Comment by pmarreck | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmarreck | Hacker News Reader

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> hence I'll never go back.

So basically, you're saying that since they (according to you) weren't plastering news about their P2P design across all their marketing (as if most people would even be able to understand that, from a marketing perspective), and DESPITE the fact that it was well-known enough for academic papers in 2011 to be written on the design (http://pansentient.com/2011/04/spotify-technology-some-stats...), that's why you'll never return to them, even though they've since entirely removed that functionality? Because you never heard of that part of the design until you detected it on your own network?

This isn't someone "robbing your bandwidth" IMHO, I'm not for example angry when I torrent something open-source and have it set to reupload 2x what I downloaded... In fact here's Netflix debating going to a P2P design in 2014: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/netfl...

If I torrented for a year ("as a downloader") without realizing how it worked, and then found out it was uploading what I already downloaded, would I have the right to be indignant about my own ignorance?

That said, a lot of new endeavours (especially on the Internet) have questionable legality when they first emerge (mp3 scene, bitcoin, digital content distribution in general, etc) and then acquire legitimacy later on. It's fine (... I guess?) to feel unlimited righteous indignation about a company (I feel that way about Microsoft, actually), but it's not fine IMHO if it's not based on reality.

I'm not telling you not to use their service, my wife (for example) continues to use Spotify.

However, I personally will never use their service again. When they thought it was alright to use my network (that I pay for) to make money, then I have a right to turn my back on them.

Questionable legality is one thing, I personally could care less about laws. I break probably 5 or 6 laws an hour. Laws have nothing to do about morality. It's "illegal" to go 1 mph over the speed limit, it's "illegal" to cross the street without a sign, etc. As a society the vast majority of the laws we don't care about or follow.

What most people do is try to be moral and civil with one another. In the case of distributing music, most people seem willing to pay (hence Spotify has become popular). However, that didn't give them a right to use my network without my consent.

That is immoral, and that will get a visceral reaction from people. In this case, it didn't surprise me they were using torrented content in their service. I shared what I found interesting, and why it didn't surprise me, and also my opinion about how they were shady.

> even though they've since entirely removed that functionality?

If a company is shady, I'm not going to trust them with my money / data unless I have to (i.e. Comcast / Verizon / AT&T). If I have a choice, I'd use someone else. This is my "vote" of dissatisfaction. I vote with my wallet, and I share my insights / knowledge such that others will vote (informed) as well.

I think the parent's point was that people and companies make mistakes. Voting with your wallet is a great idea -- often times when I pull funding from a company for a perceived slight, if they react to my vote, I'll vote again by paying for their service.

There are some transgressions that people don't forgive easily or at all.

I have been taking part in a one man boycott of Nintendo for over 20 years.

Not that it hurts them. Not that they care. I was just done with them.

I hesitate to ask, but what did Nintendo do to justify this lifetime ban? ;) (also, I kind of want a Switch, but anyway)

The way they butchered what was my all-time favorite arcade game "Killer Instinct" with the SNES port and then KI Gold for the N64.

I have never been able to forgive the company.

err... did you ever consider that perhaps those systems weren't actually powerful enough to support the "full" Killer Instinct experience, so there was no way for it not to seem "downgraded" from the real deal?

(I was in my early 20's when that came out in the arcades. I remember it well)

The SNES certainly wasn't able to reproduce the arcade experience. The N64 should have been.

Over the years, I have considered buying an old arcade cabinet just to re-experience the magic.

I just need to find the space for it.

You should do that. Don't lose the wide-eyed kid inside. :)

Many years ago, someone made a PC based Killer Instinct emulator and I played it whenever I was feeling nostalgic.

I had problems getting it to run under XP, I wonder how well it would work under 7.

You boycotted Nintendo because of what Rare did to their own game when porting it? Do you also boycott Microsoft now that they own Rare or do you have some kind of weird double standard?

I was making that point, and ALSO the point that the perceived slight was purely in the eye of the beholder, I edited my comment to add a link to a 2011 academic paper on Spotify's P2P architecture that proves that they were not being cagey or secretive about this part of the design, it was already "out there" and if it just so happened to first cross this guy's radar when he saw the outbound traffic on his own network, he can't really blame Spotify, he can only be indignant at his own ignorance.

So now every ordinary person is going to read academic papers to ensure that a service or product meets decent moral and ethical standards?

If it wasn't on their website designed for selling, then they don't really have an excuse. That is the spot where those kind of details should be mentioned.

> a service or product meets decent moral and ethical standards?

I don't know what your standards are here but "an app that both sends and receives data from the Internet" pretty much describes every app in popular existence right now

The issue I'm taking with this is that Spotify did not try to hide, be cagey or act deceptively about the p2p aspect of their design at all; in fact here is a 2011 article on an academic paper on the design http://pansentient.com/2011/04/spotify-technology-some-stats... and here is a question-and-answer from their support community about it, from 2013: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web-P... Hardly a design aspect that everyone who actually cared about such things was intentionally kept in the dark about.

I would feel it is justified to be miffed if they tried to do it in secret and it was determined that they did indeed try to hide or downplay this fact, but this is not in fact what happened. Their stance seemed to be "yeah, this is currently how it works, we know some customers are unhappy with the arrangement, so we'll eventually change it, but you can't currently turn uploads off." Thus, you are basing your indignation off your own ignorance, and not reality.

Full disclosure: Am long-time Spotify fan (hey, gotta be honest!)

So how many journals and forums do you subscribe to in order to find out what the programs installed on your computer are doing?

This is not a counterargument. P2P is not something that most people would understand and thus, including it in marketing materials would turn people off. Thus, not including it in marketing materials is not a sign of intentional deception. I can't go back in time but I bet if you googled "spotify p2p" or "spotify architecture" in 2012 you'd find a wealth of information on it

You, and several other people in this conversation, are trying to tell the person you originally replied to how to feel.

They said nothing but "this is how I felt, this is why I stopped using it". If I had a bad experience with some software, I too would uninstall it, even if I'm told "but you see, you didn't experience it correctly".

They are of course entitled to their feelings, but saying that Spotify was doing something nefarious is unreasonable. Being able to send a receive information is part of how the Internet is supposed to work. That's what's makes it different from other things like cable TV.

It's DRM, data caps and walled gardens that have convinced people otherwise. The next logical step is separating clients and servers altogether. Why should I pay for data if I'm only a consumer? In that case we might as well let youtube and netflix pay to deliver the content. And then it's back to cable TV again.

PS. You also have to remember that Spotify is 10 years old. Internet infrastructure and things like cloud offerings wasn't as good. It wasn't just a move to save bandwidth, but to actually be able to offer a good service (low latency, high throughput, for free). Which still isn't easy.

You know... you're right. You can't rationally argue someone out of a feeling. But (to me) that feeling should at least (to the best extent possible) be based on rational fact.

If I mistakenly believed you killed my mother and shot you in the heat of the moment, would I be entitled to my feeling?

I make no argument with your position (in fact fully agree you should vote with your wallet in this case) but I think it should be pointed out you most certainly gave consent to allow them to use your network when you agreed to their terms by using their service. I can't imagine anyone who reads every line before they sign up for a service or install software so I understand why you feel the way you do. Objectively, to me, it feels like more of a moral gray area than completely immoral.

> If a company is shady, I'm not going to trust them with my money / data unless I have to ...

They are shady, few years ago they forced new users to have a fazebook account in order to sign up. I don't know how it is now, do they still?

I'm not the OP. But I can see why they would not wish to go back; it is a breach of trust between company and consumer. Their product was using network to stream personal data, and gave no warning about it. The fact that they were caught does not matter, what matters is that because they thought they could get away with it in the first place, they did it anyway.

> have questionable legality

I don't read the previous post as complaining about legality, but instead about taking an actin that could cost him as a user either financially (through bandwidth charges) or inconvenience (through reduced bandwidth available to other applications, or getting cut off or speed limited instead of charged for the extra bandwidth which is how some mobile plans work).

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