Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription

http://blog.last.fm/2009/03/24/lastfm-radio-announcement

by arthurk • 17 years ago

44 42 17 years ago

blog.last.fm

verdant• 17 years ago

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?

jwilliams• 17 years ago

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...

gaius2• 17 years ago

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.

ChrisXYZ• 17 years ago

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.

batasrki8• 17 years ago

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?

paulgb2• 17 years ago

> 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/

Goronmon2• 17 years ago

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

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

tallanvor• 17 years ago

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.

trezor2• 17 years ago

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.

numair• 17 years ago

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

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

sgibat• 17 years ago

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

tdm911• 17 years ago

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.

smokinn• 17 years ago

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.

Celcius• 17 years ago

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.

tomjen• 17 years ago

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.

Goronmon2• 17 years ago

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."

intranation• 17 years ago

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.

alabut• 17 years ago

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.

trezor2• 17 years ago

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.

paul7986• 17 years ago

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

I hope Last.fm can survive this stupidity!

andrewl-hn• 17 years ago

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.

Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription

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