
Spotify now requires a Facebook account to sign up. - tommypalm
http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/can_you_sign_up_for_spotify_without_facebook?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBrooksReview+%28The+Brooks+Review%29
======
cletus
This is a bizarrely short-sighted move.

I have to wonder if Spotify has fallen victim to the siren's lure of "social".
Perhaps they believe their future lies in integration with the social graph
and news feed. If so (IMHO), they are sorely mistaken.

I believe some services already have you tweet or post that you've listened to
a particular song. Zuckerberg seems to believe in "sharing and more sharing"
[1] and automatic sharing. What would be the end result of this? On a
particularly music-filled day I might send 100+ posts about songs I've listen
to? Really? People will _ever_ look at that?

If it's part of the main news feed, it's spam. If it's not, nobody cares...
except Facebook, who can mine such data.

And maybe Spotify except... they already have access to this data (for their
subscribers). It just makes no sense.

Spotify is also late to the party (in the US at least). Any kind of
restriction like this is incredibly risky. Other established players don't
have this restriction. While you can argue that "normal people" don't care,
who recommends such services to family and friends? It's us.

And any player in the music space would be remiss to ignore the 800 pound
gorilla in the room, being Apple's iTunes. iCloud launches soon. Honestly I
think it'll kill a few of these "upstarts".

Also, I am less than convinced of the utility of mobile streaming. Bandwidth
and connectivity are still issues. Increasing storage and all-you-can-eat
subscription models seem like a far better solution (IMHO).

[1]: [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/zuckerbergs-
unspoke...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/zuckerbergs-unspoken-law-
sharing-and-more-sharing/)

~~~
codejoust
I signed up without connecting my facebook account to spotify (or at least,
giving it permissions), and there have been multiple nag screens when I start
spotify now to connect to Facebook, some without a close button, where I would
just deny the facebook connection request. I wonder how long they will let me
skip the publishing connection to facebook.

~~~
russell_h
I've had the same problem. On the rare occasion that I can launch Spotify
without it crashing it forces me through a bunch of modal dialogs begging me
to connect my Facebook. Needless to say they won't be getting any more of my
money.

------
pilif
This is just the beginning. Facebook and Spotify set a nice precedent there to
make it en-vogue to just provide a Facebook login for services in the future.

For whoever builds the service, it's (marginally) easier to just use FB as an
authentication provider and they even get to spin it as "with us, you don't
need to store the 1000st password - you can just use Facebook".

For Facebook, of course, it's great too as it is one more thing to force
people to stay logged in, which in turn is much better data for them.

The end users probably wouldn't care either as they are mostly logged into
Facebook anyways and if not, it's easy for them to just log in.

The only losers are us professionals who know about the implications of such a
move and who care about the loss of privacy.

And of course the people who had their facebook account suspended for either
legitimate reasons or just some oversensitive SPAM protection algorithm. These
people are now locked out of their, possibly even paid, account, unable to
access it (and remove credit card info). Of course these will be the minority
and people won't care.

Until it's them that are affected.

I can understand that in this day and age you want to provide the users with
an option to authenticate with something else than yet another username and
password. Google, Twitter, Yahoo or even any OpenID provider (maybe your own).
Sure.

But just Facebook? This is trouble waiting to happen.

I'm saying this as somebody who can't have Spotify anyways due to the complete
brokenness of the licensing market, but this still concerns me as it's just
another precedent and I'm just waiting for another service I love to force me
to use Facebook.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I'm start to see a trend (very very early stages) of sites that simply don't
require a login at all. I'm thrilled about this, as the need to login to every
website has gone too too far in my opinion. If you absolutely must maintain
state through sessions, simply send the user an email with a temporary token
to create a new session (Staticloud is one that does this). Email is the
universal identity controlled by no one entity.

~~~
chrisfarms
Isn't this the basic idea behind BrowserID

<https://browserid.org/>

(with the extension that the 'clicking on the session link' could one day be
automated behind the scenes)

------
RexRollman
A reply from Darren, a Spotify employee:

"Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook
account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set
up.

This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and
making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively
used. "

This is asinine.

~~~
sthlm
_This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and
making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively
used._

Actually it does, based on the FB Terms [1]:

4.1.: _You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook [...]_

4.2: _You will not create more than one personal profile._

[1] <https://www.facebook.com/terms.php>

~~~
timdorr
And what are they going to do? Shut down your fake account?

As far as I can tell, they are only doing checks against obvious spammers.
It's not like they have a team of people doing detailed background checks on
each and every signup that comes through. That would be impossible to do. As
long as you create a reasonable persona, they are not going to hunt you down.
There will be no serious repercussions.

~~~
RexRollman
I do hear, on occasion, of Facebook closing down someone's account. I wonder
what Spotify does if you are a paying member and your Facebook account is
closed.

------
seancron
This strikes me as an unwise move on Spotify's part. Allowing integration with
Facebook as they had before was fine. But _forcing_ people to sign up with a
Facebook account? Not only are they eliminating a large group of people who
would like to sign up and don't have a Facebook account, but they're also
tying their fate as a company to a third-party.

I have a feeling that this was a condition that Facebook insisted on in return
for Spotify being used for Facebook Music. I hope the deal turns out to be
worth it.

I seem to recall a post where they said that people who linked their Facebook
accounts bought and share more music. And as a result of the deep integration
with Facebook, they'll probably have a sharp increase in their growth.

I just hope that this is a temporary condition and that they eventually allow
other methods of signing up. Otherwise, they might as well just be acquired by
Facebook.

~~~
FlowerPower
They might have been forced to do this, remember, Spotify is not an
independent company, they are a puppet of the recording industry, they have a
strong interest in connecting with the social graph.

~~~
Jgrubb
"Spotify is not an independent company, they are a puppet of the recording
industry"

Well put.

------
jgrahamc
I was just about to sign up for Spotify (was on the things to do today list I
have in front of me), and now this. Well they can forget about that.

~~~
nupark2
Same. Switching to Spotify from Pandora was on my list of things to try.

Now, I guess not. I would have paid them, too.

This is absolutely ridiculously stupid of them to do. They alienate potential
customers, but more importantly, _they do not own their customers_.

If the Facebook relationship goes sour, Spotify is still permanently tied to
them.

~~~
SanjayUttam
I like the Spotify UI much better, but Grooveshark is pretty good too.

------
danieldk
Let this be a reminder. If you use a streaming music service, they can pull
you any stupid trick. If you do not accept, well, you'd better hope there is
an alternative the provides a comparable catalog.

Once you own non-DRMed music, they can't take it away.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Subscription music streaming is basically a commodity at this point though.
One can drop Spotify and join Rdio at no real loss (I think you can even
import playlists).

~~~
FlowerPower
Until Rdio pulls your plug.

Streaming services are not reliable, neither is the cloud. Hard currency is
the value, its not like storage is expensive any more, there is no reason to
not own your own collection and be the boss of your domain.

~~~
v21
But the ability to own my own music isn't going away because I'm paying for
Spotify. If I stop, then I'm in the same position that I was before. I've not
got music any more, but I'm not paying any more. If I decide to start paying
for Grooveshark instead, then I've not lost anything.

Storage isn't expensive, but managing files is a pain. Especially if you have
to manage it across multiple devices. I just want to listen to some Nujabes _,
do I really have to care where it's saved, or whether I'm on my work PC, my
laptop, or the media center downstairs? And that's before you get into the
pain of syncing stuff onto your phone...

I pay for the convenience of not having to pirate.

(_I picked this example because it is both what I am listening to now, and for
the irony of it being unavailable on Spotify.)

~~~
w1ntermute
> Storage isn't expensive, but managing files is a pain. Especially if you
> have to manage it across multiple devices. I just want to listen to some
> Nujabes, do I really have to care where it's saved, or whether I'm on my
> work PC, my laptop, or the media center downstairs? And that's before you
> get into the pain of syncing stuff onto your phone...

This sounds like a technological problem, and one that could be easily solved
if someone put a little elbow grease into it.

> I pay for the convenience of not having to pirate.

Well, Spotify customers are clearly paying for the inconvenience of having
Facebook have access to all their data as well. I'll take piracy over Facebook
having access to my information any day.

And I don't know why people make piracy sound like such a difficult thing to
do. It seems absolutely trivial to me.

------
alexqgb
From the (very pissed) comment thread on
getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/can_you_sign_up_for_spotify_without_facebook?

"In the 90's we had to deal with Windows-only software. Now we have Facebook-
only software. Great."

~~~
antimarketing
Microsoft became dominant because Gates is the most ruthless businessman on
the planet.

Facebook is becoming dominant because humanity in general can not grow up from
its glory days in college-rules.com

------
waitwhat
This is a sign of desperation from Spotify. Their product is far from unique,
and only really interesting because it has better PR, more apps, a better
library, and a slightly more legit licensing setup than the competition.

None of those are big enough barriers to entry to keep even the small players
away, meanwhile the big dogs are starting to show a _lot_ of interest in
streaming music (admittedly for music you "own" at the moment, but it would
surprise noone if this were to change overnight).

Apple has the marketing weight and a history of solving music licensing
issues, Google has a track record of throwing money at problems to solve them,
and Amazon is just about to make a major hardware play.

Spotify's only real hope was to latch onto the latest big thing (conveniently
an infrastructure provider, so unlikely to launch a direct competitor) and
hope to ride to success on someone else's coat-tails.

I have no idea what the contracts between the two companies look like, but I
would have to imagine that they are heavily in Facebook's favour. After all,
it would be a lot easier for Facebook to replace Spotify with another provider
than it would be for Spotify to replace Facebook.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Desperation? How do you figure? They have a sweet partnership with Facebook.
That doesn't sound desperate to me.

 _Their product is far from unique, and only really interesting because it has
better PR, more apps, a better library, and a slightly more legit licensing
setup than the competition._

Slightly more legit? I think the phrase you are looking for is "completely
legit, as opposed to some of the others who are lawsuit-bait-on-a-stick."

 _After all, it would be a lot easier for Facebook to replace Spotify with
another provider than it would be for Spotify to replace Facebook._

Only if that other provider had the same kind of licenses with the record
labels. At this point, Spotify is far ahead of the pack at that game.

~~~
waitwhat
_Desperation? How do you figure? They have a sweet partnership with Facebook.
That doesn't sound desperate to me._

We don't know it's a sweet deal. My gut feeling is that it isn't, but that's
by-the-by. We don't know anything.

 _Slightly more legit? I think the phrase you are looking for is "completely
legit, as opposed to some of the others who are lawsuit-bait-on-a-stick._

From the point of view of the _users_ it really is only slightly more legit.
From the point of view of the content providers, slightly less legit is not
the same as illegal, and from the point of view of the service providers,
legal and and a one-off court case is better than legal and ongoing licensing
fees.

You also appear to be assuming that Spotify are the only licensed game in
town, and will continue to be. This is, of course, trivially untrue
(Rhapsody).

 _Only if that other provider had the same kind of licenses with the record
labels. At this point, Spotify is far ahead of the pack at that game._

You appear to be assuming that getting those licenses is difficult. It really
isn't. If Spotify managed it, any competent competitor can also do it -- after
all, the labels have no particular loyalty to a small Swedish online radio
network.

~~~
michael_dorfman
_You appear to be assuming that getting those licenses is difficult. It really
isn't. If Spotify managed it, any competent competitor can also do it -- after
all, the labels have no particular loyalty to a small Swedish online radio
network._

Spotify is far from a _small Swedish online radio network_ ; here in Europe
they are far and away the market leader. They have over a million accounts in
Norway alone, which is phenomenal penetration in a country of 5 million.

Second, getting those licenses was incredibly difficult for them; the
negotiations to enter the US market took several years. There is absolutely no
indication that the record labels are prepared to give similar terms, or even
any terms at all, to other competitors. Again, here in Europe, I know of
several firms attempting to compete with Spotify, and they are getting hung up
on precisely this point.

~~~
waitwhat
Spotify really is _tiny_. They make "a profit of €5m or less" --
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/28/spotify-
on-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/28/spotify-on-track-
first-profit)

~~~
chalst
You are right, they are not big, but turnover (Eur 59mn) is the P&L metric
that counts as a matter of size, not profit.

Or you can have fun with GM having become massively negatively sized when it
reported a $4.3bn loss in 2009...

~~~
waitwhat
Sure. And if you compare Spotify's turnover with that of the big dogs I
mentioned earlier (Apple, Google, Amazon) with whom they are bound to
eventually compete directly, they are still _tiny_.

------
acak
Spotify support staff quote from that discussion thread

\-- Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook
account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account set
up.

This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and
making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively
used. \--

Couple of things to note:

1\. If you already have a Spotify account, you don't have to connect to
Facebook.

2\. They seem to be encouraging a bogus Facebook account as a way to use
Spotify "privately"?

~~~
josefresco
Hilarious that internal staff are recommending ways to "get around" the
requirements. This shows, or possibly proves to me that this decision was a
last minute condition set by FB and the Spotify staff are probably not
uniformly thrilled about it.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Or that they realize that a tiny but vocal minority is going to gripe about
the decision, and that for these folks a work-around might be the best
solution.

~~~
acak
This means that while one can claim privacy of their listening habits on
Spotify from their social circle, absolutely no one can claim privacy of what
they do on Spotify from Facebook.

Spotify just gave Facebook a terrific amount of analytics data that will help
Fb market music and drive sales better than Spotify itself does.

------
wastedbrains
I am sick of everything being social. I listen to and read things I enjoy and
often don't want to share it with the whole world. For example battle.net in
SC2 tries it's damn hardest to make me post achievements and connect with my
friends online, and I just want to play a game alone when I happen to have
some free time. That kind of game wasn't social for me in the first place, and
I don't want it to be. Same with my spotify usage, I want to listen to the
radio, I don't want the whole world to know I am listening to jazz radio at
the moment.

~~~
antimarketing
I agree, and I have a "nutty" conspiracy theory to explain why things are this
way:

Social media is simply the middle class and the tax payers paying for
investments in technology. The U.S. government inflates the money supply,
through bailouts and zero interest loans, for banks, who refuse to lend to the
general public. However, this money can not sit on the sidelines, since
inflation the cash itself creates cause it to lose value so tons of it end up
in wacky technology investments.

It does not matter which type the investor is — angel or some other sort of
creature. A billionaire or a friendly neighbour. Everybody wants to invest as
much money they get from banks as loans and as little of their own as
possible.

The money the banks give ultimately comes from the middle class that consumes
these services (can't really call them products can we?) in the first place.

Thus the middle class is paying a bunch of middle men and lucky dorks with
it's own money to invent these services and they will be later paying lots
more to "enjoy" them.

Nevermind the loss of privacy, which is simply an icing on the cake.

Question: if these are social technologies shouldn't the State be doing these
types of investments in the first place?

Or if they are social in the other sense, in terms of authentic grass-roots
and anti-state citizenry — shouldn't social media be about personal blogs,
news feeds, videos etc..?

------
0x12
This may make good sense from spotify's point of view without knowing all the
facts but it looks like it makes very little sense.

Spotify and facebook are two unrelated services that users get to apply the
'binary or' truth table on. None, one or both. To force users to use both
communicates that spotify sees only one possible exit strategy at this point,
facebook or bust, and facebook has just strengthened their hand in the
negotiations for any buyout to the point where spotify is now basically just
an extension of facebook.

If spotify does not want to play ball on fb's terms from now on facebook has
the ability to pull the rug right out from under them.

I wonder what the missing bits are here, there has to be a lot more than meets
the eye for spotify to do this.

~~~
rhubarbquid
Assuming Spotify is not run by stupid people, money would be the obvious
reason (and the only one I can think of off hand).

------
yock
The million-dollar question now seems to be if existing Spotify accounts will
be silently converted to Facebook accounts behind-the-scenes. Such accounts
might even be created as completely locked-down private Facebook accounts
available to no one else, but it opens the door for the slow erosion of the
privacy of those accounts into something Facebook can monetize.

I'd run, not walk, away from any Spotify subscription.

~~~
runevault
I hadn't considered this, guess I won't be using my spotify account anymore,
at least until proven false. Ungh why is everyone tieing into facebook, they
are ignoring what, 6.5 billion people (actually, I wonder what % of the
world's population is internet connected, since that's the real # they are
ignoring).

~~~
flyt
Roughly 2 billion people in the world have access to the Internet. 800 million
of them are _active_ Facebook users (30 day active). Last week 500 million
users logged into FB in a _single day_.

Facebook is a very popular service that makes perfect sense to integrate with.
Don't forget that they are also "ignoring" anybody that doesn't have
broadband; streaming all your music over ppp or metered wireless isn't very
desirable.

~~~
runevault
True but those people aren't a good fit for their service to begin with. Non-
facebook users are not, by default, bad fits. Big difference. Hell I would bet
at least some of FBs user base is also in that category of crap internet.

Cutting off arbitrary users who aren't bad fits for you is a good way to limit
your user base. Sure it's 700-800 million people, but not all of the ones who
use FB are going to want your service, and if it is any good some who don't
use FB will. Why limit yourself that way? Especially when they already
supported non-FB accounts for everything but the social features, so the work
had already been put in.

------
guard-of-terra
In other words, to use this streaming service you have to submit your real
name to a company you'd rather not want to, and stay logged in* so it can spy
on your every move on the web.

* Not sure about this part. You probably lose your web spotify session if you log off facebook (?), but your desktop app session would probably not be affected.

~~~
dlss
I think it's the opposite. It was already a paid site, so of course they have
your billing info. This is the first indication they're coveting my data (at
least w/o facebook connect turned on there are no recommendations to speak of
on spotify)

~~~
jonknee
It's not a paid site, they use the freemium model. I have an account and they
don't have my billing info. Millions of other people are in the same boat.

(I also will never use anything that requires a Facebook login other than
Facebook itself.)

------
meow
There are already doubts on number of real users in facebook's 750m user base.
I guess things like this will increase the dummy accounts.

------
netmau5
I once made a site that only allowed sign in via Twitter. That was a huge
mistake. Do not segment potential users by login mechanism, more often than
not you will raise the barrier of entry from potential to not.

~~~
flyt
or don't rely on a service with only 200 million total (not active) users

------
zaidf
While they are at it, might as well announce the acquisition.

------
aasarava
As a Facebook user, why exactly do I want to see a notification about each and
every song that 100 different friends are listening to at any given point in
the day? Add in the fact that Rdio does the exact same thing (spam my Facebook
"ticker"), and it's even more ridiculous.

------
joelhaasnoot
I disabled offline access and pushing content to my wall permissions for
Spotify on Facebook (under Account Settings, Apps). Mainly because of
complaints I was spamming walls... Still works with the most basic
permissions, but sleazy it adds them by default.

~~~
joelhaasnoot
I lied, started Spotify again this morning, and all my Facebook friends were
gone. Apparently it really does need the "offline" permission.

------
altrego99
In a way this could be a decision to simplify the login process for the end
user. Then again, if that was the case they should have supported Google,
Yahoo and all other OpenId providers. Also there seems to be no reason to
completely remove the native sign up, especially since they have already made
the effort to create full support for it. Guess just like the recent trend in
FB, they also just want to do an experiment and see how the users will take
it.

------
davidwparker
I use Spotify and had been recommending them to friends as well. I know
several of my friends don't have Facebook, so this will probably stop them
from signing up.

As far as automatic sharing goes, I've already told several of my friends that
they can change their sharing to the "only me" setting so that they're not
spamming what they're playing on Facebook.

I enjoy Spotify, but it is kind of a hassle to have to change settings to make
it usable.

------
forgottenpaswrd
One of the principal investors in Spotify is... Facebook.

There is nothing like having free money thanks to the billions of Golman
Sachs, we will see how much they recoup.

------
tdicola
Can anyone figure out where to delete their Spotify account in the web UI? I
don't even think it's possible. This move to require Facebook is ridiculous
IMHO and I want no part in the company's services anymore.

------
codeboost
Facebook is a dangerous social experiment. It's not a 'virtual passport'.
Rather, it is a 'virtual bank', except they don't store financial information
about the users, but everything else. And that is an unimaginable amount of
power.

Given that their intentions are different from their user's (they want
profits, users want... to share photos), it is not hard to assume that
Facebook does and will use the user data in order to maximize profits or grip
on power.

I think that nothing good will come out of this marriage of Spotify and
Facebook.

Facebook gains a lot of meta information about the Spotify users (and music
taste tells a huge amount about a person), whereas Spotify is reduced to being
a convenient and easily replace-able bit pipe.

Now they'll be able to run their social algorithms based on music habits and
offer us the best, most relevant and unique crap for sale on the market.

Or one day the government decides to isolate the listeners of The Doors and
deny login to every site that uses facebook as a virtual passport.

------
dlss
Ugh. I signed up two weeks ago and have been recommending them to friends. Now
this. Why on earth does this make sense for Spotify?

~~~
josefresco
I would guess this was a requirement to get the partnership with Facebook
done. "Either require a FB login or we'll go with someone else" would be a
hard condition to say no to if you were Spotify considering how powerful FB is
in the US market.

~~~
technoslut
Are there alternatives to Spotify's current business model of free on the PC?

~~~
zecho
The legality of Grooveshark's business model is Groovehark's problem. Just
using it passively as a music consumer is likely fine.

~~~
technoslut
I'm aware of Grooveshark but, as you said, it is questionably legal. It has
long been removed from the iOS App Store.

I can't help but wonder if these were the onerous terms that Apple would not
agree to with Ping.

------
theshadow
Not a spotify user but I feel gross and icky just reading about this. This is
so transparent. I wanna take a shower

------
dendory
They should talk to the ton of services that built themselves around Facebook,
only to see their app be killed without any given reason, killing their whole
business.

------
xbryanx
I know I'm being a total pleeb, but given the remarkable access to the music I
want to listen to, at a very cheap cost, I'd probably be willing to sign up
for a mandatory mayonaise delivery service to get access to Spotify.

~~~
rhizome
Well, if you'd like to graduate from plebehood, you can run your own mobile
music server with something like Subsonic. I have no affiliation, I just
discovered them last week:

<http://www.subsonic.org/>

~~~
djeikyb
I'll second subsonic. I've been using it to stream my music collection the
last few weeks. Works well even despite a 40 KBps connection on the source
computer.

------
jhuckestein
Facebook give's them an on-stage keynote plus smooth Spotify integration (just
check out that gorgeous install flow) and they give Facebook mandatory FB
accounts in return. Seems like a deal rather than a "move".

------
danielhunt
I've yet to see a positive comment regarding this new feature, but I'm
wondering, has that anything to do with the type of site that HN is?

There's been a lot of anti-Facebook chatter recently, most of which I agree
with mind you, but given the backlash so far regarding this new restriction,
do you think there's really enough weight behind these online discussions to
make them change their minds? Particularly if there's a contract sitting in a
drawer, saying they must take this course of action, regardless of
user/customer sentiment.

~~~
jerf
It's a fair point. Here's my anecdote: I use Facebook solely via my "spouse
firewall"; that is, I don't have an account or use it, my wife just lets me
know anything I need to know about through it. She is probably a straight down
the middle average Facebook user; daily-but-light use, has learned just enough
to squelch people she needs to squelch, the standard mix of friends, family,
and old high school co-attendees, etc. The only priming I've done is to remind
her that you shouldn't allow Facebook to have the canonical copy of family
valuables; upload whatever photo and video you like as long as we still have
the originals somewhere.

She's definitely been getting increasingly frustrated by their grabbiness, and
has been coming to _me_ with stories about Facebook and privacy on the
Internet. Granted, that's because she knows I'm interested, but we don't move
in the same circles online, which means that these stories are indeed
penetrating further than just the HN bubble. She's nowhere near ready to dump
the service yet, but the idea is clearly thinkable.

(Anecdote? Certainly! Let me know when you figure out how to run a repeatable
study on this topic.)

To be honest, if Facebook IPO'ed tomorrow, I think I'd pass. I'd probably miss
out on an initial increase, but I bet in 2014 Facebook will not be as dominant
as it is now, and their growth (not their survival, but their growth) depends
on that not happening.

~~~
danielhunt
Funnily enough, I've noticed a good few of my own non-techy friends have been
pinging about a few privacy related topics, and how Facebook have been
'grabby' as you so eloquently put it :)

I do have my own account, and certainly use it far too often to share far too
much, but I've been almost anal with restricting 3rd party access to my
personal feed of posts.

That said, I would absolutely stop using Spotify if I felt that my listening
habits were being forcibly fed to Facebook, despite my auto-scrobbling to
Last.fm

 _edit: typo_

------
myared
Something else must be in play for such a great standalone service to give the
keys to their front door to Facebook. I'm sure tons of time went into this
decision and the result was either faster adoption or added sugar to a
partnership deal. Either way, I'm interested to see how this plays out and to
see what the backup plan is if it all goes to shit.

------
jneal
This is only going to mean 2 things. A) Less people will sign up to Spotify B)
Facebook will gain more users

So, what's in it for Spotify?

In my opinion, this was a very bad move. Spotify is now relying on Facebook.
God forbid Facebook ends up like Myspace and no one cares about them in 4
years, then I guess Spotify will just go down with the ship?

~~~
itswindy
Maybe but they'll get promotion within facebook. Lots of users and they can
always split if FB goes under.

------
artursapek
I suppose that because Spotify lives on Facebook now (regularly in my scroll),
this move won't be unappealing to most people. I have the impression that HN
is much more anti-FB than the population in general. Most of the people
Spotify appeals to, such as the college student demographic, all have Facebook
and don't really care about their information or privacy, so they won't mind
using it to get free music.

What I'm curious about is if this was their game plan from the beginning. I
wouldn't say it's an act of desperation at all, I bet they celebrated when the
FB deal was finalized. They're pushing it pretty hard. I signed up for Spotify
weeks before this, but as soon as f8 hit my local Spotify app bothered me
about checking what my friends are listening to on Facebook even after I
authorized the connection.

~~~
zheng
College student here, no facebook and won't be getting one either. Granted,
since I'm posting on HN there is a bit of selection bias, but my good friend
who is a typical liberal arts major doesn't have one either because he heard
about "some privacy issues" (not from me).

This is anecdotal, but I wanted to point out that facebook isn't as widespread
as people think.

~~~
artursapek
How does a two-person case study dispute that Facebook is widespread?
Virtually everyone I know has one, but perhaps if I thought hard enough I
could also come up with a person or two who don't.

------
stfu
Interesting. Maybe Facebook is integrating a Mafia based business strategy:
Either you become an exclusive Facebook service or we just rip off your idea
and offer it as our own. Wasn't there some guy recently on HN who claimed that
FB screwed him over with their music service?

------
cormullion
I've had a spotify free account for some time. Today, the new automatic update
presented me with the new default settings for my account. The default is to
share publicly starred items and new lists, ie opt-out rather than opt-in.

------
richHN
It's worth mentioning that Sean Parker is involved with both Facebook and
Spotify.

------
cgag
I noticed this a day or two ago when I tried to sign up at the recommendation
of a coworker. I decided against it when I realized you had to use your
Facebook account to login. I'm going to check out rdio instead.

------
droithomme
What is the real reason these companies are doing this? It's obviously not the
reasons they claim. There must be some sort of incentive program where
Facebook is giving them kickbacks, as well as a gag order that prevents them
from stating the agreement they have. It's very close to the old practice of
companies that "sponsor" popular software by paying the developers to include
their third party adware toolbar installers in the package, often embedding
themselves deep within the user's system on a rootkit level, just as Facebook
invisibly tracks everything you do.

------
frankiewarren
It's the same with turntable.fm... Talk about an unfortunate trend. I think
it's great that facebook can help facilitate the authentication process, but
it should definitely be a choice made by the user.

------
leoalmighty
Seems like Facebook might've asked for this as part of the integration deal.
Otherwise I see no obvious reason for Spotify to limit their customer base.
Unless the economics of delivering music to a non-facebook user is much less
attractive and have much lower conversion to paying user? I find music
discovery on Spotify to be poor compared to Pandora, and without my FB
connections sharing playlists, I have no incentive to pay for Spotify.

------
jgroome
Tangentially related, but is anybody else really sick of everybody's Spotifys
updating their Facebook pages with every track they're currently listening to?

------
mike-cardwell
I contacted support@spotify.com and asked them to delete my account. They
replied:

"If you wish to close your Spotify account, log into your Spotify account
profile (<https://www.spotify.com/account/profile/>), and add ".del" to your
email address. Your account will be closed within 48 hours."

------
bdz
I live in a country where most of the big music streaming services are not
available, only last.fm. With this move, may Spotify open their service to
other countries? Yeah, I know music labels are strong but side by side with
Facebook they have some power. And I guess, it's hard to ignore 700+ million
users.

------
macca321
I've just cancelled my premium subscription and mentioned 'too much forced
facebook integration' as the reason

------
RandallBrown
For every 1 person that doesn't sign up for Spotify because they need
Facebook, there will be 2 people that sign up because they don't need to
create yet another account.

This obviously stinks if you think Facebook is some super evil company, but if
you're a regular person it probably doesn't matter.

~~~
guard-of-terra
That does not explains why they had to make Facebook mandatory.

Optional Facebook auth would save every one person and still gain those two
people.

~~~
RandallBrown
True.

------
domgreen1
This is a very poor move, I have linked my two accounts but forcing people to
do it is just shocking.

------
______
At the rate things are going, some day soon the government is going to ask the
same.

------
VonLipwig
Is there anything else to say apart from.

Ewwww..

~~~
josefresco
There is actually, and here on HN it's encouraged behavior to expand upon your
opinions and debate the subject in detail.

Why is it "ewww" for you? What would be a better solution? What are the pros
and cons of this decision for Spotify, for FB and for the user?

~~~
StrawberryFrog
I'll take a guess at the pros and cons for spotify:

Pro: some users like the integration and the social features that it gives
them. This doesn't explain why it's now mandatory, or why it's become
mandatory right now.

Pro: Has Spotify done some kind of deal with Facebook, and Facebook insisted
on this? I put "pro" since I assume that Spotify also got something out of the
hypothetical deal.

Con: There are some users (like myself) who think that facebook knows enough
about me already, and really do not want to integrate them into anything. I
like the face that the web is not an extension of the facebook machine.

As an existing Spotify user this policy does not apply to me (yet?) but it's
repellent. As a _paying_ Spotify user I don't feel that I would be obliged to
put up with that. I don't complain about FB too much since hey, I didn't pay
anything for it and no-body actually forced me to use it. I know, "if you're
not the customer, you're the product" - but with Spotify, I bloody well am the
paying customer, they've got my money, they don't need to sell me to Facebook.
They can take their Facebook integration and GTFO.

 _Edit_ : a friend has suggested that Spotify are angling to be bought by
Facebook, and this will help them integrate for that.

It's worth noting that Spotify used to have _optional_ facebook integration,
i.e. "the standard Facebook - or - Default sign up page", and they have taken
the effort to remove this for new signups. There must be some reason for
actively removing this choice, and I don't think that "mass-market users are
confused by having 2 different choices" is it.

~~~
estel
Presumed pro: Spotify said at f8 that users who engaged socially with Spotify
through their existing facebook functionality bother listened to more music
and were much (I think they said 2x) more likely to pay for a premium
membership.

If a Facebook account is mandatory (at the moment it isn't), they might expect
a greater number of users to link their accounts. It doesn't seem unreasonable
to expect that the number of people who additionally link their accounts will
exceed the number of subscriptions lost from people who refuse to have a
Facebook accounts. If a greater number of people linking accounts => increased
Premium registrations, then this could very easily be a purely business
decision.

~~~
VonLipwig
A better business decision would be to use the standard Facebook - or -
Default sign up page. This will undoubtedly increase social usage by the
Facebook faithful without alienating other users.

------
DannoHung
Spotify's selection is awful and they lump tons of unrelated artists together.
I've been using MOG for a month and have been 99% satisfied (their new beta
doesn't work with my firewall at work for some reason).

------
8ig8
I know it's not completely analogous, but AOL comes to mind. Facebook seems to
be this subset of the internet like AOL was. You have to remind people that
something bigger exists beyond the walls.

------
dr_
Spotify can do whatever it wants. It may seem a bit extreme to require a
facebook account to use the service, but honestly - competing with a behemoth
like Apple and iTunes, with it's inevitable rollout of a similar service at
some point that - it's not an easy thing to do. For Spotify to succeed against
its competitors, it's going to have to take drastic measures, and this is
pretty drastic. I've actually wanted more of my friends on facebook to get on
the service so we could share music, but many don't even know what Spotify is.
In fact, on the flipside, there was an article on one of the Apple/Mac blogs
suggesting that Apple desperately needs a social network. Music is meant to be
shared.

------
cmer
My prediction is that Facebook will be acquiring Spotify within 6 months.
Makes sense for both parties, and last I checked, Sean Parker is a shareholder
in both.

------
wildmXranat
meebo.com just nagged me to link my account for the first time. It showed me a
new interface in hoping it would lurk me in. It has to be a coordinated
effort.

------
dbin78
Is Reed Hastings on their board? Bad business decision!

------
s1ugh34d
my bad, still forces facebook log in, even enable you to sign up for facebook
on spotify's website, dumb move, another player on the Blue F wall

------
rhubarbquid
Is Spotify going to start giving a discount on subscriptions for all this
marketing/advertising information they're pushing to Facebook?

------
xiancaldwell
It isn't the siren call of "social," it is the dinner bell of 500 million
daily users that Spotify is answering.

------
iamjoshua
While it is annoying, this will exponentially grow the spotify user base. I am
a single island of music consumption right now on spotify. IF I were to link
my facebook account(which I never use) to it, my feed would be seen by all of
my friends encouraging new signups for spotify.

Music is extremely social. Facebook is social. Annoying, yes. Smart,
definitely.

------
eric-hu
This makes me wonder if there was some backroom deal to give Facebook an edge
over Google+.

------
bborud
Sean Parker must have slipped some Rohypnol in their drinks.

------
ericflo
This is the way everything is going, like it or not. The benefit to the
publisher is too great. This seems to be one of those things that developers
can't stand but normal people either don't care or actually prefer.

~~~
estel
The tradeoff between "Lost registrations" and "Extra engagement through
everyone having a linked Facebook account" must be an interesting one.

~~~
ericflo
Yeah, especially keeping in mind that extra engagement means more
registrations as well.

------
americandesi333
Why doesn't Facebook just buy Spotify...

~~~
flyt
Nobody in their right mind wants to build a business that is 100% beholden to
record labels. Facebook is focusing on building a platform first, and anything
else would be a [time|money] distraction.

------
SonicSoul
i hope that existing users will not be forced to link their Facebook accounts
to continue using Spotify

------
teilo
First iHeartRadio. Now this.

------
nothis
And so it begins...

------
gdltec
Lame.

------
tedjdziuba
Good thing I have no desire to use either one.

------
Hisoka
I got a question. Does Facebook connect give Spotify access to my email
address that is linked to my Facebook account? Does it give them access to my
first and last name as well? If so, I could understand their stance... it will
give their service a higher viral coefficient.. at the expense of a few
users..

------
skeptical
Quote from a spotify employee on the liked page:

> _Hey Guys thanks for your question, Unfortunately you will need a Facebook
> account to access Spotify from now on, unless you already have an account
> set up. This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing
> to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to
> be actively used._

I don't know if I find this hilarious, ironic or stupid. He turns towards
[potential] costumers and says 'unfortunately' for something that was sole
spotify decision. Then suggesting creating bogus/zombie facebook accounts it's
just plain pathetic.

------
zackattack
1) facebook OWNS spotify. their testimonial, "spotify rocks" - mark
zuckerberg, is proof that they bow to mz and are catering to his audience
(most of the world, thx Goldman Sachs).

2) it's very smart for facebook to own music and therefore, emotion (Twitter
hedge fund? FORGET THAT, I'm going to start a SPOTIFY hedge fund.)

3) the number one reason i use spotify is social: i like being able to listen
to a friend's playlist (i have chosen him as an arbiter of cool music...)

4) i still use youtube to search out esoteric sounds that aren't available on
itunes/amazon/spotify

------
hugacow
I just signed up days ago and they only required email. I guess I got lucky.

------
tonio09
truth is: the majority of end user don't care if they can only sign up with
facebook. it's even easier for them as they have less choice to make. This is
only a problem for highly privacy and technology aware folks, like tech
bloggers or developers. Apparently, they are not the target audience.

------
parfe
An OpenID solution finally succeeds and people are still upset.

~~~
chrisfarms
OpenID would allow you to sign in via any open-id provider. This is not
OpenID.

------
ginzasparrow
Good thing I have absolutely no idea what spotify is.

------
kefs
If you aren't paying for the product or service, you are the product or
service.

~~~
Kastor
Until yesterday, many of us were paying €10 each month for the privelege of
being the customer instead of being the product or service. With this move
they make it clear that they want us to be the product or service anyway.

~~~
kefs
Right.. sorry, I was referring to facebook. I guess I wasn't clear.

------
s1ugh34d
<http://www.spotify.com/us/get-spotify/open/>

This link is on spotify's help page and enables the open sign up without
facebook, the nag screens post there-of, I do not know, I don't use paid or
will-attempt-to-make-me-pay services, and to boot, Grooveshark is still free
without an account

~~~
teilo
No, it doesn't.

