
Practical Nerd: The hidden price of “free” - Liu
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/practical-nerd-hidden-price-free
======
huhtenberg
Sounds like he is yet to be shocked to discover why Skype is free :)

On a more serious note, Adobe Flash Player 10 comes equipped with P2P
streaming meshwork, which is _enabled by default_ and which will cause the
exact same bandwidth bleed as described in article. Being behind NAT or a
firewall is not enough to prevent one from being a relay node as it includes
fairly sophisticated NAT traversal logic and NAT-to-NAT connectivity stuff.
The only way to NOT donate bandwidth with FP10 is to disable "peer assisted
networking" in Flash Settings, which in itself is done by loading a Flash
applet from Adobe's site. This also makes using FlashBlock in a browser pretty
much a must have.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Media_Flow_Protocol>

~~~
tantalor
> Sounds like he is yet to be shocked to discover why Skype is free :)

Skype isn't riddled with ads.

~~~
valisystem
But its business relies on selling your bandwidth.

~~~
brettnak
What do you mean? Selling bandwidth how? I really am curious here.

~~~
Maakuth
All the calls are P2P, and if the peers cannot connect directly, the calls are
routed through someone else's computer that's called a supernode. Pretty much
none of the actual VoIP traffic touches Skype's servers.

------
hammock
Whoever edited the title of this submission (it used to be "when Spotify
wasn’t playing audio, it was using my network connection. A lot.") just took
the whole thread out of context. This was never about the blog post, it was
about the specific paragraph referencing Spotify and its P2P-ness.

~~~
planckscnst
The people editing the titles just to match the original source are driving me
nuts.

I don't care how cute or clever the author was in picking a title. I want to
know what the damn thing is about so I can make a good decision whether or not
to spend time reading it! A good HN title should efficiently communicate to me
why I should click on this link.

The original title was interesting. This one is not: the only reason I clicked
on it again was because it had a high number of votes and comments.

------
flexd
Spotify is a peer to peer music streaming service, haven't they been pretty
clear about that previously? I actually can't find any information about it on
the website at the moment but I'm positive it's been there before. I have been
a member since the early beta (i.e when only certain parts of Europe had
access) so they might have changed it since then. I've never noticed any
slowdowns though and since we don't have bandwidth caps over here it hasn't
really become a issue for anyone.

I'm a premium subscribed now but I used the free service up until they limited
the amount of plays per song and how long per month you could use it, and for
me it's worth the $18~ I have to pay to get access to the music I want to
listen to anywhere. Even if there is some bandwidth usage if I keep it
running. It's never so much that I notice it in any way and it "gives" when
other applications demand more bandwidth.

How often do you actually have Spotify running without listening to music
anyway?

~~~
ryusage
As to your last question, it's actually pretty much always running, listening
or not. At least in my installation, clicking the X to close the window
actually (by default) just minimizes it; to really close the application, you
have to use a context menu or something. That alone is enough of a hurdle that
I rarely bother to close it...on the assumption that it's not hogging too many
resources. I'm wondering how safe that assumption really was now.

~~~
flexd
I just CMD+Q to quit it (on OSX) which as far as I know does in fact close it
properly. In any case I make sure to close programs I do not use.

~~~
jarin
I do not believe it does quit it properly on OS X. Even after a fresh reboot,
Spotify appeared to be using about 40k/sec outbound bandwith. After I removed
it, idle bandwidth dropped to zero.

I also noticed something strange when removing it with CleanMyMac (similar to
AppZapper). There's a separate dock icon file for Spotify, and removing it
restarted Dock.app. I think that might be to cover up Spotify running in the
background somehow.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Spotify does quit when you cmd-Q. You can verify this by opening Activity
Monitor and looking at the process list.

If you are running MacOS X Lion, then the OS _might_ keep the underlying OS
process around in case you start it again -- this is by design. I have not
been able to observe this personally, however.

------
apgwoz
Yup. This helps power the "instant" playback that I'm sure the author has
enjoyed. Saving money on bandwidth, I'm sure, also helps them pay for all of
the licensing agreements they have with the recording industry so that you can
stream that impressively large catalog for _free_.

~~~
dfxm12
_"...the problem wasn’t so much the eventual price I paid as much as the fact
that the true cost wasn’t clear until after I’d committed."_

All the author is advocating is for software companies to be up front about
what their software is doing.

~~~
apgwoz
From clause 13 in the Terms of Service:

 _(ii) Spotify has a right to allow the Spotify Software Application and the
Spotify Service to utilize the processor, bandwidth and storage hardware on
your computer or other relevant device for the limited purpose of facilitating
the communication and transmission of content and other data or features to
you and other users of the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify
Service, and to facilitate the operation of the network on which the Spotify
Software Application and the Spotify Service runs._

Granted, it's not listed as a "feature" but you agreed to the possibility of
it.

------
joeconway
As someone who already pays for Spotify premium, I see the bandwidth as an
acceptable further price to pay; if it results in a viable business model that
can continue to entertain me. I would mind a lot more if it were just so they
could save money. However, it would seem that for the sake of low-latency, the
p2p layer is crucial.

Also fun fact: "In total, during the measurement period, 8.8% of data came
from servers, 35.8% from the peer-to-peer network, and the remaining 55.4%
were cached data"

Source <http://www.csc.kth.se/~gkreitz/spotify-p2p10/>

~~~
mattmanser
His point is that this cost is not mentioned before the point of sale and has
to be discovered.

~~~
vegardx
For people outside of US, where we don't have service providers that screws us
sideways, this is a negligible problem. But I can see the point for people who
are routinely being scammed by their service provider.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I take it you don't live in Australia.

~~~
AgentConundrum
Canadian ISPs are pretty bad as well. Mine is decent - seems the East coast
isn't as bad as the rest of the country - but this seems to be the exception,
not the rule.

~~~
nkassis
I have cable internet in Quebec and the cap is really low. 120gb a month is to
me quite low. I watch most of my tv,news,sports online now and I have to
actively monitor it. Does nothing to reduce my total bw rate usage while I'm
streaming. I guess my usage drops at the end of the month. It still doesn't
help their claimed problem of congestion.

~~~
AgentConundrum
120GB is low, but not nearly as low as other limits I've heard of.

I'm in Halifax, and the ISPs here seem pretty decent. Bell Aliant doesn't have
caps at all - they used to be a distinct entity from Bell, IIRC, and are still
sort of separate from the Bell that's often mentioned - and Eastlink caps at
250GB, or were planning to a few months ago anyway, but that's only for their
50 and 100 Mbps plans. The normal, standard-in-a-bundle plan is 20Mbps and is
uncapped. I've been pretty pleased.

~~~
sidek
Yes, the Maritimes do get good service. I've also had luck in the plains as
well; Telus claims that they have caps, but they are not enforced. Shaw has
caps on some plans, but not on all of them.

I do find it curious that the most densely populated region is the one with
the worst service.

------
antonp
A month worth of Spotify premium usage will result in this amount of traffic :
<http://imgur.com/wVdmS> (screenshot from my network traffic monitor)

I completely agree with the poster who said that this is an acceptable price
to pay for the awesome UX we're getting.

~~~
ralphc
How much do you listen a day, on average, to use that bandwidth?

~~~
antonp
5 - 7 hours easily. This is not the high quality stream though.

And by awesome UX I was mostly referring to nearly latency free track
skipping.

------
fredBuddemeyer
"No “free” streaming service is worth the risk of pissing off the Xfinity
limit police and losing my Internet service."

this is only a true statement if the value of your current service is infinite
or your risk aversion is. to make any kind of realistic logical statement
about this you need to calculate how much bandwidth is being used, user limits
and isp switching costs.

a nice insight turned into fear mongering - this is how a lot of bad memes
start.

~~~
AgentConundrum
Considering how in a surprising number of places there is only one broadband
ISP available, it's not exactly unreasonable - though I'll agree it's
hyperbolic - to say that the value of his current service is 'infinite', since
internet access - at least in the developed world - is fairly important. Have
you used dial-up internet lately? It's not really a fun experience. (n.b. I've
not used dial-up in a while, but my mother has a bad DSL line that tests at
around 0.2Mbps, and I was not amused by it the last time I was there. This is
my basis of comparison.)

If spotify is silently operating a P2P client, even when it's not being
directly used, then that's an issue for people with bandwidth restrictions.
It's trivial to get distracted by something, forget an application is running
when you leave the house, and end up using much more bandwidth than you
intended. It's worse still that as bandwidth increases, usage limits don't
stay proportional. You suddenly have the ability to share faster, reaching
your limit sooner.

As I said, I agree that the statement is hyperbolic, but I don't consider the
issue trivial.

------
terinjokes
FWIW: Skype doesn't say they're using your bandwidth either...

~~~
MJR
Does Skype route other people's calls through your system or transfer data off
your computer to provide service to other customers? The Spotify model is very
different than Skype.

Edit: I had no idea Skype worked like that as well. And I have the same
reaction I did when I found out through personal experience that Spotify did
that -> ⌘Q - Quit Spotify. I don't need to open my connection to the world and
let a program suck up all my bandwidth just to listen to some music I can get
from another source. I'm not the only person using my connection and I have
other devices that I want to be able to use as much bandwidth as they need.
The fact that I can't control that bandwidth consumption at all is bothersome
and enough of a negative in my opinion that I won't use the service.

~~~
davedx
Skype is p2p.

~~~
esrauch
Just stating that it is P2P doesn't necessarily mean this. If there were skype
servers that handled everything except for the actual individual call, and the
individual call was in a connection directly between two clients (not through
a server) and that would be enough to be able to say "Skype is p2p".

~~~
davedx
<http://lmgtfy.com/?q=skype+p2p+architecture>

~~~
esrauch
I don't think you understood my comment. I was simply stating that "Skype is
P2P" is not a statement that is at all relevant to the conversation is above,
it could be P2P and still not use your bandwidth when you are not actively
using it.

------
pgvoorhees
Just a suggestion. You could try installing something called "netbalancer" by
seriousbit (<http://seriousbit.com/netbalancer/> assuming you're on windows).
It allows you to throttle network usage per program.

~~~
dmarinoc
Anything similar for OSX?

~~~
wulczer
ipfw :o)

------
jurre
This doesn't really surprise me to be honest. Spotify also caches _a lot_ in
order to be able to play content as fast as it does (for me it's usually as
fast as playing something from my harddrive). However I didn't know about the
upstreaming of cached content, this seems like something you should be able to
turn off. I have the unlimited plan, curious to see if it also happens there.
Will check when I get home.

------
DanBealeC
disturbing that so many HN readers install software without knowing what it
does, or how it does it.

Having sad that, the docs could be a bit more clear.

For example, Spotify says quite clearly in sentence ii of para 14 of the end-
user-agreement that "(ii) Spotify has a right to allow the Spotify Software
Application and the Spotify Service to utilize the processor, bandwidth and
storage hardware on your computer or other relevant device for the limited
purpose of facilitating the communication and transmission of content and
other data or features to you and other users of the Spotify Software
Application and the Spotify Service, and to facilitate the operation of the
network on which the Spotify Software Application and the Spotify Service
runs. You may adjust the level of usage that the Spotify Service makes of your
computer in the settings of the Spotify Software Application."

~~~
seattlenerd
Considering the first indication of possible P2P functionality in the license
agreement is the phrase "and other users," Spotify could be more upfront.

------
MattBearman
I haven't tried this yet, but as a premium subscriber, I'm pretty sure I could
save songs as an offline playlist, and then set Spotify to offline mode.

~~~
nlco
How do you set spotify to offline mode (without completely disabling wifi)?

~~~
adeaver
You can't set spotify itself to offline except on the phone app. You can
however set a specific playlist to offline mode which will 'sync' the music to
your HDD and plays it from there.

[edit]: BTW, you can do this on all devices.

------
yason
It took me a while to get rid of the thought pattern superimposed by the
title, including the words "nerd" and "free", that the article would be of the
impractical sides of using free software (such as having to occasionally tweak
around miscellaneous problems related to compatibility with proprietary
software).

------
reagan83
I believe there is a really simple solution to this. Spotify is only using
your network bandwidth to serve your music files that other people want to
play. If you don't want to participate move your music folders to another
location that Spotify cannot find.

~~~
jkterhune
Interesting, I assumed that Spotify just distributes data that originated on
its own servers. If distributes music I've ripped myself, I could screw up its
service for other listeners. Does anyone know what the behavior is?

------
xbryanx
If you object to the P2P aspects of Spotify, wouldn't it be pretty simple to
find out the port that it's broadcasting on and block outgoing communication?
I wonder if anyone has tried this. Maybe Spotify would notice and quit
playing.

------
mmuro
So, the solution is to quit the app, right? Simple enough.

I only use it when I need variety that's not in my iTunes.

~~~
jmilloy
This seems like an adequate solution. It makes me wonder if some time there
will be streaming music services that require you to have the program running
for at least a minimum of hours a day in order to receive the free service. Or
better yet, perhaps a discount for meeting monthly upload quotas.

------
rjh29
As a Spotify Premium subscriber, I think it is unacceptable that Spotify do
not allow you to disable or throttle Spotify's upstream traffic, or even
disclose how much bandwidth it is likely to use! I have an uncapped connection
(common in the UK) but anyone on a capped line may be subjected to hefty fees
without even realising it.

I have no issue with the idea of P2P - it saves Spotify money, which is
hopefully transferred to me - and is essential for instant or near-instant
playback of music.

~~~
Confusion
This is also my number one complaint. I asked about it at their official
support forum on getsatisfaction, but never got a response. That's silly,
because Spotify sometimes saturated my upstream, in which case I turned it
off. It has now become a habit to turn it off. Before that, most of the time,
it was one when I wasn't even listening to music, so the bandwidth was
completely free to them. If they would allow me to throttle it somewhat, they
could use it all the time. Since they don't allow me to throttle it, I've
turned to shutting the client down whenever I'm not using it.

------
hackermom
Well, no surprise there. It was stated and elaborated already from the start
years ago - Spotify is a cloud service, and the users help out. What IS
surprising is that there are no numbers what so ever about how much bandwidth
and how many connections that might be in use on a client's computer.

~~~
smackfu
It doesn't seem to actually say that anywhere on the web page though.

~~~
joeconway
I understand the point you're making, they should say explicitly on their
website. But to source my comment:
<http://www.csc.kth.se/~gkreitz/spotify-p2p10/>

------
pointyhat
It does that - it's a P2P system. It also eats tonnes of disk space. My
spotify data folder is about 12 gig.

~~~
vegardx
Yes, by default Spotify caches everything up to 10% of your total free disk
space. This is space that you are not using anyway, so what is the problem? It
makes playback of music you've listened to in the past a lot faster, and saves
you downstream bandwidth - which in turn makes for less load on servers and
the swarm.

~~~
jarofgreen
"This is space that you are not using anyway, so what is the problem?"

It's space your not using _now_. What if the user has no idea Spotify is
caching that heavily, then checks their Free Disk Space (maybe they are about
to transfer lots of data)? Nasty surprise ...

------
ristretto
The article isn't just about spotify, but anyway, bandwidth usage is a concern
now, but certainly as bandwidth goes up there will be more and more services
taking advantage of P2P for faster and better service. It's not necessarily a
bad thing.

------
jamesgagan
A good reason to try <http://songspin.fm> \- nothing to install, just stream
cool music continually in your browser.

------
vegardx
And this is why you never-ever want to release a good product to the US. If it
works great in EU and the rest of the world, you can be damn sure that you
will meet so much hate in US, for some obscure reason. Well - from a personal
perspective.

I've been running Spotify since early beta, and monitor the network usage of
all my application, both when it comes to traffic and when it comes to what it
accesses (littlesnitch is a great tool!). Spotify hardly uses any upstream
bandwidth, and if it were using a lot, I should've seen that. I see a lot of
downstream network usage.

This is just another blogger to piss on Spotify for some strange reason, to
the point where they make up stuff. And it does not make sense to enable the
user to not have any caching, then the network usage of the entire swarm
would've quadrupled. I feel that 1GB minimum and standard at 10% of free
diskspace (!!!! free, not total) is a good middle road.

(For those interested, Skype uses a boatload more bandwidth than Spotify.
We've had problems with network congestion because so many clients on the
network had Skype open and they routed so many calls through our network.)

~~~
bkhughes
>This is just another blogger to piss on Spotify for some strange reason to
the point where they make up stuff.

Actually he discusses his reason, _right there in the post_. Spotify used a
lot of his bandwidth with no way to throttle (as others on this thread have
discussed), in a way that he didn't feel was disclosed up-front.

It's great that you love Spotify and get value from it, but don't jump on this
board calling someone a liar and questioning their integrity because they
_don't_ get the same value from it.

~~~
vegardx
I agree with you, I was way out of line when I called him a lier. The fanboy-
ism may be a little to strong in me.

But, to the point, he never said how much traffic he was seeing, so in his
case /any/ traffic could be deemed "a lot". All services these days use your
network connection to some extent, but I'm finding it hard to believe that it
actually may end up congesting your networking connection, without seeing some
serious proof.

I can to some extent see his point where this should've been clear from the
start of, that Spotify will make use of your upstream network connection.
Hopefully Spotify will make changes so that at least the US-market get
notified that they might end up paying their service provider a premium, just
for using Spotify.

