Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription | Hacker News Reader

Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription

blog.last.fm

44 pointsarthurk42 comments

I'm from Canada and I won't be subscribing.

I use last.fm and while it has some cool features and I've discovered a lot of new bands, it just doesn't play very good songs on the actual radio.

I've tried making stations around all kinds of different bands, genres, or set ups, and it still seems to consistently pick mediocre tracks. My girlfriend found the same thing. I remember Pandora being a lot better in that regard.

I'm from Canada, too, and I've been listening for a while now. They don't always play the best music, but the variety is nice.

Having said that, I think this is a load of horse manure. I don't think that charging some, but not others is very fair. Also, isn't there and Internet adage that says once you release something for free, you can't turn around and charge for it? Or have I been reading too much SvN?

In any case, $6/month (CAD) for myself and the same amount for my wife is not worth it.

edit: Also, this makes a good case for proxy software. If I'm able to set up a proxy that makes it appear to Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, etc. that my IP is from the country they accept, I will still get free music.

Am I wrong in that conclusion?

> If I'm able to set up a proxy that makes it appear to Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, etc. that my IP is from the country they accept, I will still get free music.

I've considered creating EC2 instances and using ssh tunneling to get hulu and some other US-only sites from Canada. I'm not sure if the TOS allows it (of Amazon; I'm pretty sure the TOS of hulu doesn't allow it). I'll try it out when I get back to Canada.

And not to get too off-topic, but since you and the above poster are Canadian also, I feel I have to mention CBC's music podcasts which are pretty good if you find one that fits your musical taste: http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/

As as Canadian, I think there should be a market for this kind of thing. For Hulu, I wonder if using a proxy would be a major performance issue.

Limiting content based on geography is terrible but you really can't get many people to care because American's get everything and they're the biggest market.

That cost way more then 3 pounds a month...

I was suggesting this more for sites like hulu, but when I try the numbers it's actually not unrealistic.

3 pounds is roughly $4.40 USD. The cheapest EC2 instance is $0.10/hour, which would give you 44 hours for that price.

I don't know what bitrate last.fm streams at, but assuming it's 128 kbps, 44 hours would be about 2.5 GB transfer, or $0.25. edit: actually, $0.50 because the data goes in and out of the servers. I'm going off the top of my head here, but I think the rate is $0.10/GB

I figure I've listened to about 65 hours of music in the last month, so if I replaced half of that with last.fm (For example, I can't use last.fm from the gym), I'd come out ahead.

Of course, it wouldn't be worth the hassle for last.fm (killing and starting instances every time you want to play music? not for me). I may try it with hulu though, just for fun.

I don't think that charging some, but not others is very fair.

Just out of curiosity, what isn't fair about it?

I won't be subscribing from Norway either. I've heard a few good artists that I didn't know about before, but the benefits aren't great enough to warrant paying €3/month, especially not if we only get the same features we could get for free from the US.

Not that it matters, but I'm from Norway as well and chances are we wont be getting what the people in the US gets for free even if we pay. The question about if non-G3 subscribers will be able to preview/stream full tracks as opposed to only 30 seconds (like they can in the US) has been left entirely unanswered by the last.fm staff. I'll take the lack of an answer as answer enough in itself.

I'm not using last.fm radio-streaming enough to warrant paying for it, and I sure as hell refuse to pay for a service inferior to what others get for free, simply because I'm not born in the "right" country.

And as some ex-last.fm staff member comments down there, there is no way advertising alone can subsidize the US, UK and German markets, so in effect the rest of the world will be subsidizing the G3 countries, which also gets the best service, for free.

Absolute bullocks and I refuse to support it.

That's because last.fm gets paid for spins:

http://musicmanager.last.fm/help/faq?category=Promotion

Then maybe it's because I listen to mostly neo-classical music that I've had success.

I'm from Australia and I will probably keep my subscription.

I rarely use the streaming radio, save for times when I don't have my iTunes library close by. My main use of last.fm is the statistics and play counts it keeps. I know I get that for free, but for €3/month it's a small enough amount to give them something for creating a great service that I use daily.

I agree that the music selection from Pandora station was way better than last.fm. If Pandora asked me to pay 3$ a month I would. Last.fm? No way.

Besides €3 probobly being enough set up a tunnel too Germany, USA or UK and then get the free service (aswell as having a way around that problem on other occations). I can't help but feel sorry for the poor nations where €3 is an unreasonable amount of money. I get that it was a buisness decission but them exempting certain countries just alienates those of us who aren't on that list, or at least that's how I feel.

It pisses me off when I am being treated differently on the internet based on where I am in the real word. It is one of the reasons Hulu won't get my patronage even if they extend to other countries outside the us.

In this case it didn't matter much, I won't sign up (or pay) just to _hear_ music that I can't even choose my self.

It pisses you off that your use of the service isn't being subsidized by other parts of the world anymore? I mean, that's what seems to be the reason for instituting the fee. They are able to use ad sales to generate revenue for the 3 countries mentioned, so the service is paid for that way. They aren't able to generate enough ad revenue in the other countries, hence the fee.

I do find the general reactions a bit perplexing. Most range along the lines of "Everyone should pay or no one should pay.", "Companies should charge the people who can afford it more.", "I expect music to always be free to listen to." and "I refuse to pay for music, so I will now go back to pirating more."

Or: "3 euros a month is too much". 10c per day -- too much!

They've gone on record as saying the reason the 3 countries were picked as keeping the status quo is purely down to advertising sales in those countries.

What's really stupid is the way international entities still segment countries as far as bottom line goes. I assume this is for tax reasons or similar, but since their products cross international borders it just seems a bit strange.

Personally I haven't used Last.fm. But until recently I was a big fan of LaunchCast. Unfortunately Yahoo decided to shutdown it's own music infrastructure and teamed up with CBS: http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2009/02/21/the-new-launchcast-rad...

The new service is nowhere near as good as it used to be. I could rate the artist, the album, and the track separately and I could listen to My station based on my ratings. I used it for more than a year and really liked it. With a new service I can rate tracks only, my old ratings are not supported by a recommendation engine, and MyStation feature is gone.

Initially I thought it was a part of Yahoo! strategy change (they outsourced paid music subscriptions to Rhapsody last year). But now it seems to me that it might be a policy shift withing CBS itself. The Yahoo! partnership was announced just a month ago, the change was abrupt and totally unexpected.

I only wonder why not just replace LaunchCast with co-branded Y!-Last.fm altogether.

Does anyone know the reason behind this change? Is it a measure because of cost of operation in certain countries or is it a legal issue?

It's the former, sort of... See the comment on the post titled "Joost, HodgeStar, et al": (I can't find a permalink)

"These are the countries in which we have the most resources to support an ad sales organization, which is how we earn money to pay artists and labels for their music."

Edit: Found the permalink: http://blog.last.fm/2009/03/24/lastfm-radio-announcement#c00...

It's funny how people who use Last.fm's content and bandwidth for free think Last.fm will be hurt in any way by them leaving.

Call me naive, but were a large percentage of users to leave, they will be hurt. Not just from the traffic and revenue perspective, but also from a reputation one.

Take a gander at the comments. There are not just normal users, but also independent artists and even a record executive from Brazil. This is a serious move and potentially, a very damaging one.

How about from a profitability perspective? I think we should suck it up, and realize large companies aren't going to subsidize what we want to do on the internet, forever.

If Last.fm isn't €3/month, don't pay it.

I realize that, but at the same time, I realize that they've offered this service for free for a long, long time. Also, I wouldn't mind it so much, if they were to charge everyone.

However, charging everyone but the English, Americans and Germans is patently unfair. Also, the people from those countries already get services and features no one else does. So now we're talking about the rest of the world subsidizing what users from only three countries consume from Last.fm.

You cannot tell me that that's fair or that it even makes sense.

The UK, USA and Germany are large enough markets for them to sell ads in. If anything, over the last few years, ad sales in those countries has been subsidizing everyone else.

Hulu, Kindle, GrandCentral, etc. It's not like this is a new experience for Canadians. It sucks, but I don't blame the companies for being forced to realize market realities.

If what you say is true, that was not indicated in their announcement.

As for market realities, it's a reality that they've offered this service worldwide. Hulu, Kindle, etc. have not. It's unrealistic to not expect a huge backlash against a service that's restricting itself to only those markets where they think they might make money. As some commenters have rightly indicated, losing the scrobbling ability of the whole wide world will inevitably degrade the service of the "special" ones. And trust me, I've already stopped feeding them information. Also, come end of March and I will take my business elsewhere.

I don't mind paying for a service. I do mind discrimination and senseless discrimination I mind even more.

"It's unrealistic to not expect a huge backlash against a service that's restricting itself to only those markets where they think they might make money."

Which, in one sentence, explains the insanity of the mindset of web startups at the moment. Fortunately, it looks like that's starting to change.

"And trust me, I've already stopped feeding them information. Also, come end of March and I will take my business elsewhere."

Great. Especially if you think Last.fm is wrong about the value of your market, why not start a competitor?

"I don't mind paying for a service. I do mind discrimination and senseless discrimination I mind even more."

There shouldn't be a taboo against saying you don't think last.fm (or any web startup) isn't worth paying for, but I hope you still don't think this is the result of CBSs xenophobia.

I don't follow the last sentence.

I do think last.fm is worth it, had they 1) made these rules from the get-go; 2) applied them equally and with no discrimination (I think this is where CBS's xenophobia fits in?)

Am I on the right track? If not, please feel free to correct me. :)

If they are able to offer the service for free to some, why is this a bad thing again? I'm Canadian, so am a little bit sad that I won't be enjoying last.fm for free (or, in my case, at all) anymore. However, I'm not mad that others will be able to.

And why is it a bad thing if you offer your service for free at first?

It's bad because the expectation you set with your users is that that service is free.

With last.fm, it was free, but you could upgrade if you wanted to. Until this point in time, it wasn't "free, but only if you're from the right country". Had that been stated in the beginning, they wouldn't have been as successful and probably wouldn't have been acquired by the CBS.

They basically did the worst thing possible. They've collected user data, which they needed for their recommendation engine. They got users to fill out information about the bands whose music was on the site. Now, they're cashing in.

As DHH and 37signals and various other people have said: Don't be afraid to charge for your product.

They screwed up and now they will face the wrath of the community.

Wait, so you would've been willing to pay for the product originally (which, as you mentioned, would've collected less data and therefore be less useful than todays Last.fm), but you wouldn't be willing to pay for the more useful version available today?

For all that information, you got personal statistics (which will still be free) and free radio for seven years.

They're a business, it is there _responsibility_ to cash in. I'd much rather have it available for a price, than not available because people ran it into the ground.

What I'm saying is that the expectation that you, as a user, will have to pay for the service at some point in the future, but only if you don't happen to live in their preferred countries, was not set at launch of the service. If that expectation had been set, of course it would have amounted to a less useful service.

This is tantamount to a bait-and-switch, only you as a user provided the bait. All I'm arguing here for is transparency. None of this was needed had they been transparent. It would have also helped if they asked the community for feedback.

Now, the admins basically come off as assholes who have used the community and their volunteer contributions to make a coin. Making money isn't the problem. How they've gone about doing it is.

By the way, take a look at the comments again. No one from last.fm has responded to the users in the last 5 hours and the last comment was no better than a canned reply.

It's terrible customer service. Even if I weren't affected, I'd consider removing my data and getting off the service. Who's to say they won't do it to US, UK and German users next?

I think it is presumptuous to assume that they new they would have to adopt this business model 7 years ago.

Maybe it is. Putting aside the fact that this is a major change in the business model, the admins still have not responded to the furor.

They gave a 5 day notice, they haven't put it on Last.fm's home page and they haven't assuaged users' fears. That is still a terrible way to treat the community who has basically provided the information the service needed in order to be as good as it is.

I don't think that that is presumptuous to expect of them.

Well, the options are that or starving to death in a crap economy.

No matter how good some of the clients may be, if they can't make money off of them, they're wasted resources.

If people want free Pandora in their area, push people to advertise w/Pandora. Someone's got to cover the expense, and clearly Pandora themselves can't cover it anymore.

Let's apply the same logic for Google. Wait, what?

The bandwidth necessary to serve Google's minimalist web pages is trivial compared to that to stream music.

Not to mention the music licensing fees. Do people realize that last.fm has to pay music labels every time a user streams a track?

I never really got into last.fm because Pandora is so good. I just recently started using Pandora again after a long break and it's even better than when I first started using it - I used to have thumbs down individual songs all the time to teach it what songs or artists to include in a channel, I can't even remember the last time that I've had to do that.

Notice that if you are not from the US, trying to access pandora.com will lead you to http://www.pandora.com/restricted

Yeah. Pandora pretty much sucks too.

Oh no Last.fm sounds like music industry is playing Dr. Kevorkian, yet again!

I hope Last.fm can survive this stupidity!

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