maintaining first caught my interest when I tried to connect a MIDI piano up to a Linux system and I found several of the open source options had issues compiling. At that point I submitted fixes to get it working to my satisfaction and I have continued to help improve upon it since then.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Do you usually try to solve it yourself first or do you look around for existing solutions before trying to implement your fix?

<comment><USER3> Audio processing programs tend to have relatively unusual constraints, so in many cases there isn't an existing solution that fits the application. In those cases a new lib needs to be written. When there is an existing solution fits though it's generally preferred as it can be much faster to build off the work of others. When there's something that isn't quite a match other libraries can be used as a point of reference for which designs work well and which ones introduce headaches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Crowdraising.co</comment>


Raspberry Pi powered audio player and CD ripper - <AUTHOR> http://www.brennan.co.uk/ <comment><AUTHOR> [Disclaimer] - I'm absolutely not affiliated with this...but it seems like an interesting product.

I was actually looking into building something of this sort to power my to-be home audio system, probably using parts from hifiberry.com

Does anyone have experience with these kinds of products? I'm guessing the B2 device uses some combination of Raspberry Pi + Hi-Fi DAC Hat + custom software.</comment>


Stop playing the "age card" on young people in tech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/shipharder/stop-playing-the-age-card-on-young-people-98fc14d9637d <comment><USER2> If you hate that card when you're young, you'll _really_ hate getting when you're old. I actually remove experience and skills from my resume these days, to increase my chances of getting hired.

<comment><USER3> As a guy who can talk shop with mainframers, and taught Linux Security to to a classroom of them at a big blue building where such machines are manufactured, I concur.

There was the technical divide ("Buffer overflows? Meh, we just kill them and start a new instance!") to the generational divide - I was near-30 and this was near-2000. I think I was the only person there who didn't (yet?) belong to a charitable secret society.

This stuff is only very quickly hinted at in my CV. Trying to explain it in interviews is painful at best. It's a past job experience I've just kept mainly to myself when it comes to resumes. The age thing happens in both directions, and seems damn near unavoidable.</comment></comment>


Promoting on forums is a huge waste of time - <AUTHOR> http://blog.styleguidance.com/post/347532494/promoting-on-forums-is-a-huge-waste-of-time <comment><USER2> As far as using forums as a pure form of promotion, I agree that you'll never see a real "return" on your time as measured by the numbers. I do, however, think that forums can still provide value. I may not be able build a critical mass of users by posting different threads, but its a great way to meet and learn from potential users. In the customer development model, I would place forum use under customer discovery and validation. Company building is out of the question here.</comment>


Don't Tell Ashton - Million Dollar Homepage done Twitter-style - <AUTHOR> http://donttellashton.com/

<comment><USER2> Jeez, just render a static image instead of making everyone download thousands of individual images!

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this, not just for the cool effect, but for the clever name too. milliondollartwitter.com wouldn't have had the same chutzpah.

</comment><comment><USER4> Except for the million dollars part.

<comment><AUTHOR> Goes viral, gets loads of attention, decent potential to throw some ads on and at least make something (though not $1m). If it catches Ashton's interest enough that he tweets about it, you have a message going out to millions of people. Pretty inventive and yet another "wish I'd thought of that!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't seem to be drawn to scale. For instance, @LevelTen_Colin's square (bottom left) is the same size as @snookca's square (bottom center), despite Colin having 7k followers compared to Snook's 15k.

</comment><comment><USER6> Kind of neat, but the weird salute to Ashton at the end ruined it for me.

</comment><comment><USER7> CPU hog warning please?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry - it was my first submission, I knew I couldn't post a link and body text together and didn't think to submit a comment straight after (not sure of protocol on that).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Platform to stream and record classes for free? - <AUTHOR> Hi! I'm a high school student. Schools in our country have just been closed and I and my classmates (not the whole school, just under 35 people) would like to attend classes online.
The only thing we need is a FREE service to stream and record classes (we can store then on Google Drive). It would also be great if it was like a conference call so that we can talk but a live chat is enough.
Our school doesn't have a G Suite account and I'm not sure if we can create a throwaway account. Getting our headmaster's approval might take days or weeks as they're not really into tech, so there's might be now way to create an official school account. Every day counts as we have our final exams in May.
Which platform would you recommend? <comment><USER2> While I have not had experience with using these products for classes, you do have a few options that I can think of that are available for free.

\- Discord Go Live streams were just increased from 10 to 50 participants. I don't know if there is any way to record those.

\- Twitch. One-way streams with chat. Note that stream recording must be turned on in your account settings, and I believe that recordings are only kept for seven days in most cases, but can be exported to a YouTube channel.

\- Skype. These can be recorded.

\- YouTube live streams may also be useful for one-way streaming with chat. Streams can easily be hosted from the YouTube mobile app (phone number verification might be required).

Good luck with your classes!</comment>


Show HN: Twincl – A New Attempt at "Rich Forum" - <AUTHOR> https://twincl.com/community/*684 <comment><USER2> > Although rich, interactive contents can be made with HTML5/CSS/JavaScript > technologies, most Internet users do not possess related programming skills.

Great! Finally someone in the open source forum community designing a UI for the average user!

> On twincl.com, a piece of rich content (which we called a twinclet, > pronounced as "twink-lit") is written with a Markdown fenced code block.

And... they've failed right out of the gate. Face-down in the dirt.

I will never understand the obsession some developers have with Markdown.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe you are right. But Reddit uses Markdown, too, and people seem OK with that? Most redditors are not developers.

<comment><USER2> People seem ok with a lot of awful things. I don't see that as an argument for Markdown.

The question is: has Reddit (or other Markdown users) _actually studied_ Markdown's usability? Even a basic comparative study against a WYSIWYG equivalent?

It seems like "techy" people just kind of _assume_ Markdown is great and easy and awesome without ever bothering to actually make any effort to question that assumption. That's really the part that bugs me most.

And the entire pitch of Markdown is that you can style your text the way you did back when you were using text-only stuff. Ok. So _this should be underlined, then_. And /this should be in italics, right?/ And naturally _this is boldfaced._ Oh wait. Markdown is ZERO FOR THREE.

(Strangely, Markdown doesn't even _have_ underline. Go figure. It's not even remotely close to feature-parity with the WYSIWYG textboxes we were all using on the web in 2008.)

<comment><USER3> I'm quite confused with a lot of your dislike for Markdown.

I have a reverse question, what is better than Markdown in your mind? I'm starting a project that is heavily based around text, and for simplicity i just wanted plain text. Ie, i have no editor for the project. So for markup, i need _something_. What do you feel is the right markup language?

Personally i feel Markdown is easiest markup language i've found. Compared to some, it's quite intuitive. Combined with the fact that it is becoming quite prominent means users are also learning it. The only downfall with Markdown in my mind is a lack of a standard, but i think that's being worked on _(there are some attempts at that, i believe)_.

Anyway.. i would really appreciate your feedback, if you feel there are better pure text Markup languages :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe OP means a WYSIWYG editor is _much_ better than Markdown.

In terms of a markup language in pure text, I think Markdown is your best bet. Folks in CommonMark.org tries to "standardize" Markdown. Our implementation in Twincl.com follows that standard as much as we can.

<comment><USER3> Appreciate the reply. Honestly though, this confuses me even more. Many sites have both Markdown _and_ a rich editor.. isn't that sort of required for users anyway? No matter what language powers your Markup, at the end of the day many users want an editor.

/shrug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's an interesting concept, but what's stopping people from making this as a plugin for any other forum script? Because nothing in the page seems like it'd be hard to replicate for a good developer (read, someone who's likely coding add ons for existing platforms).

Seems like it'd be best just to wait for a version for my existing forum script. Or get someone to program one.

The use of markdown is questionable too. As mentioned, normal users find it somewhat awkward. Might work much better with a button/modal driven system to set up the quiz or Tic Tac Toe game...

To post or comment on Twincl site, just login with a verified Facebook account. Alternatively, you may register a new Twincl account, and subscribe to the membership with a minimal fee. (Our point is to make the account less disposable, which we believe is a key to pleasant community experiences.)

And you're gonna struggle here too.

Many people who use forums do not care for Facebook. They especially do not care for trying to tie every single account to an identity with their real name (and likely photo) attached to it.

This is especially true of less 'savoury' subjects, which are some of the subject areas that forums can work really well for. A forum on say, psychological issues or relationship problems is pretty much a non starter with this script. As is any forum in a legally grey area. Or heck, any forum where you just want a different username for whatever reason or don't want the staff/members to know every little thing about you.

Or any forum where themed usernames are a big part of the community. No one's going to pay $5 a year to call themselves say, Mario. Or Master Chief. Or Pikachu.

So it seems like the registration system basically makes it a non starter for any forum where people want some anonymity/privacy, any forum about a fictional universe or series (or where role playing is a thing) or any forum relating to anything remotely illicit or legally grey.

It has some interesting concepts, but the membership stuff is a problem and the UI stuff seems like it's both a tad complicated and easily copyable by your competitors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Forum anonymity (or more precisely, disposable account) is the source of moderation pain and the reason of suboptimal forum content quality. It's one of the main issues I want to address from day 1. If FB account puts a lot of people off, I may consider adopting SMS verification sooner, or change the yearly subscription to a one-time small fee.

It seems Markdown editing is a red flag for broader adoption. I've thought about a dual approach before: allow casual users to edit with GUI, and provide the Markdown editing capability for pro users.

I do not have a fool-proof way to prevent plugin copying. If somehow it's widely copied, it's not a bad thing (to most people), too.

<comment><USER4> As someone who's run a ton of forums, I disagree it's the source of suboptimal forum content quality. If I had forced real names and identities, I would have lost a significant amount of users and activity. And not just trolls and spammers either.

A lot of people like to keep identities separate. Any system that tries to remove the anonymity site of things will end up stifling quite a few people who worry about their personal information being misused or who don't want everyone to know about their every activity online. That's not a bad thing, especially not in a world where intelligence agencies want to spy on everything you do, you could lose your job because of some comments on Facebook or Twitter and being swatted is sadly quite common.

Not everyone wants their friends and family to know they're an active member on say, Donald Trump Fan Forums. Or that they're posted leaked content from an upcoming game, like quite a few people on 4chan or Reddit. Or that they're interested in setting up a Tor node.

As for markdown, yeah, your solution there is exactly the solution. A GUI for new users, a raw editing text box for pro users. It's like how a lot of forum editors switch between BB code/raw text and a WYSIWYG editor.

Plugin copying is a good thing here (because the features mentioned could be good in other scripts), but I'm just warning you'll need quite a bit more if you want to differentiate themself enough from competitors in the market (of which there are thousands).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        > To post or comment on Twincl site, just login with a
        > verified Facebook account. Alternatively, you may register
        > a new Twincl account, and subscribe to the membership with
        > a minimal fee. (Our point is to make the account less
        > disposable, which we believe is a key to pleasant community
        > experiences.)

$5/year or $2/three months.

If you live forever, that's an infinite amount of money.

cf. metafilter, which charges $5 one time to prevent disposable accounts.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can use a verified Facebook account to join Twincl site for free. Ideally, we should use our own SMS verification process to prevent disposable accounts - maybe when we have money. Since Facebook does a decent job of fraud account prevention, we leverage their work for now.

Thanks for your comment. We'll take that into account.

<comment><USER5> I fully understand your desire to use FB to vet user identities.

I like the idea of twincl. Keep up the good work!

The overlap between the set of people that like twincl and the set of people that don't like facebook may be large.

You know what accounts I don't mind linking? These:

        * https://gitlab.com/u/sebboh
        * https://github.com/daveloyall/
        * https://stackexchange.com/users/2248650/daveloyall
        * https://plus.google.com/113507487161654826344

...Not that I'm a fan of G+, but I am happy to use that google account identity to sign into other services.

It's because that google account identity is tied to a work email account, too... You know what doesn't go on there? What I do on the weekends. That ends up on facebook even if I don't put it there... So leave that account alone.

<comment><USER5> It's worth noting that I am permitted more than one Google account, but not more than one Facebook account.

...There MAY be some rule about not having more than one G+ account, right? But, I don't really use that service. It was only included here because it's the only "profile" page I know of for that account.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. That's why we did not use Google identity service. Google accounts are disposable, while Facebook enforces one-account-per-person policy.

<comment><USER6> > Google accounts are disposable, while Facebook enforces one-account-per- > person policy.

Facebook might claim to, but they don't do much of a job of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> At least you must be careful when using multiple Facebook accounts from the same computer. It might cause your main Facebook account locked, and take you a while to have Facebook unlock it for you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Your way of researching random subjects? - <AUTHOR> I realize "Google should be pretty good". Type something in either get an extracted answer or first couple of links.
I just saw something about Section 230 and then I see FOSTA-SESTA(catchy name) and I want to get a summary/fast knowledge of this.
Wondering if anyone has their own setup... like a terminal you just type something into and boom get content summaries.
I've seen for example a summarizer API on RapidAPI. I guess it uses NLP or something. I still have to read something and compare the notes I take with the summaries it provides but it's interesting.
Other alternatives are hiring people to research for you.
Edit: I am more interested in if you wrote custom scrapers or have ways to batch your own info. Otherwise generally fast absorption of new knowledge. Not as deep as learning programming syntax but for example how some merger/news event might affect stocks or something like that. <comment> non-entity I'm having trouble figuring this out nowadays. Several times now I've had the issue of search engines not returning useful information because what I'm looking for is too niche.

One strategy I've tried is finding some forum or site where there is likely to be an expert, or at least generally experienced with what I'm looking for.

A lot of times I also check the wikipedia article first if it exists because I figure it should give me a decent synopsis .

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I can see that, I often(maybe it's bad) preface searches with Reddit or something, HN too.</comment></comment>


DisplayPort Mode for USB Type-C Announced – Video, Power, and Data All Over Type-C - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/8558/displayport-alternate-mode-for-usb-typec-announced

<comment><USER2> Hopefully we can standardize to USB type C soon. Reversibility should make it so much easier than the current Micro-USB. [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/187882-reversible- usb-t...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/187882-reversible-usb-type-c- connector-finalized-devices-cables-and-adapters-coming-soon)</comment>


The first 'real world' 5G test was a dud - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/4/18125854/verizon-att-5g-speed-test-slow-maui-qualcomm-snapdragon-summit <comment><USER2> Another "old guy" story. I remember working for a very large telecommunications company one time. We had a new box that was supposed to speak a particular protocol (I can't actually remember which protocol it was now -- long time ago). But we didn't finish it in time for the demo. So we had our box at the demo and underneath the table, covered by a cloth, we had our competitor's box. Our box wasn't connected to anything :-) We did the whole demo using the competitor's equipment. We fixed the problems a few months later and nobody was the wiser...

I don't really want to work for that kind of company any more, but it makes for entertaining tales later on in life.

<comment><USER3> Sounds a bit like Theranos and their use of off the shelf machines for analysing blood tests, instead of their magic one that didn't work yet.

<comment><USER4> If they'd pulled it off within a few months of the faked presentations, and without sending false results to actual patients, it would have been a visionary CEO story rather than a criminally negligent one

<comment><USER3> Potentially, although I think it could still have caused plenty of controversy.

It's one thing to use a competitor's product to demo your _equivalent_ product, but to somehow imply that your product is a step forward (smaller, lower power, faster, cheaper, etc) is quite different and even if you manage it in some form could still be grounds for calling it fraud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So what's the upload going to look like. Everyone keeps talking about how 5g will bring gigabit speeds, but no ones confirmed what the upload will be. I'm guessing it won't be good if it's not being put out there.

</comment><comment><USER6> I worked in telecoms when 4G was at about this stage. A lot of radio engineers I knew were highly sceptical about it, but that was in relation to the vendor and network company hype. They were right for the time, but eventually the technology and expectations converged and it became a big leap forward.

5G next year simply isn't going to be relevant to most people. It will start as a gimmick, and then a few years later it will start getting interesting, and soon after that it will be everywhere and we'll all be loving it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm worried about the safety of millimeter wave once things roll out... isn't the jury still out on that one?

<comment><USER8> What is the reason for your worries? It is certainly not anywhere near the frequency/energy range of ionizing radiation, which begins beyond the far ultraviolet wavelength of around 100 nanometers. We are still talking about microwaves here, not even close to the visible light spectrum. You might observe RF heating (like with a microwave oven) if you stand near a source putting out enough energy.

<comment><USER9> And in terms of wireless engineering, if the phone heats your brain, it wastes a lot of energy that should go into communication instead.

<comment><USER10> Maybe that's an idea for an extra, so let's backlog it. But yes, please focus on connection quality and not melting heads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If 5G reduces the price of data I'll be happy. Otherwise it's pointless to get more speed if they are still charging $8 per GB

<comment><USER12> It will not, but this will bring the prices down: [https://fi.google.com](https://fi.google.com)

There is something really really big happening there, since "your communication costs" have been inflated to the max by the telco's for years. This new concept of provider independent network usage will kill a lot of providers that have grown by overcharging their customers with a jungle of plans and costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 4G 5G what matters for consumers is the speed and reliability of the network regardless what it is called.

Maybe T-Mobile America will roll out 5G a few years earlier than my T-mobile but I bet it will still be worse than what I have today. Don't be fooled by fancy words. Less marketing more cell towers.

</comment><comment><USER14> ...or, in other words, wireless services require radio spectrum shock.

Was it bad planning to demo 5G without adequate spectrum - yes. Does it tell you anything about how well 5G will work when deployed in a real system - no.

For sure, 5G is overhyped but if you have spectrum (big if) and if you are willing to pay the costs to deploy 5G (another big if) it is technically capable of excellent performance.

<comment><USER15> What's "radio spectrum shock"? Google didn't find anything referring to this =/

<comment><USER16> -Not the OP, but I believe his point was that someone(tm) had failed to take into account that blisteringly fast wireless data requires significant chunks of bandwidth - and that bandwidth is a scarce resource.</comment></comment></comment>


Intel admits Skylakes can ... ... ... freeze in the middle of work - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/11/math_bug_splatters_skylake_intel_working_on_fix/ <comment><USER2> Slightly supprised they're patching it via a "BIOS update" rather than a microcode update... unless it is, and UEFI is just the now prefered method of pushing it.

<comment><USER3> Where else would the microcode update happen? After the OS boots?

<comment><USER4> Yes. [http://www.linux-mag.com/id/723/](http://www.linux-mag.com/id/723/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, looks like Windows has it too. Strange. I loathe the idea that you need a "supported OS" to get a fix for your CPU that should work as intended. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>