READ THE FOLLOWUP POST: Radio announcement revisited
Today we’re announcing an upcoming change to the way Last.fm Radio works in some parts of the world. In the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, nothing will change.
In all other countries, listening to Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription of €3.00 per month. There will be a 30 track free trial, and we hope this will convince people to subscribe and keep listening to the radio. Everything else on Last.fm (scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc.) will remain free in all countries, like it is now.
Since we streamed our first track from Last.fm back in 2002, we have focused on playing the right songs to the right people, compensating artists for playing their music, and being the best music site on the web. We appreciate the support we get from the 30 million people who use Last.fm every month—double the number of people since this time last year. We work with over 280,000 labels and artists, many of whom we pay directly, and have built up the largest catalogue of any web radio platform: over 7 million tracks are available on Last.fm Radio stations.
In order to keep providing the best radio service on the web, we need to ask our listeners from countries other than USA, UK and Germany to subscribe for €3.00 per month. In return you’ll get unlimited access to Last.fm Radio, and a promise that we’ll be hard at work improving the service for years to come.
Translations of this message are available on all non-English versions of Last.fm sites: Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, 日本語, Polski, Português, Руccкий, Svenska, Türkçe, 简体中文
Please note: We’ve had to disable comments on this post to stop this page from growing too large. Please direct any further comments to our Feedback and Ideas forum.
READ THE FOLLOWUP POST: Radio announcement revisited
Comments
Horst Gutmann
24 March, 15:39
Does this also mean, that the “Your recommendations” station will require a subscription?
ben
24 March, 15:39
i’m glad this isn’t happening in the uk.
Dirk
24 March, 15:48
sucks (although it doesn’t affect me)
Jeremy
24 March, 15:59
And why are these three countries excluded (It doesn’t affect me, I’m just curious)?
3xM
24 March, 16:01
So, will the limited radio features in the rest of the world now be expanded to match those in US, UK and Germany? Or will we have to start paying for what we have had for free until now?
StudleyUK
24 March, 16:03
“In order to keep providing the best radio service on the web….” – let me know when you’ve fixed the iPhone ‘insufficient content’ error, and the problem with the lack of randomization on radio stations, and I’ll pick my jaw up off the floor.
In the meantime, a word of the wise: if this charge ever comes to the UK, I’ll be ditching my subscription immediately. Right now, you’re just making Spotify look more and more attractive.
Owen Parry
24 March, 16:13
Your Recommendations Radio will be available during your free trial, after that you’ll need a subscription outside of the US, UK and Germany.
Kimiko
24 March, 16:20
I am already a Last.fm subscriber (have been since 2005). What will change for me?
pascal
24 March, 16:22
will this remove the limits that are currently in tact (like minimum playlist length, randomisation, max. repeat count/day)?
pascal
24 March, 16:24
also: why?! does the music industry want more money, again, or has CBS discovered that web thing could be used to generate revenue?
Oio
24 March, 16:25
Last.fm is going dooooown…. I’m a former subscriber, and soon i’ll be a former user…
Chris Ryan
24 March, 16:30
@Kimiko
If you are an existing subscriber then your subscription will continue to be valid and nothing will change.
uriel
24 March, 16:33
same question as above, leaving outside the cited coutries I am a suscriber. Can we still access to radio? more, can we have a larger access like uk/us/de?
Me
24 March, 16:36
U suck
RosOne
24 March, 16:40
Go fuck yourself
Alberto
24 March, 16:41
Just the question everybody asking and you have not responded, yet (I hope)
Why that difference to ‘the rest of the world’?
Matthew Ogle
24 March, 16:41
@pascal:
The limits you mention are actually what make us a radio station (randomisation, etc), which in turn affects how we pay licensing, royalties, etc. So those things will stay the same.
Sure, this was a business decision. But after looking at our resources and opportunities we think it’s the best way to keep improving Last.fm radio (and also support all the other free services on Last.fm).
Joost
24 March, 16:42
This announcement doesn’t explain WHY the current setup does not suffice anymore. Is the infrastructure too costly for last.fm to keep operating in this fashion, or is it (yet again) a licensing issue?
Making the separation between USA/UK/Germany and “other countries” seems to suggest some sort of licensing (dis)agreement with the record companies. Do they want more money to stream tracks, or is the demand by listeners so popular that it costs last.fm too much money compared to revenues (ads etc)?
Andreas
24 March, 16:42
Wow, i’m sure that this will become the blog post with the most comments of the whole Last.fm blog history! ;-)
HodgeStar
24 March, 16:42
I want to ask the question above again:
Why are these three countries excluded?
Straight answer please!! ..and don’t talk as if all others were just some parts of the world. it’s the other way around.
hupf
24 March, 16:43
«(…) we have focused on playing the right songs to the right people.»
Does that mean you don’t count people from other countries than the US, UK and Germany to the «right people» anymore? Can you please explain, apart from all that marketing blah blah, why this change is only affecting certain countries and these other three not?
I’m a subscriber for many years now, I don’t have a problem to pay… but this selective change just seems not right to me.
Niksu
24 March, 16:44
Ok, no more streaming then. This is quite stupid, because listening to my recommendations was the big point of this service. Well, seems that Spotify will be the streaming source of choice from now on. I’ll just have to manually search for the recommended music..
How about the “free tracks”, are they still free?
peterpixel
24 March, 16:45
Good thing I just moved to Germany then.
michel v
24 March, 16:46
French user here, I heavily use the radio and might very well pay the monthly 3 euros: it’s quite cheap compared to the service it provided me so far.
I just have to wonder: why not in UK, US and Germany?
Are you sparing the top 3 countries in terms of users while making the countries with fewer users pony up?
Steven Bengtson
24 March, 16:48
I am disappointed but understand that they probably can’t afford to run these services in the other countries. I know that the Canadian CRTC charge an arm and a leg for anything that comes into Canada, if they even allow it in. It makes me sad and now I won’t be listening to streaming Last.FM anymore thanks to the CRTC. keep up the good work and please keep the scrobbling free :)
This is also a big pain for the product I am working on called Songbird (http://getsongbird.com), we are releasing an update to our Last.FM add on that allows streaming of Last.FM stuff, to bad for those “other” countries.
couille
24 March, 16:51
It’s not the first time we, frenchpeople, are being screwed over while other countries in the world still have free access to things we suddenly have to pay for.
I’m so tired of this. I guess I’ll go with Spotify now.
Matthew Ogle
24 March, 16:51
Joost, HodgeStar, et al:
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. We are focused on the US, UK, and Germany as key markets, with the help of the CBS Interactive salesforce and our own sales team here in London. Our headquarters are in the UK and we’ve always had a strong presence in DE.
And so we’ve made the decision to focus on these markets for free streaming radio. We are still available worldwide and while listening is subscription, all the other rich content on the site is still free.
Miguel
24 March, 16:51
Any reason for those three countries been excluded? Are they profitable not requiring subscription over the other ones? Are the industry pushing you? It’s not usual you haven’t explained more. Just curiosity
Alberto
24 March, 16:52
This just demostrates online enterprises are not for all the world.
In fact US is the country where CBS headquarters are located. UK is where one of the service (last.fm) was born and DE is where the other was born (as they have just said).
So they focused on their markets, not on the web.
Hannah Donovan
24 March, 16:54
Q&A for users outside the US, UK or Germany
Q. When does this go into effect?
A: We are currently planning to switch to subscription radio outside the US, UK, and Germany on Monday, March 30.
Q. What happens if I’m already a subscriber, or I buy a subscription before March 30th?
A. Your subscription will continue to be valid and automatically gain Last.fm Radio functionality after the switch. Existing subscribers don’t need to change anything.
Q. Does this affect listening to previews or full length tracks?
A. No.
Q&A for users in the US, UK or Germany
Q. Will I be affected by the changes to Last.fm Radio?
A. No!
cooperaa
24 March, 16:55
Guess I’m done with Last.fm radio then. I rarely used it anyways, but it was nice to have the option once in a while to check out recommendations.
Rasmus
24 March, 16:55
This is going to cost last.fm a lot of users and with good cause. I’ll probably stay as a subscriber, but I still think it sucks. So as a subscriber nothing will change? No improvements?
michel v
24 March, 16:57
One more question : will the 3 euros per month “in other countries” allow us poor third-worlders to benefit from what US, UK and Germany have had for free for over a year now: http://blog.last.fm/2008/01/23/free-the-music ?
ortoslon
24 March, 16:57
You could post this on April 1st to spread the confusion.
Alberto
24 March, 16:57
There are plenty of add-supported on-line radios to choose from.
Thanks for the scrobblings, till now.
Sad that, from now on, as last.fm doesn’t scrobble online radios, they will not reflect what I do listen.
Alberto
24 March, 16:59
Ahhh:
Please: Can you e-mail your users when you open the site for people outside the Last.fmG3?
Matthew Ogle
24 March, 17:01
@Rasmus
We have tons of product improvements in the pipeline, for both subscribers and non-subscribers alike! Stay tuned…
Alex
24 March, 17:01
Wow, I’m surprised at all the haters.
c. $6 CAD / mo seems really reasonable for unlimited streaming audio, based on my listening habits. I’ve been surprised that last.fm has been free for so long.
I’ll gladly pay.
Adrian
24 March, 17:02
I’m sure there are all sorts of financial/commercial reasons for this, but from my perspective: this sucks :(
:( :(
24 March, 17:06
it’s a shame !
Barneyk
24 March, 17:06
I would gladly pay that and more if I got the abilaty to play full length tracks and some other things.
Im already a subscriber so I guess Im not affected much, and 3 euros a month is not much.
But its been a long time since last.fm made a change I thought was positive.
I guess alot of changes are positive on a bigger scale but it was a long time ago last.fm made an announcement and I was likes “yay, thats so good for me”.
I understand that if it was strictly up to you guys things would be so much better and easier and that all the labels and other obstacles get in the way.
I still love the site and Im so glad you guys are doing what you’re doing.
But it felt like it was a long time ago I got an improvement from you guys.
The last.fm client cant play albums the way it used to, i have to use tricks to use it to play my damn playlists even.
Things has slowly gotten worse and worse and I feel like I havent gotten something good as a compensation yet.
And this is just another thing that makes the site “worse”.
Its not in itself bad, but there are alot of little things like this now, and as I said, a long time ago something positive, for me, came along…
kao
24 March, 17:06
Hi guys! I used to like your radio, refer my friends to you and buy CDs on Amazon using your referral links. I thought it’s a fair deal.
But your “need to ask for payment” attitude is not nice. In fact, it sucks.
Good bye, last.fm.
skeye
24 March, 17:07
Wow.
I guess that means last will never “Free the music” anywhere bu USA/UK/Germany…worse news ever published on this blog…
Petteri
24 March, 17:11
Hopefully we in “third world countries” don’t end up paying the “free” radio for those in the US, UK and Germany :(
skeye
24 March, 17:13
@petteri> we pay, they don’t. Even if we don’t pay for them, that still sucks big time…
Koronix
24 March, 17:14
I’m so sorry, but it’s not few penny in CE-Europe. :( Good luck and good bye last.fm :(
Hannah Donovan
24 March, 17:16
@Barneyk Watch the Feedback and Ideas forum for regular site update messages: http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/508083
Alex
24 March, 17:16
SPOTIFY FTW
Me
24 March, 17:17
That’s really sucks!
Avinash Meetoo
24 March, 17:18
I live in Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean, and I’ve been scrobbling since April 2005. I don’t listen to the radio frequently but sometimes it’s nice being surprised by the recommendations.
It’s sad that those living in poor countries will have to fork money… or, more precisely, stop using the radio facility.
I think that what you are doing is too radical and there is a risk you will lose loads and loads of traffic… and, maybe, independent artists too (like me) who would rather have their music elsewhere.
If I were you, I would have introduced some kind of quota for the radio. Say a few hours per day free, the rest (if any) being paid.
This would allow people like me (who have been contributing to the Last.fm database for years now) not to feel completely abandoned. Don’t forget that last.fm is what it is because of us.
Ian Rogers
24 March, 17:18
Interesting strategic move. The most loyal last.fm users will convert to paying customers while the freeloaders will switch to competing services (thus increasing the competitions costs of doing business.) Either way it’s a win-win for last.fm. Evil, but smart!
Vince
24 March, 17:19
That is one badly written press release guys, surely there was a nicer way to phrase it?
kees
24 March, 17:19
what if i live in us, uk or germany but try to listen in another country?
TCJ
24 March, 17:19
Bad idea… Anyway, there are some options to “be in the US”, then, nothing change.
Harold
24 March, 17:21
Well, I just joined last.fm a couple of weeks ago and it seem I’ll only use it until March 30. Thanks anyway, it was pretty cool being a part of this, but being in a country like Venezuela and having to pay for something that is free in the US, UK and Germany doesn’t feel quite right.
Still, as other users point out, there are other options to choose from.
Cheers.
Jeremy
24 March, 17:23
Oh boy, here comes the whining from people who have been using a free service for years and now simply can’t afford to pay $3 a month or they’ll starve.
If your local book store provided free coffee for years and stopped because of the economy do you go there every day and demand your free coffee? No, you don’t. You either pay or you go elsewhere. It’s that simple.
Dorian
24 March, 17:23
This is bad. I will remove last.fm client from my PC and iPhone. I’m sorry guys but this really sucks…
Good luck!
NumarulTrei
24 March, 17:24
This is not fair at all!!!
Anyway UK, USA and German users i guess are more open-minded than others…You guyz will loose a lot of users from Europe. Maybe You want to go exclusively on US and UK :P Anyway it’s just a matter of time until all users have to pay :P
Dan
24 March, 17:24
What the hack??? That’s just horrible… :( I can’t believe this stuff. So damn evil!
Attila Györffy
24 March, 17:25
In general, people need to get used to the fact that not everything is free in the world. If the business decision means that Last.fm services will keep getting better, than amen.
Alberto
24 March, 17:26
I pretented to be a suscriber, but I don’t like the ‘Just for the G3’ attitude. It’s thwe web stupid.
And I’m still waiting for a response to Michael V.
astroLV
24 March, 17:29
yeah, go on, start sucking money. why do all good things become like this?
bye bye last.fm. i will still continue to use audioscrobbler, but i will propably never use last.fm radio again.
Earl.E.
24 March, 17:29
Definitely worth the money and I won’t be leaving, although those lovely record labels must have something to do with this..
cortimiglia
24 March, 17:30
I second the words of @Harold, just changing Venezuela for Italy.
I’m already looking for other options. It was good while it lasted. Maybe it is even worth €3/month, but knowing that users in US, UK and Germany don’t pay would make me feel… stupid.
sjdvda
24 March, 17:30
I think it’s really a shame that such a popular website has to become a paid service.
I’m a teenager who lives in Mauritius Island, and I don’t have a credit card. I can’t pay for the service. Most people of my age already have started using p2p to get their music but I decided to stay legal and use last.fm. I’ll probably start using BitTorrent and Limewire too. No other service is available here. It as really interesting as I used the application on my iPod touch too.
uriel
24 March, 17:31
so we need to be a suscriber to have the same service as the free version in us/uk/de.
ant
24 March, 17:36
There will be a lot of good reasons, but I don’t understand them at all.
Should I pay to keep a good service in the countries where this service is free?
That’s called discrimination, at least in my country.
Fortunately, there are radio stations that offer the same service for free.
Whisky
24 March, 17:36
Bye-bye Last.fm – I’m not paying a penny for shure.
Any ideas for other FREE radio?
cortimiglia
24 March, 17:36
The fact is, if they started charging everybody €3/month, there would be a Facebook-style user revolt and soon the service would be empty.
But, as we’re already can see from the comments here, UK/US/German users just don’t care. The old “it is not in my backyard, it doesn’t matter” egoistical reasoning. Just that soon it will happen in your backyard too!
jordi
24 March, 17:38
Bye bye, last.fm!
Hello, Spotify!
(never liked my username in here, anyway… and you didn’t let me change it!)
Juliano Polimeno
24 March, 17:38
I think this is a bad approach, but the company is not mine.
BUT:
I’m from a Brazilian label and we have some of our artists in IODA catalog, so they are in Last.fm too. If my main audience (i.e. a BRAZILIAN audience) will have to pay you to listen to my songs they will run away for sure. So, Last.fm will not be important for me anymore.
And guess what: this can happen with labels and artists from 192 countries (195 – your 3 “free countries”). Will you be able to maintain your 7 million songs catalog?
Q1: Don’t you think that all 192 contries will think that this is some kind of prejudice?
Q2: I’m paying for US, UK and Germany listen for free, right?
skeye
24 March, 17:39
@uriel> not the same service, we still don’t get full tracks either…
Einer
24 March, 17:39
goodbye last.fm
Kasper
24 March, 17:39
Hmm last.fm fan since 2006 and will think about payig the whole subscription when we get all the benefits, like listening to whole songs and acces to the Iphone App.
Overall i think its a bad decision. Many web 2.0 have died on their own succes, a free version will come along soon enough.
Mjomark
24 March, 17:40
Is it april fools day, or what?
Niels
24 March, 17:42
Bad thing (but I can live with that), but more specifically a very poor communication regarding this matter. You could at least have provided us some insight into the reason why these steps are to be taken.
Last.fm (is) was my first source to get to know other artists, other genres, … Although I will still use the “recommendation” pages, I probably will listen to tracks (prior to buying them on iTunes or in the store) through Deezer (www.deezer.com), which allows me to stream full length tracks.
By the way, I access the internet via an international proxy server, although I’m in Europe. I’d recommend anyone to browse this way if they’d like to continue using Last.fm’s recommended radio.
astroLV
24 March, 17:42
jeremy – if you live in a eastern european country where recession and economic crysis hits twice as hard as in the US or Western Europe, then there are better ways to spend 3euros a month than this. actually it’s totally not fair that people in those 3 countries, who could easily afford it, can use it for free, while the rest of the world is neglected.
so, screw you, last.fm!
luke
24 March, 17:44
Thanks Richard Jones for responsively answering our questions and being honest about the fact that it is a business decision. I think it’s great that a great service like Last.fm can be profitable and reasonably priced.
I like you guys and gals.
Marcus D.
24 March, 17:46
What if artists have no record company to back them, and don’t mind distributing their music for free? Or at least allow streaming of their tracks? Then Last.fm is getting richer on their behalf?
Jims101
24 March, 17:47
This change seems like typical small-mindedness on the part of the big record labels.
What the labels, (and last.fm) need to realise is that people like me who spend money on music that we love still exist. If I listen to a track for free on last.fm and I like the band, I’ll most likely go and see them live or buy their albums. This is what radio was originally about – people heard songs on the radio and then went and bought albums, gig tickets etc.
Of course most last.fm users will choose not to pay for what has until now been a free service, thereby losing the ability to check out new bands that interest them. They’ll be exposed to less new music and hence buy fewer albums, go to fewer shows etc, meaning less money for the record labels and artists.
Or, if they want to check out a band they’ll use a torrent to download that band’s entire album or discography. Rather than hearing just a track or two on last.fm they’ll have the whole thing and so will be less likely to pay for an album(s) that they now already have.
This is up there with the record labels trying to charge Rock Band and Guitar Hero more to use their back catalogue, even though it’s been proven that featuring songs in these very popular games exposes the music to new markets, hence boosting sales.
The big labels are dinosaurs, longing for a time when they made all the rules. They are trying to hold back the tide but the sooner they’re washed under the better for artists and music lovers.
P.S. I am a long-time subscriber and I love last.fm
skeye
24 March, 17:51
by the way, was the “free the music” unlimited subscription service ever really launched for the lucky 3 countries?
How much does it cost?
I’d gladly pay much more than 3€ for such a service…
sil_mich
24 March, 17:52
Very disapointing. I’ve been long term last.fm user and intensive scrobbler (2004). I have connected friends, collegues, even my big kids.
But the overall feeling is that something wrong is going to happen. Not the payment for last.fm. But the difference you’re making between the US, UK en Germany and the rest of the world.
Not really the way internet is supposed to be. The only thing we, rest of the world can do, is making a sign. A protest.
Stop with scrobbling from 1 April!! Tell it to your friends and family. Let CBS and the last.fm crew know that last.fm is one of the best ideas on the internet ever. But that there is a point that we don’t take it anymore.
Stop scrobbling!!!
and it would be nice if the users from the US, UK and DE would make statement for us.
michel v
24 March, 17:52
Alberto: apparently paying users won’t even get what freeloaders get for free, according to a LastFM team member.
Check http://www.lastfm.fr/forum/21717/_/517178/_/8965637
I’m a little flabbergasted, I just hope the money won’t be used to pay the Free On-Demand tracks for freeloaders!
Avinash Meetoo
24 March, 17:52
Seriously, we, the ones who live in the 192 countries, want to know why we have to subsidise those will live in the USA, the UK and Germany?
I have some trouble understanding your logic.
As I wrote in a previous comment, it’s far more logical to make those who listen to the radio too much (depending on your own criteria) pay.
Do you understand that you are asking me to pay to access a service that I use only sparingly?
[I would like to point out something else. Those who don’t live in rich countries have pathetic Internet connections generally and it’s practically impossible to listen to Internet radio for too long because of breaks or even transfer quotas imposed by ISPs. Those who live in the USA, UK and Germany generally have good Internet connections and they can listen to radio all day long IF THEY WANT TO. So, basically, you are asking those who have technical difficulties doing something to pay for those who can do the same thing without any problem. This defies logic.]
Owen Parry
24 March, 17:53
@Juliano Polimeno:
Revenue from international subscriptions will be used to cover the cost of providing a radio service for international users.
Revenue from advertising will be used to cover some of the cost of providing service in the three countries – subscriptions are also available.
While we would like to provide the same service for users of all countries – the world is a huge place and it’s not cheap to deliver music over the Internet.
By offering different services to different regions, we are in a better position to continue to deliver service and adapt it to the different needs of our users around the world.
Bruno.
24 March, 17:54
As an old time user, I have no problem paying a small fare to continue enjoying Last.FM, have done that in the past without any problems.
I’m guessing you need to do this to keep your business running from now on, but I fear that’s gonna be a big problem to you, Richard. The majority of your younger users (especially the ones in poor countries) will surely drop out of the service, which might kill the virality it generates.
anabelle
24 March, 17:55
So sad…
i live in colombia, that means 3 euro here, is equivalent as if UK were charged 12euros/month
We are a poor country with a cheap currency..
Eventhough I LOVE last.fm I’ll have to leave.
It’s just too much mony for me.
SO SAD :’( !!!!
gurdonark
24 March, 17:55
Dear last.fm:
I like the audio scrobbler. I also like the way that you support Creative Commons artists who wish to put free mp3s on your site.
Your subscriber base will let you know with their choices how they receive the subscription service for the world excluding the three countries from which you derive advertising revenue.
I have two different points to raise which are related. One suggestions is that you permit even non-key-3 users to have a baseline membership limited to free download/Creative Commons materials. This would be easy to program, I believe, with a flag and widget for songs chosen outside this spectrum. The continuing expansion of netlabel materials would permit people who wish to do so to use your service as a
resource for netlabels. You could even develop netlabel stations of music, free for the listener. This would not detract from your goal of monetizing countries whose advertising revenue does not “carry the freight” of your service.
My second question relates to a flag I received recently. I am a U.S. user.
I clicked to listen to R. Stevie Moore’s “Fletcher Honorama”, but received a flag that I had maxed out on free listens of this song. I was then directed to a page that explains that someday you’ll have a premium subscription service.
I was amused, because by coincidence I “own” the right to hear the song in question, having purchased a download from Amazon some time ago. I use your service often to listen even to things I own, because of the convenience of the player.
However, I am puzzled by the limit on
free listens to a “full play”/non-download
indie label song. Is this a common feature for even US users, i.e., that two or three listens maxes out a song?
Thanks for listening to my questions.
I wish that last.fm could have found a way to support all users without regard to geography without a mandatory subscription service. My own vision is that netradio must be ad-based rather than subscription-based. However, as I said before, time will tell what is the success of your venture on this point.
Best to you all, and if you could consider my suggestion and answer my question I’d be grateful.
Robert
Nicky
24 March, 17:56
Pfft! It’s cool, you gotta make some money or you’ll go out of business, and that’d be rubbish.
I don’t really mind, I’ve been happily paying my measly £1.50 in the UK for a while and would gladly bump it up to what is still a stupidly small amount to keep getting radio and not get ads! How much is 3 euros a month anyway, practically less than a decent morning coffee here.
I actually want to give you guys MORE money so that I can have the awesome super beta subscription thing I heard about last year, still waiting for news on that :-)
Matt
24 March, 17:56
So deeply disappointed. Bye bye last.fm, hello next best thing.
Pelle
24 March, 17:59
We’ve got no iPhone app and apparently we’re missing other features as well – and now we’re going to be forced to pay?
I can understand that you need to get some revenue out of the radio – but couldn’t you go with something more in line with what Spotify has done? As far as I know you’ve no ads at all in your radio application?
I’m not listening to my Last.fm radio often – but I know that it’s there and I make sure to scrobble a lot because I know that it improves that radio when I listen to it.
Now unless I pay I don’t have any use for Last.fm and I need to listen more than I do now to not make those minutes I do listen incredibly expensive.
Last.fm used to be a fine example of the freemium business model – but not any longer and I think you will suffer from that.
I will probably not use Last.fm for music anymore – unless you beat Spotify on releasing an iPhone app in Sweden…
Celcius
24 March, 17:59
For €3.00 I could set up a VPN in one of those countries and at the same time get around these types of restrictions in other places. So thanks but no thanks, my respect for you dropped quite a lot when you choose too play favorites.
ME
24 March, 17:59
If I have to pay then I WILL find other ways to listen to free music, legal or illegal… It’s discriminating that people who live in a country next to me can listen free and I have to pay… I will stop using Last.fm!
Creep
24 March, 18:00
What a shame!
Im a independent artist, a dj in fact, and i used to upload my tracks and sets @ lastfm. And i owe too many gigs that i played in my county and many many others parties that some producers invited me to play around the world to lastfm. But, these gigs that they invited me, is not on US, UK or DE. So, im leavin the platform when this happen. Is not fair with us.
But who told us that should be?
Unhappy Canadian
24 March, 18:00
Services like deezer.com, pandora, and Last.fm was the only reason that i quit downloading music. (I was a huge torrentor) Me being a Canadian, I am severely limited in what I can gain access to. I’ll probably go back to my old habits of downloading music, simply because I love music. I do believe that artists need to be paid, however the illegal route, is commonly the easier route for us or it’s the only way to obtain the music we want. (Don’t get me started on Canadian itunes and how it pales in comparison to the American version, in the US you have amazon mp3 music too http://communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blogs/tech/archive/2008/12/19/amazon-mp3-store-global-rollout-promised-not-delivered.aspx guess what we don’t, we still have to buy CDs) It’s time for this two-tiered music industry to fall and come crashing down. I’m sick and tired of being treated like a second class music lover. I want the same stuff as what’s available across the border, is that too much to ask?
Nina Gazire
24 March, 18:01
This is ridiculous!!! You people should charge from UK, US and Germany…Not the opposite! They´re rich countries and can pay it easier then us here in South America…
You´ve being loosing points since you´ve changed the design…What´s the use of last.fm for me now?
Ridiculous!!!!
Jonatan
24 March, 18:03
Wow, just hooked up my cell with Mobbler to my stereo set to listen while tyding up the apartment and gets “this playlist is not allowed”. This fucking sucks, I guess this is in everyone’s face for believing the CBS involvement wouldn’t bring bullshit to a good service.
So far, the blog post as well as every comment from officials reeks of corporatist ignorance and bullshit.
Well, Spotify is gonna have a mobile client out soon so I guess that will kinda make it alright.
ups
24 March, 18:04
Why do I get a feeling that in order to get something I have to pay while others don’t. The way I see it, others are having the product free because the rest of the world “suckers” that have to pay.
Not a nice way of doing business if you make some users feel like second class…
Eduardo
24 March, 18:05
Very bad idea. People from third world countries will NOT pay.
I’m paying for US, UK and Germany listen for free, right?
jbrain
24 March, 18:06
Это очень плохая идея )=
Harald
24 March, 18:08
Interesting.
For me, last.fm lacks needs some functionality improvements to warrant a subscription.
elena
24 March, 18:13
one word: S-P-O-T-I-F-Y
:)
oKAnd
24 March, 18:14
The end has come…. and I will run first.
Goodbye Last.FM.
I prefer not to be scrobbled.
Dutch Idiot
24 March, 18:15
Jeremy: a service with advertisements is NOT free.Last.fm: If I pay you, would you translate the site in Dutch for all those idiot people from Holland and in other languages for those idiot people from the rest of the world (except the smart people from USA, UK and D). So the advertisements will disappear then in the rest of the world. Hey, the vodafone advert is in Dutch already. That won’t be necessary anymore, then. It’s a start saving more money…Question: how are the people outside €-countries going to pay in euros? Why not do something back for them and let them pay in pounds sterling or dollars ;-)
psyrockrfrost
24 March, 18:16
Well, that does not affect me, as I am living in the US, but since I think it’s so unfair and senseless (is either everybody pay or nobody pays), I’ll cancel my subscription anyway.
MARCEL
24 March, 18:19
:(
anon
24 March, 18:20
This is the wrong decision.
For me as a developer of a lastfm client on a popular Linux Platform will stop supporting my own client. The Reason for this is quite simple.
Your key markets are US, UK and Germany… but this are some of the ritches countries. So providing only for this countries a free access to your music and take money from the less ritch is the wrong way in my eyes. This is not social. The better way to get your service paid would be to raise your normal funds from already existing subscriptions. but let free what belongs to be free.
Besides of this it is quite unfair and not the first time in the short internet historie that a smart company is thowing away a well acquired community. and this is so big because of the free (but limited) service.
PS.: I´m from germany, so personaly im not affected so much.
John
24 March, 18:20
The music industry is the only industry that gets paid to advertise their products
amrlima
24 March, 18:21
Bad move guys. You loose a user here. Will it be just me? Is the money you will earn bigger enought to support the big drop lastfm will have?
We’ll see who’s right in the few month’s/year
Marcus D.
24 March, 18:22
@psyrockrfrost man, you’re awesome in supporting the non-US-ies, non-UK-ies, and non-D-ies this way, really. I hope more people like you will turn up, and do the same. You rock!
Steve 'Chippy' Paine
24 March, 18:23
I’m in Germany and i use the service but
if you’re having financial trouble, i’d rather see an across the board payment.
Ive been donating about 20 pounds per year anyway since 2004. The service is well worth the money.
Juliano Polimeno
24 March, 18:24
Owen:
So, if I pay you the 3 bucks I’ll NOT see any brazilian/portuguese advertising on my Last.fm page, right? Cause now I see…
And you won’t make money with my Brazilian clicks, right?
AND:
As a label, I’ll get paid (when I get…) from subscription only and not from advertising, right? How can I know the amount of money that you collect? How will you fairly distribute this money? These 3 countries are in best place too? Will you send me a monthly chart with your 2 different revenues and distribution %?
Look, I love Last.fm, both as user and label, and you as smart guys could think in a better solution. I’ll love to give you some % of my record/digital sales if you give me a good selling platform, for example.
orion
24 March, 18:25
BYE BYE LAST.FM.
HELLO DEEZERleoboechat
24 March, 18:26
Not a surprise. Of course we from third world will pay for USA, UK and Germany, as usual.
Very sad.
Alicia Bankhofer
24 March, 18:27
What does that mean for subscribers like me in Austria?
Stephan Schmidt
24 March, 18:27
Sounds expensive. Spotify is 8.25 EUR per month with free choice vs. 3 EUR per month for random play on Last.fm (outside the mentioned countries)
sufi
24 March, 18:27
wtf?!
Evert
24 March, 18:28
What a stupid decision! You’ve lost me from today. And I will advice others to stop using Last.fm too.
How ironic that the reCaptcha says ‘uniting’ :-)
HodgeStar
24 March, 18:30
@Matthew Ogle:
It’s a bad decision. Totally unfair, to say the least. The last straw to end your self-proclaimed social music revolution. I beg you will reconsider it.
Either free last.fm radio service for all or none.
It’s enough that your free on demand service doesn’t get out of the so-called US-UK-DE beta test. To focus on markets with the highest spending capacity and offer free streaming exactly there of all markets is more than questionable.
Pat
24 March, 18:35
I can understand the need to make the radio part a paid service. I’ve been a subscriber for years, and I would have stayed a subscriber. But this “everyone should now pay except for UK/US/Germany” thing? That’s just wrong. Like the others say, at least give us full length tracks if that’s the way you’re going to go. But now we get 30 second tracks AND we have to pay for radio, and they get full length tracks AND free radio? If you’re actually going through with this I’m leaving.
Anon
24 March, 18:35
I have to laugh at most of the comments above. Why would you think last.fm could sustain a business model that gives you shit for free when everyone involved in online music services is under constant pressure from labels for more royalties while you probably browse last.fm with Ad Block Plus enabled?
If you wish to complain then let the labels know how you feel. As someone pointed out before radio used to be a form of promotion. Because the labels were so slow at adjusting their distribution models to meet online demands they’re now trying to claw back any revenue they can, and ultimately we’re the ones who suffer because they now think you should pay to listen to radio and watch their promotional music videos. You think last.fm doesn’t want to roll out the UK/US/Germany service to everyone? Of course they do but their hands are tied.
Trauma XP
24 March, 18:36
I’m from Germany and I wonder if the fee is applicable if I connect to Last.fm from a location other than UK, US, or DE? Is the fee depending on my IP location or on my main address, my citizenship, something else?
uporo
24 March, 18:37
Well good luck, hopefully you guys will still make it. I was a member from 2004, and will not renew my subscription because i was recently listening to spotify anyways.
UCareEnough?
24 March, 18:37
I’m listening to http://radioverve.com/ now! Its not charging me a penny for it.. Though, you can donate to it but no compulsion.
Pankaj Jangid
24 March, 18:38
I have seen people going bankrupt with such policies. Once there was a site called usa.net you know what happened to them.
spotify
24 March, 18:38
bye bye last.fm
welcome spotify!
Alatalo
24 March, 18:40
Thank you Last.fm. It was fun while it lasted.
I’ll be moving my stuff to other services first thing tomorrow.
Very disappointed.
Sander
24 March, 18:41
Well, are you sure this isn’t an early April fools joke?
Annett Seifert
24 March, 18:41
@Alicia Bankhofer:
Your subscription will still be valid and automatically gain Last.fm Radio functionality after the switch, so you won’t have to change anything. If you aren’t a subscriber at the moment, then the radio will soon require a subscription from you.
toolio
24 March, 18:41
In reply to:
“It’s not the first time we, frenchpeople, are being screwed over while other countries in the world still have free access to things we suddenly have to pay for.”
I love the French. They just can’t stop thinking they are the center of the universe. The service will be free in three countries and the French guy thinks the French are being singled out. What about the 200-odd countries outside of France? I am writing this from Brasil, also a country, also being forced to pay.
LOL
Levent Tüter
24 March, 18:42
I live in Aachen, Germany, whıch very close to the Dutch and the Belgian border. I sometimes notice ads in Dutch. Does this mean that last.fm thinks I’m not in Germany? and if that is the case will this affect me after March 30th?
venetiglio
24 March, 18:42
I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the way people on the Last.fm HQ would like to be, and it saddens me.
I’ve been a user of the service long before creating this profile in 2006 and it has always been a personal favourite. I’ve referred a lot of people to it, corrected entries on the wikis, contributed by tagging and spoke out on the foruns as often as I could.
I doubt there’s anything more valuable as an asset to Last.fm than these contributions: every scrobble, every new tag, every wiki changed helps build a better service. Nobody’s “freeloading” – as we use it, we are giving back, building value together. I’m sure the Last.fm staff knows this.
And I’m sure they know that by shunning these users, they will be losing a lot. Not just the people, but their contributions. There’s no new features that will make up for that.
When In Rainbows came straight to the top of the Last.fm charts it was an early sign of its success, because last.fm was seen (rightly) as a thermometer – it’s results were what the internet was listening to.
With less users, less scrobbles (what’s the point of keeping scrobbling if I can’t listen to reccomendations?) and less contributions… it will be just one more online radio.
Maybe there’s a way around it – if these contributions could measured, they could be converted into listening credits. Maybe it’s time to listen to your long-time supporters. If you want, we’re here to help.
Thanks for all you’ve given us, but don’t forget that we did pay you back in our way.
Naruedyoh
24 March, 18:43
You must be kidding. In the spanish Digg everybody is hating this decision. I can’t uderstand why don’t you make everyone pay
Owen Parry
24 March, 18:43
@Dutch Idiot:
We use PayPal to manage payments for subscriptions. Although the price may not be shown in your home currency, PayPal will automatically convert it to the currency registered with your account.
@Juliano Polimeno:
Regardless of where you live, if you have bought a subscription, you will not see advertising on Last.fm.
Amanda
24 March, 18:44
Well, you should know that this is such a SAD NEW about music and communication on internet.
The cost ain’t expensive at all. But the meaning of using Last.FM it’s almost over.
me
24 March, 18:45
“Either free last.fm radio service for all or none.” indeed!!!
pm
24 March, 18:46
Fuck this corporate bullshit world, I’m going to STEAL some music, because I LOVE it.
Well, bye last.fm radio. I’ll keep scrobbling because I had a goal to reach million scrobbled tracks in my life. I wonder if I ever get that far without paying something like 1$ for every track that I scrobble.
bigpe
24 March, 18:46
sorry guys, but even though i love your service, i would only pay for addons.
not for the basic service.
-1 lost “customer” / listener
pandora
24 March, 18:46
Use Pandora
Ed
24 March, 18:47
Well, it certainly will impose a nice challenge to find an other, free service. I can understand the decision to transform to a paid service, but only if additional benefits are introduced. If the services remain the same, it’s no more than a ripp-off, which will drive a lot of users away. Remember, in a lot of countries we already pay a fee to listen to ether radio. This means that the competitive incentive to listen to Last.fm is gone. A lot of users will simply revert to their old, trusted tuner. I think it is becoming more important to somehow show the music industry that they are dinosaurs, and need to change the way they deliver music!
starphaser
24 March, 18:48
I’ve been using this since AudioScrobbler and each change disappoints a little, from the removal of “in-your-face” user relationships to the new (and clumsy, “facebooky”) design. However, i’ve stick with you for the many good services this site provided, such as wiki-editable artist pages, forums and free radio.
Too bad this is about to end. This is worse than any make-up design changes you guys made with the passing years. This shows such a lack of respect with the majority of your user base that brings shivers down my spine.
Alright, what’s the next internet music website we should go now?
I sincerely miss AudioGalaxy’s days.
Gülden
24 March, 18:49
your ethnicity.
Music Will Always Be Free
24 March, 18:50
Eh, I would pay if paying for it actually provided me the content I wanted in the first place — I did pay for a month to see how it’s like.. More than half of the tracks in my playlists weren’t in the database so I ended up listening to ~10 tracks in a 70 track-long playlists. (And I’m not even talking about listening to a particular song on demand.. When I first realised Last.fm couldn’t do such a thing, subscribing again lost its appeal all together) And now you say I’ll have to pay for randomised radio? No, thank you very much. Farewell.
markus
24 March, 18:51
Very Very sad. Will probably cost a lot of user (including me from Switzerland). Bought quite a lot of music because of my recommandations. Always thought last.fm to be quite a likable brand.
Very disappointing…
Atul Chitnis
24 March, 18:52
Hmmm, predictable reactions.
Everyone is so concerned that they have to pay for something, and what they have to pay for. It has been made clear that you are paying to listen, essentially covering the cost of getting the music to you (royalties, bandwidth, operations, etc.).
In the three countries mentioned, Last.FM earns money in other ways (ads, music sales, etc.) so people are paying indirectly for the music (and always have).
I think this is a fair move by Last.FM, and unlike Pandora, it means that there is a way to continue listening, instead of just being cut off outside the target countries.
Good move. Focussing on revenues (or at least reducing net expenses) is a healthy approach to long-term sustainability.
I have been a subscriber for several years, and will continue to be so.
Greetings from India! :)
Chris Charabaruk
24 March, 18:54
Last.Fail, guys. Not cool. Not cool at all. You can kiss Canadian goodwill goodbye.
gimbal
24 March, 18:54
“We would like to alienate you from this moment on and what we are doing from now on is actually super alienating”: How is that for a business decision?
The richest countries in the world do not need to pay to get your service, but dozens of others do…I am stopping scrobbling as of this moment.
It’s been a pleasure building up a global database for you so you can turn it into gold and then screw people over.
.M
24 March, 18:56
Good luck Last.fm! You guys are gonna lose a lot of us international users and you will miss us!
the big boss
24 March, 18:57
using spotify’s technology would cover the cost. p2p works, really.
dimitarmk
24 March, 18:58
This is a discrimination for other countries. Last.fm is a rasist service now, right? Music will be free forever, so who fucking cares about your shitty service.
katie
24 March, 18:59
wow. come on everyone! since when is anything free? and why should it be?
i’ll gladly pay a bit of cash each month to keep on top of my music needs.
lessthanzero
24 March, 19:01
I haven’t read this stuff through, though I’ve been a subscriber for a time, outside of the magic three, and I wonder, if I will have to pay to get as much than those who access last.fm from the UK/US/DE region?
Last.fm right now says, that I will have to pay a subscription to use the service, with restricted rights, or if I’m still willing to pay the 3 Euros, I will have the same access to last.fm catalog as the subscribers from the UK/US/DE region?
Martin Markovski
24 March, 19:02
Fuckin’ assholes pay-pal is not available in my country now what ? Since you won’t let me pay you trough moneybookers the only thing i can honestly say is that you have disappointed me totally.
Rocanlover
24 March, 19:03
I won’t pay,it is not fair,we want radio for free!!! (obviously,people we live outside uk,.u.s.a., and germany ¬¬)
Dwarden
24 March, 19:04
i need to ask what make Germany users to be free of this fee compared to other European Union citizens ?
so much for fair-use …
either let pay everyone be it UK, Germany or USA …
or keep the already shortened and distorted tracks free
musiclover
24 March, 19:05
CBS will die one day. We’ll rejoice.
claudio
24 March, 19:05
This is quite nasty. 3 € might not be a lot for developed countries but you will certainly drop lots of users from Latin America, East Europe, and probably many other parts of the world.
The wording of your announce was quite horrible. You have now pissed off lots of users and this will only have a negative impact on your service. I hope you will reconsider this, since you’ve always provided a great service.
From a subscribed user, who doesn’t know whether he wants to continue paying anymore..
Daniela
24 March, 19:05
This is terrible. I’ve been a user since a lot time now, and it makes me real mad, and makes me feel injured for living in Latin America. You should TRY to charge US, UK and Germany and see what happen…
Beside, do you even know what 3 euros means in each country? Think about India, Brasil, Argentina, Mexico… It’s a racist determination.
Owen Parry
24 March, 19:06
@pm:
Scrobbling is free and will always be free. Other services that will continue to be free to everyone, everywhere:
Millions of free music samples,
Thousands of free downloads,
Free previews of a wide range of featured music,
Artist bios, photos and event information,
Your profile, your charts, your journal and
The ability to love tracks and add tags.
Horst Gutmann
24 March, 19:06
I have to agree with HodgeStar. I personally don’t mind you charging for the streaming service of last.fm since I got to know quite a lot of great music over the years this way. But treating some users differently just based on their geo-location is a really bad idea.
JMC
24 March, 19:07
Oh, thanks Again. U did the “Veoh thing” and the “Hulu thing”, There are more countries in the world god, Welcome to the “Internet racism”, Can i call u “another nazi web”
F.U
aitorhh
24 March, 19:08
So…. bye bye Last.fm, nice to meet u :(
blubloblu
24 March, 19:08
Not only have you given up on being the best online music service, you’ve gone and increased the price as well?
20% price hike for the priviledge to listen to a quality of service that should be free?
Juaner
24 March, 19:10
Why UK and Germany not? I’m a subscriptor from Spain and I’m very dissapointed with that. I’m going to drop off my subscription right now.
Bye bye last.fm, it has been 2 funny years but one more time money wins and breaks a good idea.
Alp
24 March, 19:10
well, that was a surprise. but, it is actually not that surprising for me to see that there’re many “modern” and “capitalist american idol” young boys around here defending that unfair “except 3 countries” anouncement.
and yeah people, we know you guys will “gladly play” this non-sense. you don’t need to say that over and over again.
Jon
24 March, 19:10
Bye bye last.fm.
Hello Spotify!
daX
24 March, 19:11
Terrible news.
makgregory
24 March, 19:11
¿Así que el resto del mundo les vamos a tener que pagar la música a estadounidenses, alemanes e ingleses? Va a ser que no. Hasta nunca. Y si no entendeis el comentario, me importa un bledo. Culturizaos. Desde ya mismo teneis un usuario menos desde España. Y mira que podríais haber metido toneladas de publicidad y hacerlo mejor…
Kyle
24 March, 19:13
I don’t see what the big deal is. $3.00 a month is nothing!
People on the internet expect everything free, to the point where $3/month is “ridiculous” and “evil”. It’s $3/mo for unlimited music! Quit being so goddam cheap! That’s hardly more than a single cup of coffee from Starbucks!
I’m not currently a paying subscriber, but I listen to my recommended radio almost daily. I’ll probably start paying when I have to — personally, I was surprised such a valuable service was free to begin with.
I’m in Canada, btw.
The b
24 March, 19:13
Good job, last.fm. Start to charge for a free service in the midst of an economic downturn of cataclysmic proportions, and better yet, charge people from third world countries and lose clients from rich countries that will feel offended because you are sparing only western, “white arian” countries instead of them
Well done!
Tim Dobson
24 March, 19:13
This is utterly depressing.
Even as a UK citizen I am devastated.
Some of the most innovative last.fm clients have been written by people outside the UK/US/Germany band who would never have previously got involved.
I’m disgusted
C.
24 March, 19:17
Hey guys, it’s time to go back to the basics. How about buying some records on vinyl.
kp
24 March, 19:17
bye bye lastfm, till 30th march
roi da ponte
24 March, 19:17
good bye last.fm
name
24 March, 19:17
i already cancelled my account. Thanks for everything and good luck.
Ivonne
24 March, 19:18
Why? I mean, why only certain countries. It sucks, it really does. You’re discriminating people, some of us don’t have the resources to pay that ammount of money. What do those countries have that we don’t? What makes german, UK and americans different from us? It is stupid. You totally suck.
I know you rock and you provide a wonderful service, but I think all you’re doing is losing what you have earned in all these years. With the money some people will pay yu they might just buy the album online, or I don’t know, have a burger with their friends listening to a radio station… You’ve lost, not one fan, thousands.
JayT
24 March, 19:19
well, it was nice while it lasted, so long.
as some people said, thats just too much money for some of us.
besides, it feels a bit like an apartheid…
so, its back to p2p for me, the bird for whoever decided the change
Dan
24 March, 19:19
geez, some people…
mac
24 March, 19:19
I used to listen your radio stations quite a lot, like everyday. but I am not from one of this 3 countries and have to pay for listening by the end of march? it’s very sad you think like that. I can find another way to discover bands free like pandora or something.
I think I’m done with this site.
JackuB
24 March, 19:21
Hi last.fm
When I read this message, I couldn’t believe it. That’s just… it’s ruining the whole idea of Last.fm.
Why don’t you put ads in last.fm software? Or something like that?
It’s makes me really sad. This is very bad move.
Looks like I’ll leave last.fm soon :(
cocabottle
24 March, 19:21
Discrimination it is as i’m living in Holland! :(
francisco
24 March, 19:21
UK, EEUU y Germany !!
No será un poco discrimatorio para es resto de los países. Me parece una muy mala estrategia para ganar dinero.
Adrian
24 March, 19:22
Why have not I pay the service from the beginning?
Hope to fill their pockets with dollars, this is big business…
Niño Bomba
24 March, 19:22
Too bad. I guess I understand last.fm is under pressure. Anyway, it lasted for long, i enjoyed it a lot, and would even pay for it if it didn’t feel like being told half-truths and making the already obscenely rich corporations even richer.
Last.fm was the best music service ever created so far, but really, I feel it has been heading downwards ever since CBS got its hands into it.
We have been publishing CC licensed music on your platform as a label, and I’m sad to say i guess me and our label will be leaving. You guys had music that we gave to no other platform.
We live in Colombia, and even though 3 euros/month aren’t a crazy amount, most people here would rather use that for living (that’s like 3 meals, here). Atop of that, there’s always the rejection of international credit cards lingering around.
In short, I’d pay for it, if I knew not everyone has to, and it is a choice you had. But if you try to force me to do it, i will just refuse. And stop using your, up to now, excellent service.
As we make no money from the music we publish, doing it only for the heck of it, I don’t think this is the way to go. Too many restrictions have been imposed on last.fm.
I hope you become really profitable, even though you will surely lose a great deal of your users.
I loved you dearly, last.fm.
You will be remembered.
C.
24 March, 19:22
Kyle,
Unless they propose UNCOMPRESSED WAV quality tune, I’m not ever going to pay for listening to music.
I’d buy the CD, like I do with the music I like, I use last FM as a music discovery tool so I can buy CDs with covers and booklets and quality sound.
eradumvelhinho
24 March, 19:24
I live in Germany and this decision does not affect me but I agree with all the “other” (people from 192 countries) say. They pay so I can have it for free. Not fair!!
Michael
24 March, 19:24
While this is sad news, and while it may be unfair, I do not think that removing my subscription will help those who no longer have access.
This reasoning never worked before, and I see no reason that this will work now.
People need to realise that the Internet is without bound, but only in certain limits.
And when you push the limit, you start to have to deal with ISPs resseling bandwidth, to different rates because there is different infrastructure, differents peoples, differents business.
Megabits in UK is cheaper than megabits in Azherbaidjan, by a huge factor, so the cost of a last.fm user in UK is cheaper than a user in some others countries.
You also need to deal with various banking issue, with the fact you still need to find clients in all countries, so I think that focusing on key market is a smart move, if they need to cut some costs.
I prefer to pay for a service than having ads paying it for me.
Annie
24 March, 19:24
Seriously, Last.fm? €3.00 a month to listen to streamed radio unless you’re from USA, the UK or Germany? You surely jest. I have an internet connection and an iPod, so you can have your radio along with the rest of the chosen countries, I don’t want it.
I understand the “business decision” bit, but surely you could make the radio section available only to subscribers, isn’t it? That seems at least fairer to the rest of the world.
(And how do you define who’s from where anyway? Their profile info? Their IP address? Their nationality? Will you ask for ID and Passports? I’m an UK citizen living abroad, so that means Last.fm should make streamed radio available to me, right? Which probably means my Polish neighbour in London should not be able to listen to it, poor girl.)
Thanks for making the decision of not renewing my subscription again much easier, chaps.
Good day.
Rene
24 March, 19:27
Another service will pop up that will be free. That’s how the internet works. That’s how it always worked. Shame though, I like Last.fm a lot.
C.
24 March, 19:27
Wait a minut… THE END OF MARCH MEANS…………….
FIRST OF APRIL !
scat
24 March, 19:27
I’m from Germany and have a subscription. Nevertheless I’m frustrated reading about this change. last.fm offers a value which is worth to pay for. Anyway, closing the doors for all others beside the countries of your core market is the definitely the wrong decision. I think many people are willing to pay a few € for good value audio services, so just further extend your service value for paying subscribers and there will be more subscribers (exspecially in US/UK/DE), but don’t lock the others out !
lessthanzero
24 March, 19:29
I’ve read through the thread, unfortunately… It has been a damn great five years, the service I called myself, a real true innovative shit, something that makes sense in this fucked up world, and now you screwed it!
If we would have access to last.fm catalog in return, I could hail this decision, but that way it’s just a greedy and unfair statement, nothing at all…
As someone pointed out very clearly above:
“I doubt there’s anything more valuable as an asset to Last.fm than these contributions: every scrobble, every new tag, every wiki changed helps build a better service. Nobody’s “freeloading” – as we use it, we are giving back, building value together.”
And now you’re spitting in our face, and it’s a shame. It’s a very sad moment right now, just keep watching the delete entire user account…
Fernando
24 March, 19:33
“in some parts of the world”
Ha! Over 180 parts of the world.
basic wage in Argentina is around €230.
Soren
24 March, 19:34
Why US, UK and germans users will not pay too ? =/
It’s a little bit disappointing =(
joao
24 March, 19:34
Like someone else said, the barrier between paid and non paid is huge, even if few money is involved.
x
24 March, 19:35
good work guys… with this great move i’ll have to find another radio streaming….
thank you…. :(
i just hope that you’ll change this crazy plan
Ivan Camilo Vásquez
24 March, 19:35
It seems you failed your basic economics class when you were young. You should have different prices for different countries; 3 Euros aren’t worth the same in Jamaica and France. People will buy a lot of stuff before paying for a “sumptuary” service. And I don’t have a lot of statistics, but I think a lot of the traffic you get comes from 3rd world countries.
Couldn’t you just put a short ad in-between songs? I wouldn’t mind the ads if I’m going to listen to my favorite music all of the time.
Jon
24 March, 19:35
Bad news, i guess that i will look another music service.
I dont understand why you dont charge to 3 of the richest countries. It has no sense.
junkie_ozi
24 March, 19:35
lastfm benim için bitmiştir. daha da gelmem
Shere
24 March, 19:36
NAZIS.
intelex
24 March, 19:37
Not trying to blog spam here, but all you people complaining about how you’re going to drop last.fm because they want to charge you just piss me off. Anyone who cares to read my thoughts check out http://www.genxius.com/blog/2009/03/24/lastfm-and-the-sense-of-entitlement/
mrdata
24 March, 19:38
I’m so sorry to hear this from last.fm. I don’t wanna think creators are applying Microsoft method to make money on this, I’d feel like cheated.
Anyway, I always use it at the office and now what?
Alexandre
24 March, 19:38
Pff.
People, you really should stop complaining. It’s not expensive and it’s really fair. “Blah blah blah, I’m not going to listen to them anymore”. Well, bye then. There’s no free lunch.
Fellow Canadian
24 March, 19:40
@Kyle, dude. It’s 3 euros, which equates to $6 CAD, not 3.
And that only covers your trivial point. Most people here would not complain had this charge been introduced to everyone, regardless of their geographic location.
Think before you speak.
sfreud
24 March, 19:40
The G3 have about 450M citizens, but the Internet has now borders. Last.fm is just another great online music service who gets regionalize by the music industry who will never fully understand the power of the Internet and the one web philosophy.
I was just about to start writing a free Last.fm application for my favorite phone platform, Symbian S60, but now I’m not so sure it’s a good use of my free time. The user base is already limited to S60v3 phones (57 models), of them it’s recommended to have a model with high download speed (HSDPA/WLAN) and minijack (~12 models), and now only 3G citizens will be able to test it for more then 30 songs without paying a monthly subscription.
I support Avinash Meetoo’s suggestion in that you instead of the 30 songs free trail should offer a few hours each day, or even month, for free.
paleopame
24 March, 19:41
Goodbye Lastfm =(
i’ll really miss you
altrus
24 March, 19:41
you lose.
aguanteflema
24 March, 19:42
just as a lot of people has said it so:
this sucks
even when i barely use the last.fmRadio.
Music is Not a Business!!!
24 March, 19:42
RIAA policy sucks!
Antony
24 March, 19:42
l murt ca tneit…. s c‘è t daic Richard… vattù scì ngul! Ca tin pur ne bella facc d cazz
Carlo Hagemann
24 March, 19:42
Apparently, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
I think that Last.fm is one of the applications that I think is worth € 3,- a month.
conscience
24 March, 19:42
fuckin’ morons!
igor
24 March, 19:44
Well, I was never listening much to the radio, but it’s not good to switch from a vitrually free service to something else.
Is everything made for (big) money in this world? I’m pretty sure the staff wasn’t in need of earning much more and quickly, it’s record labels who always want more money.
Alex
24 March, 19:46
Add one more to lost users….
mandjula
24 March, 19:47
let’s go to deezer.com
Mario
24 March, 19:48
U sucks!!!…Spotify, please provide your service in the world soon!
Colombian user
24 March, 19:49
So sad, from time to time i have payed to be a subscriber but i have no money to do it on a monthly basis, so, good bye last.fm, it was really good while it lasted :(
Rick
24 March, 19:50
Charging users: okay, goodbye, sorry, it’s been fun.
Charging users BECAUSE THEY ARE FROM THE “WRONG” COUNTRY?: fuck you. Seriously: fuck you.
yannxou
24 March, 19:52
I’m a spanish user and will keep my subscription anyway but certainly this is not a good move specially by not treating everyone equally.
One of the main strength of Lastfm resides in its statistics (scrobblings) and that was my first hope to see a centralized system that truly reflected people tastes instead of other associations basing their numbers on what was aired on tv or played on radios (say it.. mainstream). Now, is that people in the uk,us,de provide more listening statistics than the other countries together? Lastfm users are also their ‘clients’ because they provide valuable information to lastfm. That’s my thought…
I think that a better service with new features for subscribers (like on-demand, a better player…) would have worked better in order to gain more subscribers. Even some kind of limited free service (like time or per-day period limitation) would have been better instead of this. Now my fear is that my beloved lastFM begins to lose strength because of users leaving…
Well, we’ll see how this works next month…
But keep thinking about that: What if google starts doing the same?
Frak me! …‘cause this will happen again and again…
Morrick
24 March, 19:53
It might have been a necessary business decision, all right.
In my opinion, the problem isn’t the 3 Euros/month per se. It’s the blatant discrimination. I think that most of the pissed commenters here aren’t pissed because they have to pay for something that was free before. They’re pissed because not everyone is going to pay.
I believe that if Last.fm, instead of making the rest of the countries pay 3 Euros/month and keeping the US, the UK and Germany out of it, had asked everyone to pay 1 dollar/month, the end result would’ve been equally effective money-wise, and not this controversial in terms of image and customer relations.
But again, I’m not a marketing guy :)
fosk
24 March, 19:54
Un día triste…
nolihc
24 March, 19:56
i will not pay for last.fm when other parts of the world will get it for free. When my subscription ends, last.fm will end for me.
CBS and the major record labels got you by the balls, bye bye last.fm maybe there is a heaven for sellouts!
Marian
24 March, 19:57
ok. it was a nice time I had with last.fm
Thiago
24 March, 19:57
this sucks… should be free for everyone or for none…
there are many similar sites on web, I’m not going to pay for this, sorry guys… I think MOST users will agree with me here, so soon you should be loosing market share
Sofia Helena Gollnick Ferreira
24 March, 19:58
THIS IS ABLSO-FUCKINGLUTELY-UNBELIVABLE.
I BET THAT THE BANDS, WHO HAVE THE MOST PLAYED SONGS ON LASTFM (AS RADIOHEAD, R.E.M., BJÖRK, ETC…) WILL REMOVE THEIR PAGES/MUSIC FROM THE WEBSITE. AND THEY SHOULD. AND THEY MUST. YOUR ATTITUDE IS GOING TO PREVENT MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD OF GETTING IN TOUCH WITH NEW AND UNKNOWN BANDS TO THEM. THERE ISN´T A FORM OF ART THAT CAN REACH PEOPLE FASTER AND CHEAPER THAN MUSIC. LASFM WAS ALREADY “PUBLIC PROPERTY” FOR ALL THE GOOD IT HAS BROUGHT TO MILLIONS OF PEOPLE STARVING FROM SOMETHING NEW AND FRESH AND FREE. I WILL PERSONALLY START A PROTEST AND INVOLVE EVERY SINGLE PERSON I KNOW, EVERY SINGLE ARTIST I ADMIRE TO BAN THIS “NEW LASTFM” AND SUPPORT THE UPBRING OF SOMETHING SIMILAR THAT RESPECTS WHAT MANY OF US HOLD CLOSE TO OUR HEARTS: ART/MUSIC MUST BE MADE AVAILABLE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, SPECIALLY THE FINANCIALLY UNDERPRIVILEGED WHO NEED A WAY OUT OF OUR CHAOTIC WORLD THRU MUSIC.
qwertyeerere
24 March, 19:58
You suck last.fm. Sell your self like whores. :/
lasloo
24 March, 19:58
Is going to be a “more adds” way to keep it “free”?
I really love your plattform but this…
ansis
24 March, 19:59
I think you just lost a lot users from your 30 million. You have changed a lot since i registered in 2004. You’re about the money
Tomasz
24 March, 20:00
Uhm. European Union law disallows unfair pricing and difference in service in member countries. As both UK and Germany are in EU, you can’t legally discriminate others 25 countries.
I advise you check this decision with you lawyers.
garamiz
24 March, 20:01
“In the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, nothing will change. “
This is a shame. Why not charge listeners from these countries also, if you think listeners need to pay. some are better then others? I thought a user is a user.
onRage
24 March, 20:03
in fact, “€3.00 per month” is nothing, but i think last.fm which isn’t freeware is not last.fm anymore. so goodbye, and thanks for everything.
Dwarden
24 March, 20:03
why support company unable to deploy worldwide or even inside European Union fair approach to customers … ?
i’m pretty sure that in my country i’m more taxed by taxes for movie/music industry (artists) than e.g. Germany
(tax is on every storage type of media, storaging devices and also on every copy and write devices) …
charge all or noone or adjust the prices accordingly to worldwide situation/country ‘health’ and pro-artist taxing …
Latin
24 March, 20:03
Here in latin america, having a credit card is so expensive, I pay the fee, but, I dont have credit card, y can wire the money (like in skype) but the only choice is credit card, so,..bye last.fm
Joe?
24 March, 20:03
Great. So now I have to use proxy servers to use Pandora radio AND last.fm radio? Yeah, that is really great news..
becerro
24 March, 20:04
Not a smart move. You’ll lose a lot of users, I’ve been scrobbling for more than two years, and I use the radio service on my iPod. I guess I’m moving to something else, Spotify looks really good.
Stupid move. You’ve spoiled a cool service.
marloes
24 March, 20:06
I’ve been paying for your services for quite a long time and always thought they were more than worth €3 a month. Not even because of the Last.fm radio, but because I thought you deserved payment for connecting music lovers worldwide and providing so much good stuff for free. However, I’m now contemplating what I should do when my current subscription runs out. I’m leaning towards a “Goodbye Last.fm” for two reasons:
1. I don’t agree with charging people based on what country they live in, especially if the service you provide is essentially the same to all. It doesn’t seem like the last.fm spirit, it doesn’t fit the web and it’s certainly not why I supported you all these years. Although I’m pretty sure you’ve gone over all the options, this decision feels like a “Thanks for all the rich content dudes, now we’ll use it to fuck you over!”
2. Assuming fewer people will start using your service world wide, your data could become less useful to me. Outdated content and less variety is simply not worth my money, or even my attention anymore.
It’s a bloody shame, that’s for sure.
angry dude
24 March, 20:07
Bullshit. Well, i’ll be taking this insult and fucking off now, thanks very much.
3rd world country
24 March, 20:07
if it is an april fools joke, it’s a really annoying, discriminitive joke.
vik407
24 March, 20:08
Sorry to know that a new dark chapter is being written against the open web. This business decision is exclusionary and goes against the freedom of all users to use internet.
A few years ago when I started using last.fm did it for the same reason. Pandora closed access. Today its your turn.
We stopping using Scrobbling right now, it’s not ethical to profit with my data, I know that all this charts got commercial value to profit even more and i accept this price all this time. This is not a complete free service, we pay with every scrobbled song to your servers.
The time to uninstall all your software its coming, sorry to heard about this very very very bad desicion without ask first to the cummunity and find better alternatives.
Bye Last.fm
Carol
24 March, 20:09
So, let’s go to blip.fm…
Rick
24 March, 20:10
I really don’t understand the people that are okay with paying a “being-from-the-wrong-country-fee”.
I’ll pay for Last.fm as a service. I absolutely and categorically will refuse to pay a penalty for not being American, British or German.
In fact, I refuse to use any service, free or otherwise, from a company that discriminates users in this way.
I’m deleting my account.
Wazzu
24 March, 20:11
Hahaha! paying for listening the radio? online radio? c’mon! people use lastfm cause it’s quick an free, people won’t pay for this radio as there are thousands of them.
You see, if you remove the ingredient that made all this up, wou’ll get down like others. One more of them.
Bye, lastfm
Mario
24 March, 20:14
Putos
matt
24 March, 20:14
I understand why the current setup isn’t working economically. But I don’t want to use a service that I have to pay for, simply because I’m in Canada. We should all be allowed free access, or everyone has to pay the same amount. But, that’s just my opinion. I think I’m kind of done with this.
becerro
24 March, 20:14
Wow, it seems that your decision is getting a lot of support from the community.
Lakirby
24 March, 20:14
A kick to the face of the Irish users.
eud_1558
24 March, 20:14
Goodbye last.fm…You were great ..We’ll miss you…
Think Beyond
24 March, 20:17
This sucks. The opportunity to discover new music for free is THE power of Last.fm. Bisides that a lot of artists use this platform to promote there music.
3 euro’s is not a lot, but 80% of all users and artists from the paying countries will quit. I am afraid this will be the end of last.fm.
Who wants to join me to start the new last.fm, like it is ment to be?
oakus
24 March, 20:17
Does this also mean that you introduce multiple tag based radio playing? Would be great…
Walker
24 March, 20:18
I’ve often wondered how Last.fm paid for itself given the pitiful revenue to be had from advertising these days and the lack of incentive for users to subscribe. Well, now you’ve provided that incentive by withdrawing a free feature… but not to users living in three favoured countries, and therein lies the problem.
I’m in the UK and I’m a subscriber so I wouldn’t be affected by this decision even if my country wasn’t one of the favoured three. But I think your decision is going to cause a lot of animosity and result in many users abandoning the service simply because people don’t like having to pay for features that others get for free.
Incidentally, I’ve discovered a great number of artists since joining Last.fm (on a different account) last year, but that wouldn’t have happened if not for Last.fm radio, and my music collection would now be deprived of fifteen CDs and a few hundred legally purchased MP3s – mostly by artists with whom I was unacquainted before joining your service.
It’s a pity the record labels don’t realise that their crazy licensing restrictions on internet radio are to the detriment of music sales in general. Certainly from a Last.fm radio point of view. Recommendations are your strongest feature, but you just made them far less accessible to users in most of the world.
samebrian
24 March, 20:21
So, if you are to set things up as you propose, does this mean that those who aren’t in the US/UK/Germany will never see ads anymore?
I’d be willing to pay for a monthly subscription (or maybe a yearly at a discount wink wink nudge nudge), but if I ever saw an ad that would be it for me. If your argument is that Last.fm is provided to people in those countries for free due to ad revenue, then I think it’s completely reasonable to have those expectations.
anananas
24 March, 20:23
Well I loved last.fm – emphasis on the “ed” – I’ll probably just wait for the fees to kick in and then delete my account.
You are doing this on a way too short of notice! 30th March? are you kidding? You just try to hide what is changeing!
Let’s quote the guy befor: It’s a bloody shame, that’s for sure.
Napolux
24 March, 20:24
Bye Bye Last.fm! ;)
Do you really think that more than 1% of the users affected by this changes will pay for your services?
Napolux
24 March, 20:26
P.s.
From now on you’ll have to pay me 3€ / month to track what I’m listening to.
Kaan istanbul
24 March, 20:26
This is literally online racism,nothing less.
If u are gonna charge the people for listening to music,u have to charge them all.Just because someone is born in those 3 Countries,they don’t have to pay?What kind of bulls**t is that?Seriously,WHY DO THOSE PEOPLE DESERVE MORE THAN EVERY OTHER HUMAN BEING IN THIS PLANET??
This really sucks.I’d have never taken last.fm as a racist website.
Sarp
24 March, 20:27
First, this is for the major labels and RIAA:
“You’re going to burn to the ground, and we’re all going to dance around the fire. And I will be so much looking forward to that day.”
Second, even though I have been paying you for years, just because I like the concept of last.fm, and don’t really care about the crappy radio. (I know that could have been a lot better if “they” didn’t force you to do it in this way.) But forcing the members to pay depending on their country is just being ———. It should have been all of the members or none of the members.
Shame on decision takers.
Digg it
24 March, 20:27
digg this
angry dude
24 March, 20:27
Account deleted, Last.FM removed from my PC.
I’d like to add that, if i was from one of the ‘right’ countries, i’d be feeling and doing exactly the same as i am right now.
I now genuinely hope this service fails, and one with a bit more integrity arises.
LuLz
24 March, 20:33
NOOO! Adios!
woofer
24 March, 20:33
Shitty news, guys.
Eoghan - Éire
24 March, 20:34
“You used to be just about the music, man”
Kasper
24 March, 20:34
You should have made us pay from the beginning (with a 30 day trial or something). Also, you should have applied this for everyone or no-one.
Now its just like taking away candy from the powerless kids.
vitovich
24 March, 20:36
bye last.fm, hello spotify from spain
johanes
24 March, 20:36
€3.00 in my country is a lot of money
aaron Wallis
24 March, 20:36
So are we paying for the UK and US to enjoy this service for free?
Make us all pay, or keep it free for all.
this is bullshit
Stereotyped by LastFM
24 March, 20:36
Sorry, I don’t plan on paying for something while another gets it free. Let them pay for it themselves or give it to me free as well.
Leartoon
24 March, 20:37
This “everyone should now pay except for UK/US/Germany” thing – That’s just wrong!
If you need money you could have subscription for everyone, not just some…
I’m deleting my account on march 30th.
Fiona
24 March, 20:37
yay! I’m subscribed!
(can we buy gift subscriptions?)
Gitta
24 March, 20:40
Apparently you have a very good sponsor in Germany, UK and US because there you still don’t have to pay for your music. I don’t understand this way of discrimination, especially because web should be without borders.
I think you loose quite some listeners in The Netherlands.
rose
24 March, 20:40
What I wonder… Wouldn’t it have been better if we the non-German/UK/EEUU just started to pay to get what they’ve got for free? I mean some kind of improvement, like getting the 3 full listens they’ve got for any song in the Last.fm client, or something.
I guess that not having that feature – or any other involving full songs – is not only because of the money you (don’t) earn elsewhere but it has to do with rights stuff too, and definitely it’s not that I think that is fair/unfair having to pay for having still less or something of the like… Actually, what I don’t feel like is paying for only 30-second previews where you can’t even get the idea of the song!
I’m sorry, but i’d feel pretty stupid.
Everything is still fine with the stats and recommendations, at least.
Ivan
24 March, 20:41
Been scrobbling since 2005, I’ve been a very big fan of Lastfm. I love your service, and I’d lovely pay for it if the rules were the same for everyone.
But I don’t want to pay so other users at US, UK or DE can get the same for free.
Lastfm sucks a lot.
3xM
24 March, 20:42
@Owen Parry:
“Scrobbling is free and will always be free. Other services that will continue to be free to everyone, everywhere: (…) Artist bios, photos and event information, Your profile, your charts, your journal and The ability to love tracks and add tags.”
Is it really free for us to let you datamine our music habits? And it is so generous that for free will be able to view the artist bios/photos, events and journals that we’ve written/uploaded/contributed ourselves. Oh, that is so kind of you, Last.fm, not to charge us for the content that we provided to you in good faith.
Come on, please…
Oh, and I still havent got an answer to my question earlier: If I (living in a part of Europe not being the UK) pay for the subscription, will I get access to the same on demand features as they do in US/UK/DE, or will it still be a crippled version of what they get for free?
Rory
24 March, 20:42
This is an terrible move. I live in Ireland, and I’ve been using last.fm for years. Even when it was free, I willfully subscribed for a year to support you.
However I don’t like how a free service is now pay only, and I really don’t like how it doesn’t apply if you live in one of the blessed countries. Charge everyone or no-one! Don’t make us second class citizens.
The internet is destroying the old ways of sharing and finding music. I’m not going to be forced to pay by some
Last.fm, you wanna screw Ireland? Well screw you! I’m done with you.
Follow the twitter with #failfm (http://twitter.com/search?q=%23failfm)
sh4d0w-pl4y
24 March, 20:43
Only in US/UK/Germany is free or to all blonde, tall, blue eyes people? Am I a “b class” person because I don’t live in Amerika?
That’s great, congratulations :(
Jimmy Shelter
24 March, 20:44
Both as listener and a last.fm band manager I’m really dissapointed by this.
I use the radio function a lot, but I also use Last.fm to promote my own music.
I want people to be able to listen my music for free!
Adele
24 March, 20:44
Just to point out a couple of things:
1) The subscriber service is different to the non-subscriber service, so no-one is paying for something that others get for free. The subscription offers more to users than the free service.
2) Any company may need to make changes like this to ensure it’s survival. Who knows what may happen in the future, but for now it seems this is was last.fm must do to keep scrobbling.
MusX
24 March, 20:48
“and a promise that we’ll be hard at work improving the service for years to come.”
if you will be hard at work same as you fix bugs then it’s not worth 3 euro…
maz
24 March, 20:49
Not sure why people are saying their moving to pandora, they country restricted far more then this a while ago.
Mondongo
24 March, 20:49
Those 3 EUR are a lot for people outside Europe. It’s funny that you guys decide to charge the ones that can pay the less.
Furthermore, I’m already giving them my information via scrobbling — and don’t tell me that hasn’t marketing value.
So, f__k off, Last.fm. Just uninstalled you, and I hope everybody does the same.
now they really suck
24 March, 20:51
It sucks! What are you doing??? Trying to kick off satisfied users?
ZlatkoGR
24 March, 20:51
Oh, what a shame. Bye-bye Last.fm!
Zac
24 March, 20:51
I think people are missing the reality behind this (admittedly unfortunate) announcement.
It is expensive to develop, host and deliver services like this.
A small handful of countries (US, UK, DE) already have established and functioning advertising platforms and sales teams that are working to cover the costs.
In most countries, the ad revenue is not covering the costs and Last.fm needs to find new ways to cover the costs to make the service available.
I cannot imagine that the folks at Last.fm sat around a darkened boardroom twiddling their mustaches and rubbing their hands together, trying to find new ways to screw non-US/UK/DE countries out of all of their money.
The folks using terms like “Nazi” and “racist” and saying “f**k you” to the individuals who work at this company are unnecessarily harsh and very childish.
This company made a music service available for free for many years. In a very shaky 2009, the advertising revenue that was supporting it is not keeping the lights on (or at least not able to fund their business requirements, whatever those are), and they need to find new ways to generate they money they need to remain afloat/successful.
Anyone who does not feel that paying for this service is worthwhile should choose not to participate. Anyone who really wants to keep using Last.fm should shell out the money (less than 1% of what many of us pay for cable) and pay for the service that Last.fm are providing.
Those who feel “entitled” to this service for free should take a moment and try to figure out how to justify that statement.
min_che
24 March, 20:51
i must say i’m very disappointed with this decision. i listen to last.fm radio a lot, as it helps me discover some new and interesting artists. it’s not just about giving 3 euros a month – even if i wanted to, i couldn’t pay because my country is not on the list.
shame.
guess this means no more scrobbling for me after march 30.
CueSeeEl
24 March, 20:58
Me, my band, and friends are deleting right AWAY!
This discrimination is the worst I ever saw on the internet (even the facebook user policy is not as worse as that).
No matter what future decisions you’ll take (either continuing in this madness or reverting, ashamed) the fact you even came up with something as fecked up as this, is enough to bail out!
You’ll see that the internet truly gives power to the masses. Your balls are held between an anvil and a hammer, the latter being in the hands of the people (sensible enough to have at least remnants of collective thinking). They’ll show you who’s on the leash’s end.
Choke on your bloody greed and may your poor ethics make you reap the storm.
ex-Last.fm user
24 March, 20:58
What kind of marxist model is that?? Why do users outside those “chosen” countries need to subsidize the rest?
Hanna
24 March, 20:58
I don’t personally use the last.fm radio that much, so it’s not big deal for me and if I used I might even pay. What I think is rude though this Germany,UK,USA vs. rest of the world. Either everyone pays or no one!
bastetmilo
24 March, 20:59
Well, shame on you. I’m subscriber most of the time, but this treatment is just NOT FAIR!
So, I will stop subscribing and goodbye to last.fm
Sandra
24 March, 20:59
… this has convinced me… i’m quiting last.fm
M F
24 March, 21:01
Ok, I feel obliged to chime in here. I’ve used last.fm for about a year and half now, and love the service, it’s immensly useful for discovering new artists, I love it. But I wn’t be paying the subscription, for several reasons.
First, don’t forget that you have competitors, free ones. People are used to radio being free, and I for one am not going back. You’re service is useful and valuable, but there must be other ways of supporting yourself her, either through a larger cut of music sales, or advertising. If those still don’t cover your costs (Iguess bandwidth must be expensive), well, then I guess Vuze has the right idea. But users are not going to start paying because you can’t find another business model: most of them (like me) are going to drop this service.
Second, the fee constitutes a barrier to entry. , and any such barrier immediately renders the service less valuable. Remember that your algorithms and business depend absolutely on participation from the community, and if inhibit that community in any way, your business will suffer. Revenues may go up in the short term, but you will be getting less and less users as time goes on, and so stats teh long decline. The reason I find this service so useful is the community, and if the community gets smaller, the service gets less useful. The subscription fee makes the community smaller and less useful, so I’m out. Don’t forget that the most active music listeners are usually teenagers, and as such they are very valuable to the comunity. But teenagers never pay for anything, so you’ve just isolated an essential section of your community, and made the whole service less valuable.
Third, why are the U.S, U.K and Germany exempt? You had better give a really good answer to that question, because everyone thinks you are now playing a shifty game that no-one wants to play, and certainly not pay for.
Last, everyone feels cheated. Everyone knows that your sorting algorithms depend on user input, everyone knows that they were helping the whole service whenever they scrobbled, loved or banned tracks. The information people put into the service was used by the algorithms, useful for everyone else in the service, and valuable to last.fm. So now, after years of data input, helping you upgrade your algorithms and fill your databases, after helping make your service more accurate and valuable, you expect us to pay for using it? No. This subscription fee cheats anyone who has ever scrobbled, loved or banned a track on last.fm. You don’t treat your community this way. I’m leaving.
Good bye.
Anonymous
24 March, 21:01
Well, back to downloading instead of listening to the recommendation radio. It’s a waste, but alas, not everyone can pay online.
I really hope it’s an early April’s fool.
Good luck with the service. I hope you manage to convince the labels to give the rest of the world the same privilege.
Ikran
24 March, 21:02
So if I were to subscibe would that mean I would then be allowed to listen to last.fm via my Sonos (www.sonos.com) music system? I live in Canada and at the moment last.fm is not available via my Sonos and yet it is available if I live in the US and UK.
Nikola Krstevski
24 March, 21:05
One question – I’m from Serbia and we don’t have the ability to use PayPal services. How can I pay a subscription?
czert
24 March, 21:06
yeah, well, excuse, but right now i can’t find any polite words to express how i feel about this. So,
go fuck yourselves.
Bye.
Julio Biason
24 March, 21:06
Question: Current subscription is €2.50 p/m (just checked the subscription page.) So this means that paying €0.50 more p/m I’ll get all the normal stuff?
SAVE THE MUSIC - FREE THE MUSIC
24 March, 21:07
I’m with RosOne, GFY!
I’ve been using Last.fm since they started, and strictly remeber telling everyone how sweet it was and to use it, listen, give feedback, shouts, etc.
But now charing every country but US/UK/Ger is idiotic. I live in the US, but still feel pissed!
Have you tried placing ads on the site? Sought funding elsewhere first?
This stupid monthly fee will kill what maked Last.fm special – a globally-influenced music site. I looked forward to hearing music trapped in other countries, artists I’ve never heard before, music I’ve never knew existed… all of that is NOW GONE!
You’ve sold your soul.
I’m letting all my friends know to cancel their subscriptions, uninstall your software, and avoid you like the plague.
Music is about the people, not the money.
Stephen Robinson
24 March, 21:07
If this happens in the United Kingdom I will leave last.fm for sure. Don’t get me wrong I’ve had a sub before, I just don’t think its right to charge when its been free for so long.
stoertebeker
24 March, 21:07
As a long time subscriber from Germany I could just shrug and not care but I think this concept is incredibly flawed.
I’d rather be in the same boat as all the other countries out there where you have to buy a subscription and spend some € ON TOP of the advertising revenues you are making in Germany (heck I’m doing so anyway), than having to deal with the sheer awkwardness that comes with being one of the few privileged just because of market mechanisms.
I don’t demand this service should be for free. I never did. Hence I’m a subscriber since early 2005. I don’t even use the radio at all but it’s just a convenient way to donate money to a project I think is totally worth to be supported. Well it was … until today.
I don’t know if I’m going to cancel my subscription because of this, but I’m seriously pondering it.
It would make sense to have people from rich countries pay more for a subscription than people from poor ones and under such circumstances – even if I have to pay more than before – I would happily expand my subscription.
This, however, has a very stale taste to it.
sfreud
24 March, 21:08
FaceBook group: There is but one Internet, so stop scrobbling!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56512292573
Nikkel
24 March, 21:08
Oooooh No ! Why this kind of segregation ???
We, in Belgium, do not have the chance to have all the functionalities and must Pay !!
Very disapointed with this decision !!
Fellow Canadian
24 March, 21:09
@Zac,
What’s to stop them from charging the rest once they realize that they need more money?
Also, if advertising is not working, but they’re sure their service is top-notch, why not drop advertising and go to full-subscription mode?
See, the problem here is that elitist behaviour has already been exhibited by the company, when they decided to provide users from US, UK and Germany with features that they will not be providing to the rest of the world.
Also note that they have not said they will provide those features to people who will pay the 3 euro/month fee, but do not live in the “special” countries.
So, no, it’s not cool to be name-calling, but it’s also not cool to gather data worldwide and then use it to provide service to the select few.
Does that not bother you?
radel
24 March, 21:11
we have made you.
we started scrobbling years ago.
we filled your song database.
we tagged songs and artists.
we shared with other friends this network
we have made you.
Shame on you.
David
24 March, 21:12
Guess who is going out from last.fm…
famkeZ
24 March, 21:13
Interesting that in order to keep providing this service some countries do need to pay and some don’t.. Seems arbitrary, to say the least. Some more explanation would be in order concerning that fact. What is the reason that all countries except for a few bigger ones (UK, USA, Germany) don’t need to contribute whereas others do?
It will definitely make lastfm a lot less cool than it was and it is interesting that only some people have to pay up.. Like animal farm, are some indeed “more equal than others”?
FormerLastFmUser
24 March, 21:18
U suck, greedy bastards.
zombiefly
24 March, 21:18
i pay, i live in the UK, i pay because i use the service and it needs to be supported. Everyone should pay, tell me why you shouldnt?
SmartDust
24 March, 21:20
Well, it was not entirely free, was it? People gave something in return: their data. The whole recommendation engine is based on the data fed to it by its users.
metr_makaron
24 March, 21:23
Fuck you fucking fuckers.
pablog
24 March, 21:24
Last.fm has more than 3M visits a day. Weren’t you already earning enough money with ads?
kthxbyefuckyou
Javo01
24 March, 21:32
Is Last.Fm going to start paying artists too for using their songs on the 3€ / month radio?
a-b
24 March, 21:34
maybe you should have come up with a different model ie audio advertising every 5 tracks or something
its bad such a great service to become subscription only for so many people
sad
i just hope that you will rethink of the decision you took
gfy
24 March, 21:34
Ethnocentric, greedy motherfuckers.
lbj
24 March, 21:35
Considering how long last.fm has offered a free radio service and how amazing it is, I don’t think we can complain that we are being hard done by. Obviously, it doesn’t seem fair that we have to pay for listening to music that is free to others, but I really don’t think last.fm would make such a drastic decision without good reasoning. Quite simply, it is a bloody good service that we should be so lucky to have in the first place, and we ought to contribute to supporting last.fm and the artists that we have exposure to. And if you are so stingy as to want everything for free, choose limewire or spotify where you will find similarly ignorant and pathetic music freeloaders.
ronaldmonster
24 March, 21:36
Congratulations. You’ve successfully alienated and lost users. I don’t even live in an effected area, you guys can go fuck yourselves.
I’m done with last.fm
chris
24 March, 21:37
I’m a subscriber because I believed in Last.fm. Now I have to think twice at what last.fm stands for….
Its a shame that last.fm has become a biased and RACIST company.
make everyone pay…. no favorites
Marius
24 March, 21:38
Thankyou for the news and bye-bye – will not pay for a radio. Never.
anonymouse
24 March, 21:38
You’re playing my cc licensed album, and charging people? It violates my license. I guess I have to take this to EFF.
molok
24 March, 21:40
Yeah, great news… I gave you my personal data and now you screw me like this. 3$/mo is A LOT, I mean, it’s a lot for the service you provide, there is no way I’m going to pay that fee. You know you’re almost worthless without users’ data. Just in case you didn’t noticed, you are just turning into one of that companies that everyone hates.
Leonardo
24 March, 21:40
“Free radio for every”… Bah, You suckers! You RIAA’ slaves! Bye Bye, i’m leaving
bakkman
24 March, 21:40
This totally sucks. To pay for crap quality streaming media? I don’t think so.
Cid
24 March, 21:41
i discover this wonderful page back in 2007, when [url=http://www.pandora.com/restricted]PANDORA[/url] made the same shit YOU are doing now =(
I guess it’s because of the money, always the FILTHY money
i can pay 3 euros per month, but what about the ones who cant?? i guess there’s a LOT of people who will leave this webpage. It’s a shame
obo
24 March, 21:42
cm’on http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56512292573 !
SeanBE
24 March, 21:42
I guess that’s a byebye to about 50% of your user database gone. Can you not figure out another way of achieving a source of income? Once this has started, I am sorry but I am out of here and hopefully I will find a site just like this which doesn’t “discriminate” users outside the US, UK, or DE.
Adios!
Ricardo
24 March, 21:44
I feel bad, not because now we have to pay for the music, but because people from some countries will have to pay for the music!! Is Internet really neutral?? I guess not. Anyways, there are other choices, like Jamendo, with free (as in freedom) music to listen to.
Rodrigo Jaroszewski
24 March, 21:47
I’m a subscriber from a “Third World country”, and I’m gonna tell you why this is a very dumb move:
1. It’s guaranteed that you’ll get sued by some EU citizen by practicing unfair pricing inside the EU zone. You’ll be forced to charge UK and Germany eventually, or to make it free in the EU completely. One way you’ll loose users, the other way you’ll loose money.
2. Your USA/UK/GER centered view prevents you from using your geotargeting data to increase revenue: Let’s say hypothetically that Brazil is one of the greatest consumers of your service. If you took a better look at how the Brazilian market works (international credit cards are rare, but banking billets are ubiquitous), you’d see that you only need to change the payment method to receive better revenue. This would work for a lot of other countries.
3. Your economy bubble, the internet, believes in ridiculous metrics like ComScore and Alexa all the time to make advertizers buy ad space in websites. By stagnating your metrics, you’re destroying part of your sales pitch.
Diogo Galvão
24 March, 21:47
It’d be fair (to listeners and artists) if full track songs could still be streamed without subscriptions.
I see we’ll be able to listen to them but I think you must make them available from the radios.
Alberto
24 March, 21:48
There is still no answer about if this suscription model will add or not what is already free for the G3 and non existant for the ‘rest of the world’.
Well. For the rest of the world, we need to wait untill they open an office there (whichs is relatively easy, there are 200 countries in the ‘rest of the world’ and 3 in the G3 so… it’s simple).
Cruciarius
24 March, 21:50
Why three countries will be preferential?
maphy
24 March, 21:51
looking for another decent linux internet music player…..
Xavier
24 March, 21:51
Just wanted to say that I understand the move, as I’m sure there are excellent economical reasons for it. People will always be mad when something free that they take for granted suddenly expresses the need to actually make money. “How dare you make pay!”
As for me, I’m not a big user of the radio thing, and I’m very happy that the rest (scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc.) remains free – had scrobbling and charts gone for-pay, THAT would have been a problem :)
Keep up the good work, guys! And don’t listen to the angry crowd: most of them have been directed here through badly written articles, such as the Mashable.com one, that made them think THE WHOLE service would be for-pay.
Long live Last.fm! :)
s!n
24 March, 21:53
I’ll stay with Spotify now.
Tom Page
24 March, 21:54
If this is what you have to do then so be it – I can’t believe how many people here are shouting, winging and insulting about something they’ve got for free for so long!
Duro
24 March, 21:54
I was a subscriber from Slovakia, Europe and planned to stay that was. I’m never paying you anymore, sorry.
Proin sodales velit et sed.
24 March, 21:55
one user less, and counting…
Gethom
24 March, 21:55
In simple english, the rest of the the world pays so that the g3 have free radio.
Goodbye last.fm, i really liked your services.
gappi
24 March, 21:56
And yet again, the music industry is screwing up its opportunities to promote their artists cheaply to a wide audience. I’d say screw them and long live piracy!
And a big thumbs down to last.fm for the unequal treatment of different countries. I’d be willing to pay some money once in a while, but not like this.
Ale
24 March, 21:57
Being a long time user, this is sad, I’m from Argentina and I’ve been paying for the subscription for a couple of years, now, 36 euros its a lot of money for most people here and also, its a lot for something most can get for free, just turning on the radio, but I did because I love the features, the social aspect of it, with this change, all the social aspect of it its gone, no reason for using it / paying anymore, a sad day indeed.
exit91
24 March, 21:58
I’m tired with you children… Jeez. (Nearly) no thankful words for last.fm to be found on this page, that’s pitiful :3 Stop consuming, start enjoying :)
O brave new world
That has such people in’t
N0xTrUm
24 March, 21:59
i dislike this decission, so.. bye bye my loved Last.fm :(
furia
24 March, 22:01
That is quite funny you guys start this policy when you already have a network and many people supporting the collective construction of your wikis. For some of us that believe in collective construction and open web tools, a strong network is the most valuable thing you can get from an initiative like Last.fm
Many of the people that listen to you and make you the strongest web radio platform available online have limited access to Internet and do not even have a credit card to pay for the trial. That means they will be alienated from your service not by choice but by context.
It is sad to see you will become a close platform, because Last.fm represented the values of sharing and networking that most of the people look for online. Good luck with this.
cmor
24 March, 22:01
Horrible move, I’m not going to pay money for something that most of the time doesn’t even deliver you the music that you requested (mistagging) or music that is similar to the artist, well, at least that’s all the fun of radio, not so much fun now that you have to pay for it. It’s already horrible that we (Latvia) are denied most of the internet services available (we got screwed over by Steam with horrible Euro pricing, we can’t access many on demand services, LaunchCast was also eventually given the thumbs down) and I was overjoyed when last.fm was available – and for free! Now that I have to pay to listen, again – we get screwed. It’s over, go eat on RIAA and the rest of this corporate bullshit.
fuqyou
24 March, 22:01
get rich, stupid
Rick85
24 March, 22:02
That’s a shame, radio was the nevralgic application of last.fm, i can’t really foresee the thousands of users you’ll lost… This time you’ve done the wrong move.
I’ll still continue scrobbling, but forget about the subscription even though, without knowing this news, i had the intention to…
Cheers & hope to find you well in the years to come…
anon
24 March, 22:03
I started to subscribe just a couple of weeks ago because i wanted to support you, but now i dont really want to anymore..
Filipe 'shello' Rodrigues
24 March, 22:05
Great move, guys.
You stop streaming for most of the countries in the World, less bandwidth is used, therefore you’ll pay less. More, you’ll get 3€/mo. for some users that really like your service, which may be enough to cover your bandwidth bill for them, and even add profit!!
Conclusion: Less money getting out, More money getting in.
Just to make this clear for everyone.
Seriously, this wasn’t a smart move, you know that. It is for CBS and for the guys who manage your expenses, but you just cut relationship with the users.
I already get annoyed with some ads on last.fm. Now I’m not getting radio, ‘cause I’m in Portugal.
I think I’ll just be scrobbling in the future, because I have a account here for a couple of years now. Just that.
I never found the subscription-black-square-in-my-avatar thing any worth the money. I wasn’t getting any basic features like — for example — Spotify offers. I was basically getting access to my radio and some “beta features”.
Now I’m completely sure that €3/mo. is definitely not worth the feature you are selling.
I wish you the best luck with this new model.
Eric Cartman
24 March, 22:07
Screw you guys… I’m going home :(
gdsdgdgdsgsdzg
24 March, 22:08
What a sad day… :( I didn’t know that Last.fm’s aim was to remove existing features from most customers.
Piet
24 March, 22:09
Last.fm must be pretty expensive to run, especially into countries with dumb RIAA-alikes, and it’s probably a smart business decision to start to try to monetise users (what a nasty instrumental phrase though).
Poorly communicated, poorly thought-through implementation, guys! Fancy a discriminatory subscription charge? Not a good look even in these economic times.
Well, ultimately it doesn’t really matter, it is just part of the inevitable trend, one more channel that won’t appeal that much more to the general public, and thus another reason simply to download music without any way of signalling or paying the creators.
It was great while it lasted!
Walker
24 March, 22:10
I went to http://www.last.fm/settings/account/ and clicked “wipe out listening data” and “wipe out tagging data”, and then I’ve deleted my account…
I had 19.992 songs listened, and I’m not sorry a bit about deleting my account.
Hope U earn a lot of money in USA, DE and UK ;) Wouldn’t want to go back even if U change zour mind….
Tim Dobson
24 March, 22:12
Publicise this…
Vote up on firehose:
http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=3880759
kita
24 March, 22:15
ok we h4ck last.fm
WM Recordings
24 March, 22:18
What will you do with the free content we uploaded under a Creative Commons license? Will that still be freely avaible to all users of the site the way it was intended?
David Mårtensson
24 March, 22:18
The 24th of march, the day that music died. By guys. I will miss you. Also. I hate you. I hate that I love you. I didnt want to break up with you. But you made me… I cant believe this. Like a bad joke … :’(
Deede
24 March, 22:19
La verdad, vaya cutre-servicio que dais.
Vuestra gestión es pésima y encima no dais una puñetera razón como dios manda.
Anda ‘iros a cagar a la via!
Rian
24 March, 22:23
Wow, what a bunch of whiny bitches on here. Got something for free for years — that costs money, I might add — and now you’re going to be charged for it and last.fm suddenly becomes evil.
Nevermind that what they’re charging costs less than a cup of coffee.
The Internet never ceases to simultaneously impress and depress.
Grego
24 March, 22:24
I’m listening to LastFm Radio every day.
Now I’m just going to stop it. There are many other free music sources on the internet…
hawkse
24 March, 22:24
I was going to write a whole bunch of stuff concerning how shutting out large parts of the community will be the downfall of last.fm but for that, read the post by M F above. I completely agree.
In addition to that, the 30 free songs limit is way too tight. Make it 50 a week plus free streaming of all free downloadable content and you’ll at least have some chance at keeping valuable scrobblers. Honestly, who’s going to spend weeks scrobbling to build up a nice profile just to get to hear 30 recommendations? Besides, does anyone listen to the 30 second previews? They’re just an annoyance!
I’d personally love to see you finally moving forward by launching an on-demand service such as the one Spotify now offers but building on the last.fm recommendation engine. Such a service, I’d gladly pay €10 a month for but please hurry before Spotify adds community features.
Killpack
24 March, 22:24
When I discovered Last.fm I really liked the way it was presented. It had a great vibe, like the people behind it were really into their product and trying to create an amazing listening experience. Ever since the whole makeover thing (which made last.fm look like every other
socialsite out there) and CBS’s takeover made last.fm feel more like a faceless commercial enterprise.The whole feeling and personality of the site went away!
Too bad I won’t be using the site anymore. (although I can because I am US) Looks like CBS ruined a truly awesome product.
Goodbye
btw, Jamendo offers a huge catalog of music to download and stream for free (it, however, is 100% indie so all you pop-slaves’ll have to look elsewhere)
Molkio
24 March, 22:28
Buah!Pues desinstalando que es gerundio…
Greenish
24 March, 22:29
Poor poor decision.
katerina
24 March, 22:30
This sucks.
Anyway the UK enjoyed a different service, e.g. listening to full tracks and not only a 30 sec preview, no?
Our (valuable) data gets collected anyway. Last.fm was a good way of discovering new artists, buying their work, letting others now, keeping up with their gigs. Judging by your publishing the most listened-to tracks and albums of 2008, what people listened to on last.fm has great power, as myspace for example did.
So, artists will upload their work for free downloads, to be randomly accessed (=radio/recommendations) only upon payment? Ridiculousness.
I thought we were moving towards a new model for music, and this is many steps back. I was considering becoming a subscriber just to support you, but …nope. You’re calling last.fm a community, but have taken a decision that completely defies that.
We won’t even be able to listen to our library then?
P.S. Very recently you made log-in necessary to listen to a library. Was this to get more future payers (on a five-day notice)? Disgusting.
Boo
24 March, 22:31
So you’re making sure that those people for whom the €3 is a big deal will certainly not have access any more. Booooooo! Boooooooooo!
inigoalonso
24 March, 22:34
One idea folks:
Until the March 30th change the title of all songs you scrobble to “Failfm“.
One pissed subscriber
mehrzweckraum
24 March, 22:34
so following the logic..
“ads pay free radio in G3”
.. it follows ..
“no free radio means no need for ads in other countries”..
is that right?
we others get an ad-free last.fm homepage?
cool. thanks. :)
hutsefluts
24 March, 22:36
1 april!
maarten
24 March, 22:39
oh god, I so hope this is an early April’s fools joke…if not, bye bye Last.fm, it was great while it lasted
Bert
24 March, 22:39
USA,UK and GERMANY-with russia one of the most rich countries.Fuckin’ exploitation.Bruno. have right,capitalization will kill this extra music site.
maarten
24 March, 22:40
oh by the way, in case it is a joke…not funny!
Barneyk
24 March, 22:41
Man you guys are negative.
Its not THAT big of a deal…
@Hannah Donovan: Yeah, you guys do alot of good stuff to. Just none that has really meant anything for me lately.
I still love the site but I loved it even more before.
Giorgos
24 March, 22:43
Before I erase all my scrobbles and ultimately my account I would like to say FUCK OFF.
I am not affected, but your policies sucks as outlined by many users above.
C
24 March, 22:45
1 april, would have been ludicrous :D
The bastards must have already lost a lot of users. If this was a fool’s day, I suppose we could safely tell that the guy behind this is braindead.
Wizardy
24 March, 22:47
Nice way of killing your radio, it’s worse than Spotify and now paid-to-use.
Really “smart” move
afraidbook
24 March, 22:47
Certainly I can’t believe it!
Imagine the face of all Facebook users if they announced:
Hello world! Thanks for sharing all your photos and personal info! From now on you’ll have to pay to continue accessing your media. Unless you live in UK, US or DE from where you still can see what the rest of the world is doing (or has done until now) for free.
In the above letter ‘Facebook’ may be replaced by YouTube, Flickr, and hey, even Wikipedia!
SeanB
24 March, 22:52
Goodbye…. Waiting for XM on iPhone!
neofob
24 March, 22:57
Why not be democratic and force everyone to pay? What makes US, UK and Germany more special? Is that where the majority of the listeners are and pissing them off to will be dangerous?
Patrick
24 March, 22:58
Good. Hopefully the other three countries add this. Are the people immediately criticizing this move really thinking? The musicians need to get paid. As people like us use the internet over traditional media formats, the musicians get paid less. This way they’ll get the royalities they deserve, and start making more royalties. Sorry, good shit isn’t always free. People need to get paid for what they specialize in so that they can keep doing it.
Thorn Born Son
24 March, 22:59
You do realize that you are about to lose 99% of all listeners outside of US/UK/DE?
Don’t be such a bunch of pussies, if you can make it work in those countries you can make it work just about anywhere. Take a loan, buy a local team, do something other than throwing in the towel.
My guess is that it’s not working in those countries either and in some crazy dream you think you can subsidize free radio in US/UK/DE with payment from sorry souls from elsewhere.
I’m so disappointed. This is basically the worst thing you could have done. Asking the entire world for payment would have made more sense and wouldn’t have me along with everyone else outside of US/UK/DE looking elsewhere for musical inspiration.
What about ads between songs? Never understood why you have never gone that route. That would be the only reason I would shell out for an account anyway to be free of such ads. Radio stations are dying all over the world because of your superior technology, teams with radio ad sales experience are surely a bargain in any country in the world today.
I’m just so disappointed. Guess I’ll try to enjoy my last 4 days before finding myself a new avenue.
Goodbye and thanks for all the music.
gabnt
24 March, 23:01
I´m leaving!!!!!! goodbye last.fm
markusk
24 March, 23:02
sorry folks, but you obviously sold your soul to the devil.
registered 29 Oct 2002 (reset on 24 Mar 2009)
bbs
24 March, 23:03
Get this on digg and reddit
Chris
24 March, 23:04
@afraidbook:
Yes, if Facebook did that it would be ridiculous. But that’s not what’s happening. People are only going to need a subscription to listen to the radio. Your example is the Facebook equivalent of being told you need a subscription to look at your charts. Not similar at all.
Jope
24 March, 23:04
Don’t bother complaining here.
Just log in to last.fm, go to “Settings” (in the top right drop down menu), go to the “Data” tab and press “Delete entire account” for user.
I just did, and I will check in 24h to verify the account has been deleted.
arek
24 March, 23:06
And what about this one?
http://blog.last.fm/2008/01/23/free-the-music
Will we ever get full-length tracks?
You want people to pay for what they have already got?
I would definitely buy the subscription to get full-length tracks on demand. But I will never pay just for the radio as I rarely use it.
Álex Casanova
24 March, 23:06
Today, Last.fm sucks.
What an uncomfortable new.
Sheridan Flynn
24 March, 23:08
I’m a firm believer in paying for what you get. Last FM provide an excellent service. Why should music necessarily be free? I remember paying £20 for a Led Zeppelin CD in the mid 90’s. There’s no comparison between that and £3 for a month for a bucket load of music.
Naysayers get over yourselves. If you’re worried about getting ripped off why not have a go at the banks.
Jo
24 March, 23:12
My my, you really get to see the dark side of users when it comes to these blog posts. Let’s think about this logically. This service has been provided mainly free for many years. The company has expanded, employing more people. This means more people to pay. Which, in turn, means that money needs to be generated somewhere. Obviously the site wasn’t making enough to cover costs, so it has had to reach what must have been a difficult decision. As for the divide as to which countries keep the free radio, the staff have already explained that these are the ones that generate the most revenue from ads (by the by, if you are a subscriber you don’t get these) so it is logical that these are the ones that would keep the free radio. Take a deep breath and use your common sense. The decision may not be the best, but it seems it’s the best option open to last.fm at the moment. Keep going last.fm, see you on the other side!
Daniel
24 March, 23:13
I absolutely refuse to pay for something that others are getting for free, simply because they happen to live in another country. Period.
sfreud
24 March, 23:13
@Giorgos: Nice to see some “3G citizen” are willing to take one for the team, much appreciated!
Everyone, please join the FaceBook group and send a massage. We’re tired of the music industry’s agenda to regionalizing our online music services and we are not going to take it anymore: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56512292573.
Joffrey
24 March, 23:22
April fool?
tabletoni
24 March, 23:22
Lastfm SUCKS. Without us you are notihnig, we also built last.fm recommending to our friends, with our scrobblings and comments, i’m going to unsuscribe just now
catearcher
24 March, 23:23
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
caca
24 March, 23:24
Iros a tomar por el culo…
Flavio
24 March, 23:25
I’m in Italy, this sucks so bad. You’re only going to lose users. Good luck.
vincent
24 March, 23:27
Marvellous idea.
Im sorry but your going down. Really.
Yay for GROOVESHARK
prismatic7
24 March, 23:27
The trouble is, it might be 3 Euro a month for someone in Europe, but for other countries, particularly Australia (where I am) you’re likely to get slugged by your bank for an overseas currency fee as well. Which can be as much as A$10. And with the exchange rate as dodgy as it is, there’s no way I’m paying nearly $20 a month all up for this service. I kinda object to that.
Komunjara
24 March, 23:28
Fuck you, elitistic scum!
Konstantinos
24 March, 23:29
In a an open source universe I feel sad for my best everyday music companion.
César
24 March, 23:30
Since i barely use the radio, i am not really affected, but… c´mon!
Tweeter without adds worth millions, your service is quite used, you have tons (well , you use to have probably) of loyal users, you have adds, and also a system of contributions… and this is the best answer you could find ?
That was a stupid way to destroy your reputation among you own costumers (since now our relations is a seller-costumer one)…
This so frustrating :S
Matt
24 March, 23:31
This is a terrible decision from a marketing point of view.
I hope you lose users and money over this.
Bye, last.fm (oh, I’m from the UK).
venetiglio
24 March, 23:31
as someone pointed out, if a lot of people leave you’ll be no longer giving out such a good service as they are used to.
also, it’ll be quite hard to acquire new users this way as they can’t really get a taste of why it’s better when they only listen to 30 songs – any online radio station can give me 30 songs related to a first that I choose. Only last.fm can reccomend me new stuff wisely, but that’s because I’ve listened to far more than that, thousands.
it should be taken in consideration the number of people here that are saying they love the service, but are leaving because of this decision. it’s not too late to make this better but the clock is ticking.
and a question: if someone deletes their account, what happens to the data they’ve contributed? I guess that’s “yours”, right?
Marcus
24 March, 23:33
Um… why? Why should I have to pay for something US, UK and Germany get for free? Am I subsidising their free Last.fm experience?? This is bullshit. No-one is going to pay for this…
Red
24 March, 23:33
First you share my scrobbling user data with the RIAA! Now you start charging me so you can sell my user data. WTF. Very lame guys.
alleseter
24 March, 23:38
I feel sick. Even though I’m rich enough to be able to pay to listen to the radio, I have great difficulties with the notion that it is solely because I don’t live in the US, UK or Germany.
IF you have to charge any money, charge it equally over all users. And IF you have to make some exceptions, reserve those for the poorest countries in this world, instead of the richest.
I really feel I want to check out that Spotify thing I’ve only heard about just now, because of this thread…
Srikanth
24 March, 23:38
Good Bye, Au revoir, (Arabic) إلى اللقاء, अलविदा (Hindi), Arrivederci (Italian), До свидания (Russian), Adiós (Spanish), ลาก่อน (Thai), Adeus (Portugese), Αντίο (Greek), (Hebrew) להתראות, నమస్తే (Telugu)…..Last.fm
P.S: Chances are, you won’t be hearing most of the above languages anymore on Last.FM
Visca
24 March, 23:39
fuck! Now I have to search for another igoogle radio add-on.
How do I delete my account in last.fm?
For those who want listen for free and must pay: Use proxys.
Matías F.
24 March, 23:39
That is discrimination.
Good bye last.fm, from Buenos Aires.
Bernard
24 March, 23:43
Wow! So, all non-US, UK and German subscribers are paying for the US, UK and Germany to continue with free services? I thought colonial imperialism ended last century? As a business decision, I completely understand that such revenue streams need to be implemented, but this will cost your reputation. As someone said earlier, a user is a user. But if that’s not how Last.fm sees it then my current subscription will be the last one.
kopf.
24 March, 23:45
Just watch the exodus.
First the layout that was never fixed (why was it implemented in the first place, if it’s so fucked?) and now this?
I understand how much the infrastructure for last.fm costs alone, without all the added expenses of licencing and musician reimbursement, but seriously guys – you’re taking the fucking piss.
KaptajnKold
24 March, 23:45
This sucks!
I can get over that I have to pay a subscription. I have in the past, but stopped because I didn’t feel there was much added value.
But most of my friends will leave the service now, and without them our group radio will die.
In other words, I now have to start paying for less!
And, oh yeah, it’s fucking ridiculous that this doesn’t apply to everyone! Fucking ridiculous!
mrbill82
24 March, 23:46
I hate the fact that if I lived 1.5 hours south it would be free, but instead I have to start paying.
If I pay will you fix the tag library? Maybe have a list of all tags somewhere? I want to be able to type 90’s alternative, or 80’s punk hits and get something other than the same 5-8 songs streaming over and over. Or to keep trying random tag combinations only to find that the station does not exist (and have no suggestions). If you can promise me that, then I’ll sign up.
Stefan
24 March, 23:47
..kikker in je bil
Jeanfreddy
24 March, 23:51
I don´t share this new politics. Why countrys like Brasil, India or Spain have to pay? “They” need to be listened in the “special” 3 countries free-fee or there´s another reason? Who is really paying? Wrong choice and i´ve been a huge fan and positive blogger about this.
Rafa
24 March, 23:52
bye bye last.fm. Probably one of the worst news I have read so far this year.
I will have to switch to another service…
samebrian
24 March, 23:53
I’m still waiting for an answer to my statement. If those of us that are not from those countries do subscribe, will we ever see ads? Will we receive a kickback from you guys if we buy an album through your Amazon links? What about if someone else does because my information led to their coming across a new artist?
——-
To all the idiots that keep posting thing along the lines of “You guys are racist for only letting certain people use the services for free!”, I’d suggest you read the admin’s comments before commenting. He clearly pointed out that it has to do with the ad revenue gained from within those countries. Basically everyone else is freeloading MORE than those in the US, UK and Germany.
subset
24 March, 23:53
I’m a subscriber and I will most probably remain one, since I like what Last.fm is doing and I’ll continue supporting you. Yes, I’m kinda irritated by the special treatment some countries are getting, but my country has always been moderately fucked up and I’ve developed an immunity.
That said, as far as I know some percentage of the subscription goes to pay royalties to the artists and I’m all for it. This will be a drop in the sea for the major labels, but I don’t care for them or any of the bullshit they release. However I suppose independent labels and fringe artists may actually benefit from this, which I approve.
Álber
24 March, 23:54
Bad bye.
alicious
24 March, 23:58
Has this got anything to do with increasing license payment demands from, eg, the UK’s PRS. They appear to have been doing a big push to get small businesses; they’ve hit up Google for millions; and now last.fm?
As you’ve not mentioned the licensing I’m guessing there’s a deal with an NDA.
Ryno
24 March, 23:59
agree with Red,if last.FM become important for the major,apart the program structure,it’s because tons of user buyed the music that they listen on your radio,and also give you feedback and selling information (money for you),and now? you want to double the charge! not fair
juepucta
25 March, 00:00
LastFM should start an Adopt A User program. Have people that subscribe in the US/UK/Ger pay for a user outside those 3 countries.
But EVERYBODY gets the same features. No bullshit discrimination.
-G.
PaK
25 March, 00:04
goodbye last.fm ! worst choice …
Mourner
25 March, 00:06
Definitely the worst news of the year. And though I personally don’t mind paying for such a great service, I’m sure this stupidly communicated and extremely offensive decision will eventually ruin Last.fm.
On the other hand you still have a chance to cancel the decision (maybe the execs should read these comments to understand how wrong this move is – only a total dumb asshole won’t understand this obvious fact).
I’m also feeling very sorry for the Last.fm staff (except the “business” people involved), they are now devastated by this a lot more than the users I guess. You guys really rock!
Alexandre Rocha
25 March, 00:06
I don’t believe you.
I think many companies use this crises as an excuse, as a great opportunity to fill their pockets even more.
Discrimination? Please! That’s one thing I’ll never tolerate in my entire life!
Do you feel me?
Boa sorte, from Portugal.
My Last Scrobble
25 March, 00:07
I would understand (but disagree) if this change was across the board, but being regional specific highlights a money/licencing issue. Im guessing alot of users that aren’t in the golden country groups will shift to a new service.
Shame to see such a successful user driven community turned into yet another avenue for income streams.
max
25 March, 00:11
this sucks so bad i’m not even going to comment on this. all i can say i’m deeply disappointed
ExLastfm user
25 March, 00:11
I don’t care all you say! I can’t pay that. Suckers
Hi Grooveshark!
Zentaurus
25 March, 00:12
Bye lastfm :’(
Latiass
25 March, 00:15
Wait, are people on here seriously complaining that 3rd world countries won’t be able to afford this service, but then I see people from those countries remarking about their iPod Touch? If you can afford an iPod Touch or a computer for yourself, you’re not as third world as you think you are.
Also: it goes both ways, but if you WERE UNAWARE there is kind of a global economic meltdown that some people are maybe making a bit of a deal over. Golly, I wonder why last.fm can no longer afford to offer an expensive service to users for free anymore???? what a mystery we had best call scooby doo & gang to solve it
I do understand the outrage from them not refusing service to specific countries, but I think those of you who are making a big deal about this are missing the bigger picture.
Just a thought.
tux
25 March, 00:16
maybe you should only make people pay after a year of using the service. This way people who use it a lot or are still using it after a year might consider paying if the service is worth it. 30 tracks is useless to the new user.
I’m gone though. As much as I liked it, it isn’t worth 3 euros a month.
araien
25 March, 00:18
me leaving too! last.fm social revolution?? last.fm is what is thanks to the community … and now you leave alon the community.
David Delgado
25 March, 00:24
What you are going to get is loosing lots of users switching to other music services on the net. We cannot use a service about music without being able to hear it. There are many other similar services out there for free. It is a pitty. :-/
Babs
25 March, 00:25
I’m not surprised. I knew we were in halcyon days and this was coming. Said so only a few days ago
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/489277/2#f8872496
I haven’t finished reading all the comments yet but to the haters: what we had during “free the music” was a rare, ground-breaking thing. All of us together have toppled the music industry. And this is the consequence.
Somehow or other, we have to pay these artists we listen to. Otherwise, why should they bother continuing to create for us?
£3 is bobbins money. And if we have more features coming soon, all the better.
The only thing I request of Last.fm is to improve their processing power. Please stop underestimating how much you need. Next to Spotify, you look clunky (although not as bad as iTunes, it has to be said).
The only people I feel sorry for are the disillusioned folk who suddenly have to get their pretty little heads around the idea of blowing the dust off their wallets.
peace out :D
Brad P
25 March, 00:26
Won’t be paying for this.
Good luck getting anyone to pay.
p
25 March, 00:30
Babs_05 is just a Last.fm lapdog.
john
25 March, 00:33
capitalist pigs
lordofanywhere
25 March, 00:39
I’ve been a user since 2006, I’ve been a subscriber and I was planning to subscribe again.
But this just makes me wonder if it’s worth it.
I’m gonna start looking for another service. If it was the same for all countries, I think people wouldn’t be as angry as they are now, but this is ridiculous. Discrimination is never good.
Watch the people leave, not only people from the affected countries… in the end, you won’t be able to afford it for a bad choice you made.
lordofanywhere
25 March, 00:43
By the way, Mufin.con, Spotify.com (for European users), Pandora.com (for American users) and Yes.fm are good alternatives to Last.fm
We really don’t need it anymore, it was great though.
And this does not go for the staff, this goes for CBS… I bet people working at the HQ in London would have prefered to keep it free.
JMC
25 March, 00:46
Oh God, i forgot, u did the “pandora thing” too. U have a spanish site, but the language in the “selected” countries is english. U have music of many artist in the world and a data base about them made by the people u are leaving out. Yes, the scrobbling and the other things will work for free, but come on, is like if u have a car but u cant drive it. Be smart, put a time limit, a song limit, or whatever to keep it free. I understand u need money, but if google can u can too, dont lose ur most important value: the people and the community.
Bye Bye Suckers
25 March, 00:49
Last.fm was great from the beginning, great team, great interface a fun way to discover music.
Until one day big money buys it up. Now CBS wants to extort some money out of some of the users. Why do the users from USA, UK and Germany don’t have to pay? I can think of two possibilities: * Stupid fat corporate rep’s think the rest of the world isn’t capable of using this opportunity of creating a better alternative * Greedy people in gray suits made some calculations and they figured the profit they can get out of other countries is marginal so it’s safe to alienate them.
What nobody thinked about is all the bad publicity this stunt is going to generate. Goodbye Last.fm, it was great while it lasted.
Kat
25 March, 00:52
I loved last.fm and have been using it for 3 years now. Unfortunately I won’t be paying for this. Goodbye last.fm
Darius
25 March, 00:53
.
Yeah, great idea, charge upon those countries who have less money. Terrific idea.
Grooveshark it’ll be.
tatuuuuu
25 March, 00:53
Hi LastFM.
Guess what – I never really liked you. I joined the original place for the weekly lists and the overall charts. Nothing else. It seemed like you’d just swallow Audioscrobbler up and turn into a beast of profit – with features always getting bigger and intense. And going from worse to worse to worse, you lost some of your original fanbase with this move. I know it’s business, but people don’t really care now – this is the breaking point for so, so many.
What I am doing from now on is merely listen. I will join a group of vocative ‘free users’ whose possibilities to enjoy the same benefits for free than UK/USA/DE users have been destroyed and make sure you’re spoken of with venom, because you resorted to this unequality. I won’t tag anything – I will never ever even dream of becoming a subscriber again – I will continue using the scrobbling feature, but whenever a free music streaming concept outdoes your own (and manages to do it for free), you better just hope you can negotiate a scrobbling-affiliation with them, cause I and thousands and thousands of users have seen you lost your mojo, your utopia, and your essential point of being. Spotify is going for it atm – either way you will lose.
Enjoy the loss of users. Enjoy the loss of your reputation of being THE service – that, you no longer are not.
Cheers,
Former LASTfm enthusiastic
noway
25 March, 00:53
Wow. This better be an April Fool’s joke. Αλλιώς θα γίνει της πουτάνας.
maiqk
25 March, 00:54
If i was able to get a UK-US level service for 3 euros, i definately would stay. Outside their “most important markets” you cannot hear a track beyond their 30-Sec limit. If they resctrict the radio too, there is no reason for me to keep my account.
fuckyou
25 March, 00:56
This clearly is discrimination, you are really sucky and I hope your traffic drops dramatically.
Bernardo Kuri
25 March, 00:57
I have created another Facebook group, where we still wants to give Last.FM a chance to do what’s right: http://is.gd/oNS1
Please join if you think it’s still not too late for them to take this BAD idea back and return with a fair business model for all Last.FM users, no matter where they live.
2muchOfagooodthing
25 March, 00:58
This sux huge rhino horn! There is no way I’m paying…
Oh well… back to ripping torrents and listening to other web radio…
Alex
25 March, 00:58
Basically you guys just stated “We are concentrating on the 3 markets we are interested in and expect the rest of the world to be our milk-cow”
Just no freaking way. At least we can wipe our data and delete our account. Bye-bye.
zaws!
25 March, 01:05
i’m currently paying 10€/mo. for spotify and i’m happy with it, but i’d rather pay 15€/mo. for a last.fm on-demand service. but i can’t, just because, apparently, not enough people in my country uses last.fm. and, honestly, the last.fm current radio service is not that great, at all.
for me, at least, paying 3€ for this would be like paying 100€ for a bike when you need a car: yes, it’s a great deal, but i still need a car (also: i’d be paying for someone else’s car)
david
25 March, 01:06
thanks for the FREE service provided so far. and good bye
Calvin
25 March, 01:07
If I used the service enough to justify doing so, I would pay without a second thought, given the rate isn’t unreasonable ($5 Canadian per month). I can understand the bitter sentiment, but as to the foretold loss of users, that remains to be seen.
Bernardo Kuri
25 March, 01:16
€3 is a lot of money for a lot of ppl living outside of the US/UK/DE. There must be a better/cheaper way for all to be happy?
Nilson Santos F. Jr.
25 March, 01:16
It’s a pity.
Not because you’re charging $3 – I’d gladly pay even more than that for last.fm as, quite frankly, it’s far superior than the alternatives. I’ve subscribed in the past for some months, whenever I used the internet radio a lot.
However, most of my friends won’t pay anything. And even if 10% of them did, the other 90% still wouldn’t. That’s how you kill a social networking service for an audience.
I imagine a worldwide license must cost considerably more than just US, UK and DE. The music industry is shooting themselves in their foot. With last.fm, people had a legal alternative. Now everyone in emerging countries will just go back to p2p networks for their music.
Also, as a web developer, I understand how difficult it can be to target countries such as Brazil, since advertising pays considerably less.
I even wrote a Perl module (published on CPAN) for the old last.fm and I was planning to update it when I had some free time. I guess I won’t have the incentive for this anymore…
Anyway, I hope this decision is reversed somehow, but I doubt it.
Last.fm was the best thing related to music that appeared on the web since AudioGalaxy. I’ll now wait for the next big thing.
Marcela
25 March, 01:21
So, do i need a visa to listen music now?
It sucks.
:S
Damn
25 March, 01:23
All very sad news, it seems business talks and this is a step onwards in the CBS takeover changing the heart of Last.fm
DM
25 March, 01:31
I may well be looking for an alternative music site if this goes ahead.
david
25 March, 01:35
https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/
Pedro Nogueira
25 March, 01:39
when I discovered Last.fm I said it was the best site ever…I guess I will have to change my mind…
Pedro Nogueira from Portugal
Hans
25 March, 01:39
S-P-O-T-I-F-Y
R-O-C-K-S!!
Responseless
25 March, 01:43
Sad, thanks for the service until now :)
exLast.fmUser
25 March, 01:45
Subscription for the radio is the most stupid thing that I’ve heard recently.
I’m using last.fm for a while and I’m very sorry to hear this…
I don’t think I will listen to the last.fm radio anymore…
Bye…
Terry
25 March, 01:52
Cry cry cry. Do any of you actually support services out there or just leech off of anything you can find that is free? I’ve subscribed agggess ago, this fantastic service which these people run actually, you know, needs MONEY to keep going.
NoDiscrimination
25 March, 01:55
Discrimination!!! what about the rest of the world? what about free radio? what happened with the spirit of Last.fm? Just for money? :(
Bad, bad, bad. Goodbye Last.fm
From México
IanAR
25 March, 02:00
@Hannah “Will I be affected by the changes to Last.fm Radio? No!”
Untrue, this is a social place where over half my friends are from outside the chosen three countries. If they’re effected, I’m effected.
The geographic distribution of my friends is already skewed by economics. Now it’ll be worse, it seems, and any hope of having a collection of friends in – for example – Africa, proportionate with the continent’s influence on music I like, seems to have suddenly evaporated.
This seems like another nail in the coffin of the founding “Level playing field” ethos, that I joined to be part of.
- Ian Blip.FM/Scrawl
lastima
25 March, 02:07
Que gran lastima que comiencen a cobrar por este buen servicio, generalmente no hago uso de la radio, pero me parecen muy buenas las recomendaciones.
No estoy de acuerdo que se clasifique por países, teniendo en cuenta que no todos tienen la capacidad de pagar por el servicio.
greenwatch
25 March, 02:17
Very sad news, unbelievably stupid especially considering it’s not even a year since the big failure of a site update last July that alienated many (traffic has dropped significantly if you check out Alexa data). 3 euros may not be much to richer users, but mind you that most people in emerging markets like China and India, if they are already using last.fm, cannot afford this, or see the point to pay up in difficult times like this. You just limited yourself immensely in appeal and potential.
As soon as there’s a better alternative (spotify is not available in my region yet, but I love musicovery) and maybe a way to export my last.fm data (if not I’ll just save my chart pages), I’ll leave for good.
susan
25 March, 02:18
because i like the site and what it does, i have been a VOLUNTARY subscriber for a couple of years. you say that if you are a current subscriber, nothing will change. what happens when my current sub runs out? if i have to pay more than i have paid up until now, it will kill me but i’ll be saying sayonara.
p.s. does this mean that the greedy bastards at CBS have been getting my subscription money all along?
Rodrigo Barba
25 March, 02:25
RT @David thanks for the FREE service provided so far. and good bye
snerd
25 March, 02:25
Huh.
AU$70/yr – I could buy several albums from that and just use Internode’s unmetered streaming.
Tony Dodd
25 March, 02:29
Wow. I’m an ex last.fm staff member, and I gotta say… this stinks. Mainly from an economics point of view. I know you guys stream a ridiculous amount of traffic these days, but the majority of that traffic is to the DE, UK and US markets. You cannot tell me that advertising revenue – given the current economic climate and $/£ exchange rate – covers the bandwidth to the 3 major territories, the music licensing fees, the related data-center costs for infrastructure to be able to serve that much data, etc.
I think the main issue here, isn’t that you’re implementing blanket charges – I’ll happily pay to listen to music [well, if you’d just fix the damn catalog so the music i was listening to was actually the music I should be listening to, and not some seemingly last.fm-only-version] -; it’s the fact that you’re penalizing 192 different nationalities for simply living there. Let me restate that:
You’re penalizing 1,263,128,942 internet users.
Real statistics about the internet:
Sadly this version of textile doesn’t support alignment in tables… note the billion vs million.
(stats taken from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm)
I’m 99% certain that you’d have had a lot less annoyed users, if this had been announced for all territories, – but doing that would have been seen as a huge risk by CBSi – and had given more official notice… like, a couple of months. Just goes to show how well they know the internet then, I guess. Or economics.
If you do the math on some of those 192 countries, the asking price of €3, which may seem like very little in our economy, is the equivalent to 20 loaves of bread; and with the amount people in some of those countries get paid, that’s the difference between eating this month and not. Everything is relative. You guys could set up a sliding scale charge based on the WHO purchasing power parity charts, or as a %age of yearly wage to scale it down and make it feasible to those for whom the internet is a luxury. I’m sure Russ would get a kick out of writing the algorithm that calculates it too – http://www.who.int/choice/costs/ppp/en/index.html
I guess what I’m saying is, it feels a lot like you guys wanted to somehow reduce to just the main 3 markets – meaning you no longer need to support all the different language translations, forums, and everything else that goes along with i18n -, but didn’t want to cause a huge pandora-esque stink by blocking everyone completely. You’re certainly turning off service to a lot of people who simply cannot make a payment to you from their country… and with 5 days notice. Speaking of which, there are 31 days in this month… why cut-off on the 30th?
There definitely seems to be some sort of subterfuge going on here, but the hell if I can figure out exactly what it is.
Tony Dodd
25 March, 02:32
Actually, I retract that statement. It’s impossible to please anyone on the internet. There would certainly be less of a them-against-us and last.fm’s the bad guy attitude here though.
msbeintema
25 March, 02:34
This is rubbish, absolute rubbish. I listen to Last.fm-radio for my recommendations and neighbour radio. But apparently I will have to pay up in the future. Very strange, record stores don’t charge money for listening to cd’s either. Or will this be the next step? There is no use in keeping the recommendations section if you can’t LISTEN to the music for free anymore! Please, Last.fm, reconsider this, you will lose VERY MANY users if you implement this change!
msbeintema
25 March, 02:40
By the way, the suggestion that was made here before, the daily limited use of free radio, say one hour, for everyone around the world, seems EXCELLENT to me! Why not do it that way?
pablo
25 March, 03:00
bye bye last.fm
Hi Jamendo :)
DontWannaPay
25 March, 03:08
The free radio was really good while it lasted. I’m grateful for it, but not anymore.
You should measure the number of people leaving after that day. It’ll be good for your future decision making. And I hope you’re aware of the fact that there are competing sites which offer free streaming.
Goodbye.
ass
25 March, 03:12
NOW THE FUCKING RADIO SUXXX!!
GO FUCK YOURSELF BUITRES!
IRefuseToPay
25 March, 03:13
goodbye last.fm!
Hi Grooveshark :D!
Jack McIntyre
25 March, 03:19
Sigh… I was really getting into last.fm
I’ll still use it for scrobbling, but I won’t be raving about it any more.
Casho1
25 March, 03:25
I will never use last FM again. I live in Australia, and take great offense that three countries have been singled out for special treatment.
Stop Crying Bitches
25 March, 03:30
Oh you whinny little bitches of internet. You fucking freeloaders you. I can’t really tell my level of disguast with you.
and you know what’s funny, after all those goodbyes, you two-faced cry babies will be back and continue to consume just as much if not more.
Einer
25 March, 03:31
Seriously, i’m still thinking about this and i simply can’t understand how could you kill such a great brand with such a move.
It was like google for music, and now.. BUM! it’s over! how stupid is this? was there no other options to cover your expenses?
Carl
25 March, 03:41
Don’t tell me the RIAA has “willed” you into this new business model.
stormchasar
25 March, 03:51
Hey, guys?
Get some fucking perspective.
How many people on here are whining about paying for a service that “should be free”? Think about this for a few moments. UNLIMITED, ROUND-THE-CLOCK, AD-FREE, ARTIST- OR TAG-BASED MUSIC. Just think about that. You can type in “ambient”, hit play, and play it on your house speakers all day. For 3$ a month.
Well, I’m going to start paying.
Matt
25 March, 03:53
You not asking us to pay to use it, you’re asking us to pay to MAKE it.
My first reaction was disbelief quite honestly, I’ve become quite inspired by the community nature of last.fm, and while I don’t use it for streaming as such, I get a lot out of scrobbling, tagging, sharing links etc. I also have uploaded my own music to share for free. I considered this a revolutionary step in freeing music from commercialism.
Then I started contemplating losing all this and thought maybe its not so bad, I might even pay. But wait a second, the majority of people will stop using the site, the community will disappear. Scrobbling and tagging will stop, the base of the data that drives the service will be drastically reduced. You not asking us to pay to use it, you’re asking us to pay to MAKE it. The users ARE last.fm, or judging by peoples reaction here, were last.fm.
Artists don’t want money, they want exposure and they want, believe it or not, to listen to music. If you really want to help artists and music culture in general keep last.fm free.
Juan David Escobar
25 March, 03:56
Que desilusión.
Yo tan feliz que habia hablado de last.fm http://www.juandavidescobar.com/2009/03/lo-que-escucho.html
Y ahora me salen con esta. Que mal muchachos.
Ya se que somos el culo del mundo, que Colombia no les importa, pero nada, todo bien, seguro se quebraran en el intento de intentar hacer lo mismo de siempre.
la concha de tu madre
25 March, 03:57
so you managed to turn the service i loved, into a bag of crap.
i can’t pay, so i’ll stop using the service.
i’ll download full albums from p2p like there’s no tomorrow.
angry dude
25 March, 03:58
“Oh you whinny little bitches of internet. You fucking freeloaders you. I can’t really tell my level of disguast with you.
and you know what’s funny, after all those goodbyes, you two-faced cry babies will be back and continue to consume just as much if not more.”
I’d just like to point out how retarded you are real quick, asshole.
It’s not about the money. If this was a universal charge for all users, i and most of the people royally and rightly pissed off here wouldn’t have issue. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the discrimination. It’s about the insult. You want me to pay because i’m not from one of the ‘right’ countries? Fuck off you cunts. That’s ridiculous and pathetic. Among the myriad of moronic issues with this move, this is the one at the forefront.
So commenter “Stop Crying Bitches”, you ignorant fuck, i hope i’ve been able to enlighten you at least a bit about the issues of this matter. Dick.
Babs
25 March, 04:21
http://blog.last.fm/2009/03/24/lastfm-radio-announcement#c007929
I beg your pardon, p?
Identify yourself and explain yourself. I can back up everything I said.
exLast.fmUser
25 March, 04:22
Terry said:
>> Cry cry cry. Do any of you actually
>> support services out there or just leech
>> off of anything you can find that isfree?
>> I’ve subscribed agggess ago, this
>> fantastic service which these people
>> run actually, you know, needs MONEY to
>> keep going.
Sorry, I disagree with you. Last.fm is great radio, but still it is just a radio! There are many free radio stations on the Internet and other great FREE services, and they also need money to run. Subscription IS NOT only way to ensure needed money!
Ana Maria
25 March, 04:28
I´m dessapointed.
You are doing the only thing you shouldn´t do.
Look at people commnents. It isn´t fair. On social networks we don´t have to pay. That´s one of ten best rules isn´t it?
I wish you no better luck
Eduardo Izquierdo
25 March, 04:41
I agree with most people here.
This is not only an insulting move. It is also dumb. Insulting because of the discrimination by countries. Dumb given that last.fm is what it is because of its users. We, the collective of listeners and musicians, are both the users and makers of this.
Even though I live in the U.S., scrobble everything, and used to praise last.fm like crazy, I will begin consider changing.
BadPauly
25 March, 04:43
I wonder what the mindset will be at CBS/Last.FM once all those users outside of the US, UK and German walk away from the service.
All those users who will probably stop scrobbling, which means far less data being collected.
All those users who will walk away from the site, which means far fewer ads being served.
All those bands in countries no-longer being served, who have no real incentive anymore, as their local fan-base is shut-out.
As someone who has worked in online-media for some time, cutting your viewers/readership is NOT the way to make more money. It is a way to cut your business off at the knees.
Andrés Roncagliolo
25 March, 04:44
Sorry cause I really liked last.fm.
Please contact me when last.fm goes free again in Chile, i’ll gladly return. Till then, good luck, but we won’t see so frequently as we used to.
Anyway thanks for almost 3 years of great music.
Dissappointed
25 March, 04:44
I love Last.fm, have for a long time.
The whole world does not reside solely in the US or UK, I’m fed up with being penalised for living outside these countries.
All this will achieve is opening a crack in this space fro someone with a more global view to step into.
Andy Levy-Stevenson
25 March, 04:45
I only recently discovered Last.fm (yeah, I’m a late adopter).
Nice service, but not worth paying for … see ya.
Rotciv
25 March, 04:45
STOP COMPLAINING, JUST PAY
THAT MONEY IS FOR THE POOR US, UK and GERMAN USERS WHICH CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY THAT AMOUNT
PAY FOR THEM, TO LET THEM USE LAST.FM FOR FREEEEEEE WHILE WE PAY….
It is contradictory, it is like giving free gifts to rich people bough with money from poor people, at least, US is a first world country
I’m a teenager and having a VISA here is like a luxury…
Ironically, I haven’t been a user of Last.FM until yesterday, when finally I got internet connection at home (128kbps)…
Too sad…
Anthony Volodkin
25 March, 04:58
Jeez you commenter guys, it’s very simple.
If you actually liked last.fm, you will find €3.00 to pay with, regardless of where you are.
If you didn’t really care, then you’ll survive.
Everyone wants something for nothing.
Zajnóstiko
25 March, 04:58
Everybody, GO TO BLIP.FM!!
Last.fm, you are bad =(
Stoffe
25 March, 04:59
Oh damn. I’ve preferred the last.fm radio to Spotifys service for a number of reasons, especially that it is a radio, and that I can use music players (like Rhythmbox) to play radio AND scrobble what I play. I’ve even turned two people TO last.fm the last 3 months after they’ve talked so much about Spotify – and they agree that this was better!
And now this. Wtf. You really expect this will be a plus scenario? Protip: it won’t. You’ll get about the same money per users, and less users, and a LOT less advocates. Companies always forget that part, that it’s about the customers and the reputation and word-of-mouth.
Jacques
25 March, 05:04
I suppose someone has to pay for the bloated salaries of top execs and middle management.
One thing is for sure, if you aren’t in the UK, US or Germany, you have always been second class citizens on last.fm, with everything from functionality that was several steps between the US and UK sites, and poor access in far flung places.
“Since we streamed our first track from Last.fm back in 2002” … and if you last till 2012 i will raise my glass.
Time to head off, grab a tea, my cocoa dev book, and start writing my own chart generator for OSX.
Clush
25 March, 05:10
Hahahahaha. That’s a good one!
But it’s a joke… has to be. Here’s why:
-You can’t announce a change of service at T minus 5 days. Especially one of this magnitude. Development for just the payment database and such is a bitch and should take months, which would mean you started on this early januari at the very latest. And there’s no right reason to not announce it as soon as the decision is made.
-Speaking of announcements: why is there nothing on last.fm’s frontpage regarding this? If nothing else you want to give ppl time to sort out their accounts and subscriptions, which is hardly done sufficiently by hiding it in a blog which is not one but 2 pages away from the frontpage. It’s not even on the blog’s main page.
-Anyone who can type this:
“By offering different services to different regions, we are in a better position to continue to deliver service and adapt it to the different needs of our users around the world.”
without bursting out laughing knowing that the ‘different needs’ will be solely reflected in the monthly fees is by no means sane enough to be making business-decisions for a huge organisation. I’ve never seen such a load of bull**** in my life.
And these are just issues regarding the announcement itself. On top of that there’s a plethora of reasons why this course of action is something that no-one in their right mind should even consider. Just a couple:
-Given that last.fm’s ad-revenue in the US/UK/DE covers their expenses for at least those countries one should work on getting a larger userbase in other countries as well. Exclusively charging people in these countries basicly kills your chances at this.
-There’s a couple of good alternatives around that in fact are free. There’s no such thing as loyalty on the internet.
You’re probably underestimating how many people simply refuse to pay anything for something on the internet. Be it 0,50 a month or 10,. Basicly by charging any amount of money you challenge people to think about how much they do in fact need your service before going through the hassle of paying. You might not come out of that assessment as well as you’d like to think.-Scaling down (which is what this ultimately will come down to) is going to make membership a lot less interesting for people who are at this moment very happy to pay a small fee. The loved track radio for instance will now only be accessible by other paying members.
-It’s the combination of a personal profile and personalized radio that makes last.fm unique. Separating the 2 will make people realize there’s better profile-websites as well as better radio-sites available. It’s this combo that’s golden… take it away and there’s only a mediocre networking service as well as a paid radio on which you can’t even select your own tracks.
No-one’s this stupid. Let’s hope for all our sakes it is in fact a joke. GL regardless :D
Andylat
25 March, 05:20
bye bye last.fm
hi grooveshark
Sir_Sid
25 March, 05:32
This is a bad idea. Ive always tried getting people to use last fm, but I dont think i will anymore. Im not effected by this, but I am against the entire principle. Why not just insert ads instead for their streams? Pay only is a terrible way to kill your market share.
yo
25 March, 05:35
Fuck you last, hi groveshark
narhei
25 March, 05:36
anyway, last.fm sucks
bye bye
mathias
25 March, 06:00
This sucks and you can count me out, your radio is not worth £3 a month, not by a long shot. This probably means I will stop using and recommending Last.fm all together.
Also pisses me off that all good alternatives to music and movies are free and available in the US while here in Sweden were fucked everytime.
Rockus
25 March, 06:06
Man! I bought a subscription a few hours back and didnt see this! I am not from one of your “privileged” countries. I hope I will be able to use it normally till my subscription gets over.
P.S: This thing pretty much sucks and I suggest instead of 30 tracks at one go, you get some recurring limits. Losing market share is not a good idea!
P.P.S: Fire.fm says “No more content available” WTF! And I am getting “error connecting…” for every radio station I try. Nice! This after getting a subscription?
Bruno Malone
25 March, 06:13
You have one less user. Brunomalone, from spain.
PeterParents
25 March, 06:14
I can say I saw this coming, and more!!! I´ll stay till the end, but this sucks ass! I´m outside your 3 listed countries, so I guess the recommendations radio is just the beginning! As I said, I´ll stay to the end, but I will refuse paying for the pile of shit LastFm (unfortunately) is turning into!!!
Pimp
25 March, 06:15
go to the hell
mzq
25 March, 06:17
goodbye lastfm
hello piratebay :)
Stereotyped by LastFM
25 March, 06:19
Interestingly enough, they stopped listening to you. They’ve ignored any and all issues you might have because it takes two hands to count money. The money they want you to pay to still get less features than their favorites get for free. You’ll be the ones paying for the enjoyment of another who doesn’t have to. I wonder if they’ll say thank you while they bend you over.
John Dosers
25 March, 06:21
I’m upset to hear these news.
1. charge everyone the same thing or don’t charge.
2. you kind of promised free radio ..so much for that
3. I believe the correct terminology is “favouritism”. that is a slap in the face to the rest of the users.
4. Asking people to recommand you then shank us with the news is so, so co-orp. type of thinking/acting.
I would like to say thank you for your service, and I hope you don’t end up in a bad place. I also hope that you revert your decision that will make my first hope be impossible to achieve.
Ummm...
25 March, 06:37
I would pay for myself. I will not pay for the Americans, the British and the Germans.
I have nothing against people from these countries, I just don’t want to pay for them.
Bye, last.fm
dexter
25 March, 06:45
Spotify está creciendo y q hace last.fm?
Bah, al fin y al cabo estaba usando mas spotify.
Gente de Spotify ya saben que hacer, scrobbling y se tienen encima la mitad de usuarios de last.fm!
Bye last.fm!
Hello Spotify!
and you grooveshark!
fosk
25 March, 06:47
Bye bye last.fm :(
yves
25 March, 06:48
I’m from Switzerland a 1st world country. I like last.fm and I considered paying the subscription fee before this announcement.
People in UK, DE and US and in Switzerland can afford the subscription fee without thinking but people form other countries can not.
This is not a fair treatment. I will leave last.fm which makes me really sad.
I recommended your service way too many friends, now I have to tell them that I was wrong.
:(
Marcin
25 March, 06:52
In my opinion it’s some kid of test/voting poll. Last.fm wants to know what people will be thinking about such a move. Because if a company wants to do something like that they always must have some statstics, to help them count if it will make the earn more money.
Here we’ve got in “terms of use”: “We reserve the right to add, delete, change or modify parts of these Terms of Use at our sole discretion and at any time without notice to you. If we do this, we will post the changes to the Terms of Use on this page and will indicate the effective date of the Terms of Use at the top of the page.” – Last.fm did not do so. I want belive in any prices until writen in the terms of use. For many reasons, but legal ones first at all.
Morgan
25 March, 06:59
CBS kills Yahoo! LAUNCHcast Radio personalized station, now Last.fm is going down. I will NEVER buy a CD in my entire life NEVER, I’m sick of the record labels and the big companies. Use a proxy to listen to last.fm outside the US, DE or UK or just download the music you like.
emule
torrent
I have spend too much already and you guys are ridiculously rich (labels and some artists) and the majority are already dead so they don’t care. I’m a dentist and I will love that my patients will pay me every time they eat.
Bye bye… No money here!
Oguz Kaan Cagatay Kilinc
25 March, 07:01
FREE IS FREE http://www.last.fm/group/FREE+IS+FREE; The last decision of Last.FM is “listening to Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription of €3.00 per month” except United States, United Kingdom and Germany and continue with “There will be a 30 track free trial, and we hope this will convince people to subscribe and keep listening to the radio.” Free Is Free, Dont Forget That Last.FM. Give Me Back Our Freedom… Join and Support Us…
Acey
25 March, 07:07
I just hope you’re prepared for the massive decrease in radio listeners. And quite likely it will also negatively affect the number of general Last.fm users.
What was the point of the CBS deal if now you can actually provide less free content than before it?
Jérôme
25 March, 07:07
Sorry but …
www.spotify.com
Pitel
25 March, 07:10
What mzq said applies to me too.
Cyrem
25 March, 07:13
Goodbye lastfm then… I already pay enough for other stuff on the net and I don’t want to have to pay for more subsciptions. I live in a 1st world country however this cost puts it now in the unnecessary thow-away items list. I expect a lot of people to leave…
flegmatyk
25 March, 07:15
Thanks guys, great news, I’m deleting my account RIGHT NOW.
Megaman
25 March, 07:16
Fuck this. Making Last FM chargeable for everyone kills the excitement one feels while listening to free radio stations. It’s a huge step backwards, nothing more, no matter how low the price is.
Pixieguts
25 March, 07:17
Again the creative contributions of both subscribers and regular users at Last.fm have been thoughtlessly disregarded. First it was the carefully handcrafted personal tag radios that so many masses of us spent long periods of time crafting tag by tag. Now it’s the specialised global radios that large groups of people have collaborated on making over years. All only available to subscribers now – a fraction of the user base of the site. To me this spells the real demise of last.fm. CBS sucks to the max!
krzysiekst
25 March, 07:20
account removed
mikowhy
25 March, 07:21
last castle of freedom in internet has just colapsed….
Galaktyczny Edek
25 March, 07:24
Say goodbye to last.fm, say hello to jango.com.
zion
25 March, 07:25
buy buy last.fm
See you in hell
lol
25 March, 07:28
fucking lol. paid service you ass.
Suicidal
25 March, 07:28
For those of you who wish to vent your frustrations and anger, may I recommend:
http://www.last.fm/music/Suicidal+Tendencies/_/Send+Me+Your+Money
Be warned though, you may use up one of your 30 listens!
fjoord
25 March, 07:29
Good bye last.fm.
Javi Moya
25 March, 07:33
Last.fm RIP
2002-2009
NocnikStargazer
25 March, 07:34
I don’t like dividing the users to the better ones (these from US, UK and Germany) and the worse ones. It’s not fair. I think I might delete my account soon – well, I’m not from one of the “good” countries. I’m not interesting to you so I’m not going to bother you any more. I can listen to the music without statistics. I think I will also manage to find new music and people with similar taste without your help.
Of course I understand that paying members must have something more than non-subscribes and I wouldn’t mind adding some new features available only for them. Still I think that taking away something the non-subscribers had is not really fair.
It’s not really about money, subscription is not expensive and I could afford it. I just feel you don’t respect me and it’s only because I live in the wrong country. You forgot that the ‘market’ is people.
Seems I’m not a ‘right’ person.
amoult
25 March, 07:39
Goodbye last.fm.
Hello Spotify!
sorry to hear that
25 March, 07:40
It’s not like Last.fm is the only service out there. Well, it was good while it lasted.
pierrezi
25 March, 07:43
This is outrageous. You boys where one of the first web 3,0 platforms. Now You will bombard yourselves back into web 1,0 world when marketeers used to think that people are willing to pay for online services.
I’ll tell you something. They’re not.
There are already alternatives for last.fm, you know. What the heck, maybe I’ll start one.
Really disappointed. Put more banners online if you need more , I don’t care.
And there’s another thing, how arrogant can you when you do apply the same rules for everyone. Does that mean that a belgian last.fm user is less equal then a UK fan? Some animals are more equal then others? And that on the web. Thé platform for ultimate democracy. You’ll be sorry for this. And So Am I.
Zaragozano85
25 March, 07:44
What a disappointment if it comes true.
If so, goodbye when that madness start. It was a pleasure.
Johan
25 March, 07:45
Well, guess this will be the end of last.fm for me then…
Going to look for a alternative right away.
michel
25 March, 07:45
there was a time i loved you, last.fm
i think its best now not to see you anymore
bye, my dear
exUser
25 March, 07:48
I think that is the begin of the END.
Nevermore.
vikartindur
25 March, 07:50
saddening… i have never downloaded anything from last.fm, and as far as i know, this is impossible. i’m just listening… like an air radio.. if i wanted to buy the music, i’d go to the record store and buy the album, also paying for the booklet, the inner sleeve, cover etc.. why pay for the music on the radio??
Mag
25 March, 07:55
So, goodbye for now.
Let’s show them, the “others countries” are not worse than this “three kings”! You want more money? Take it from those 3 rich countries.
A.S.
25 March, 07:57
Too bad. I’m thinking about deleting my account. That’s a great pity, because Last.fm meant a lot for me as a musician and a listener. It was no ordinary social network, but something special. Now that it all goes commercial and divides the audience into “The better ones from the US, UK and Germany” and “The worse ones from “other countries” (this reminds me of “the third world” term). I don’t want to be a part of it. So goodbye, Last.fm, it was a pleasure to be with you all this time.
Michael Leung
25 March, 07:59
I am really pissed. I love last.fm, and I am unable to get Pandora where I live. You are making a big mistake, guys.
I don’t like this. I’ll still use you guys for scrobbling, but that’s it. I’m not shelling out for something that should have been free. I used to enjoy listening to new music on Last.fm for free, but it’s not something I’m going to pay for.
zeleny
25 March, 07:59
I can afford the pay but it won’t help me here in Russia.
My music collection have migrated three times already since I took to successively change formats. I paid three times at least for each disc I listen to.
So I won’t pay, and the labels may devour their own tails and urge their imminent deaths.
Alan
25 March, 08:01
kthxbye
kamil3762
25 March, 08:06
I see, last fm is becoming commercial shit…
3lo-byte
25 March, 08:07
It’s not a question of 3 EUR. It’s a matter of segregation “1st class people” from “riffraff”. That’s, in my opinion, what makes people annoyed, despite they could perfectly afford to pay.
valderama
25 March, 08:14
seems like you guys should already have some experience in pricing strategies. the variable you have changed now is that a few countries stay free. looks like a test to see how the people react. if a decent percentage gets the subscription, i won’t wonder if half a year later also the people in the other countries have to pay.
btw will I be able to play the radio, when i am on vacation in austria? So do you check the IP or what I specify in my profile?
Tim Dobson
25 March, 08:16
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/874uo/listening_to_lastfm_radio_will_require_a/
Digg:http://digg.com/tech_news/Last_fm_to_Start_Charging_International_Users_sorry_Canada
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56512292573
Twitter: #failfm
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/group/FREE+IS+FREE
Slashdot: GET IT ON THERE – http://slashdot.org/contribute.pl
Rayhawk
25 March, 08:16
I just started with Last.FM and thought this was great. I’m in the US, but I don’t think I will be using a service that will make people from other countries pay for something I can get for free. Thanks for letting the US have free music, but I’ll pass..it’s just not fair.
NocnikStargazer
25 March, 08:17
OK, so I’ve uninstalled Last.fm software – no more scrobbling from me. It’s sad and I will miss it but feel discriminated and not respected. I’m going to keep my account for about two or three weeks – to say goodbye to my friend, help to find leaders for my groups, make a screenshots of my charts (I don’t want to lose them completely because I’ve had lots of fun here). Then I delete it.
Damn, I’m almost crying – I had a wonderful time here, I met some great people, I discovered some cool music…
Pete
25 March, 08:18
Hmm, seems like surrendering to Spotify. Well, it’s better in many ways, but the radio stations were still a bit better in last.fm.
mustafa
25 March, 08:21
hmm. that’s a different way of telling “the other countries gonna pay the radio listeners’ expenses which are from uk, germany and us. weird. very weird.
Harris
25 March, 08:23
that’s the joy of the internet….
something else will emerge and replace you.
long live free services!
Dmitry, Russia
25 March, 08:25
Bye-bye, last.fm.
Sam
25 March, 08:25
Its not about money. Ofcourse many people have 3€ to pay, but im too lazy to pay anything if i can get it free from other sites like http://www.meemix.com, jango, etc etc… Sorry but this is true.
ignacio
25 March, 08:27
Es una puta estafa…. no entendéis el negocio.
Is a fucking trick
Someone
25 March, 08:28
There are a lot of free radios around the world. Forcing users to pay something that was promoted as free is not good bussines decision. This was your main bussines model, and you are changing it. In the times of recession that it’s not a good thing.
Yaroslav Shvetsov
25 March, 08:30
Hmm… I will think about paying for your service. I think that you deserve it.
Andrey Ivanov
25 March, 08:31
I can understand that radio can be quite expensive to run because of royalties you have to pay in each country.
I can understand that US/UK/Germany are your fastest growing markets which makes them much more important to your business than the rest of the world.
However understanding doesn’t mean acceptance. I find your decision unethical. If something can’t be free then everyone should pay!
Screw you guys! I’m not going to resign over this. I’m going to pay to US-based VPN service provider instead.
Have
25 March, 08:32
Join the group in order to face this dicrimiation together: http://www.lastfm.pl/group/Last.fm+payment+subscription+protest
Someone
25 March, 08:32
Are you gays or what? Burn in hell!
One of the Polish boys
25 March, 08:35
So fucking stupid decision…
bye bye now ;)
dork
25 March, 08:35
i don’t know where your company is registered, but keeping service for UK and germany free and payable for the rest is in EU illegal, at least when other EU countries are concerned…
Kevin Verma
25 March, 08:35
You suck !
Isn’t it some sort of discrimination ? because I am not from UK/US or Germany !!!
cortimiglia
25 March, 08:36
@Rayhawk, it’s nice to see that even Americans have some sense of decency!
Arctic_Mallard
25 March, 08:37
GREAT. Now you are also part of the money lust world, too. I’m living in Finland, so why do we have to pay for the listening of music?!? Why don’t you make USA, Great Britain and Germany for paying too??
I can taste greed. I’ve been member of Last for a little over a year and I really thought you are different from another internet communities. I really liked your style. But not anymore. You are the same SHIT too.
Have great days with 3 paying accounts in new Shit.fm.
PS. My account is Arctic_Mallard. You can kick me out anytime. DON’T FUCKING CARE. FU.
PSS. GUYS. You can save like 3 324983 accounts for your website if you forget the whole thing. Please.
Mike
25 March, 08:37
It seems weird for the people who contribute with music, knowing that their music will only be heard by US/UK/DE users and a handfull of people in the rest of world. If this rest of the world was their target audience, why would they continue to contribute?
And what about people who do not wish you to make money from their music. Will you be deleting their music from your servers, or only play their music in US/UK/DE ?
Al
25 March, 08:39
WTF.
I wouldn’t mind paying for the radio if it wasn’t fairly feature-limited. It’s not like I can even click on a track and choose to play it for most songs I listen to, even if I do use the new subscription service. The service is unappealing compared to what others offer.
This just reinforces how much it sucks for Canadian users of most music websites… Last.fm radio is a third-rate Pandora, and now if I even want to use it I’ll have to pay $72 Canadian a year for a platform that mostly exposes me to major-label bands and events I’m not interested in. I’d rather go to a couple of shows and support the local music scene in my city.
I could probably sympathize with trying to get some money out of users if it weren’t for the disparity between some countries and others, and if I felt like I was actually getting something worthwhile instead of having something taken away. This hasn’t really been handled well. 15km away from me across a border, Americans are getting the exact same service for free that I now have to pay $72 for? That’s stupid. I’d rather discover and listen to new artists on New Music Canada or music blogs or Myspace or Youtube or blip.fm or Hype Machine instead.
F.
25 March, 08:39
I’m not in the good country. Goodbye. I don’t think you understood that you were not the only one on the internet.
Christer
25 March, 08:39
Bye Last.fm :-(, Spotify here I come.
Mire
25 March, 08:43
I am currently living in the United Kingdom, but I have to go to Spain for a year. I am a suscriber until May, but I don’t think I’ll subscribe again – €3 per month just for a radio I CANNOT control, only with a ‘next’ button? Just because I live in the wrong country? No way. Bring on youtube / daily motion. You are going lose so many users from so many countries.
L
25 March, 08:44
so all the rich countries don’t have to pay and others do???
thanx a lot, but no thanx. hope this will be the end of your service (although I enjoy it).
Moose
25 March, 08:45
And so the revolution ended…
Moi
25 March, 08:46
no more last.fm
angry
25 March, 08:46
two words:
FUCK TARDS
Borislav
25 March, 08:46
That’s the fate of every once-free internet service, and it sucks. Someone will replace you soon. Oh, and I hope the financial crisis ruins you. It will suit you well. Burn in hell.
glaciator
25 March, 08:47
Goodbye, then. It was good while it lasted. This might seem like a clever move, for now, but I bet you’ll regret it in the long run. Enjoy the wealth, yachts, etc, and then ask for a govt bailout in a few years, to “keep providing the best etc etc etc”.
As for us, hello www.deezer.com, here I come!
Raziel
25 March, 08:47
Are you out of your mind? Not even Flickr is as expensive. And I only have to pay if I want PREMIUM, UNLIMITED service, not just because I happen to be in a NOT-COOL-COUNTRY.
This is racist, I think I would be even willing to pay if there weren’t three protected, “cool” countries, that for no reason are “better” than the one where I happen to be right now.
What’s next, only homosexual male and fat women have to pay?
I’m off. Thanks for the service so far.
An Artist
25 March, 08:49
As an independent artist with 2 albums available for streaming on Last.fm I am pretty appalled by this. I thought I was allowing my music to be available for free. I guess this is to pay for the new royalties system you have put in place to pay the artists. To be honest, you’d be better off getting rid of that as it’s not even worth my time trying to collect them such is the pittance that you pay out.
It is now obvious to me that you have a failed business model. You pretend that you are paying the artists and are now going to charge the listener, all while lining your own pockets. You have now joined the corporate ranks of the big music labels in the way you screw over everybody in pursuit of profit as far as I can tell. Therefore I will be removing my albums from your playlist ASAP, and campaigning for my fellow artists through my various connections to do the same.
yoshi314
25 March, 08:49
oh well, it’s not like i have used this feature much, since it was already pretty limited for a non-subscription account.
i can understand dividing users between free service and subscribers, since you have to pay your bills. but dividing users on a per-country basis is clearly wrong.
if this keeps up – i’ll also ditch your entire service. i doubt i’ll be the only one doing so.
“Everything else on Last.fm (scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc.) will remain free in all countries, like it is now.”
for how long, exactly?
rbt
25 March, 08:50
So long and thanks for all the suggestions. This really #@%^$^% me off
gunes
25 March, 08:51
this really sucks!
lol i guess ill have to switch back to Pandora, that is FREE!
B
25 March, 08:52
The internet was one of the greatest achievements of mankind; unifying the worlds communication, literature, arts and music.
Then business decided it was more profitable to divide and discriminate.
Why have they chosen to penalize people by country? Why not gender? Hair colour? Music taste?
Mark R.
25 March, 08:53
In other words: people that are not from the UK, USA and Germany pay for people from those countries to use the service.
If last.fm were a country, there would be massive strikes and the government would fall.
Good luck.
An Artist
25 March, 08:53
@Mike (08:37)
You posted while I was composing my reply. As you’ll see, that’s exactly how I feel – and many others I know will feel the same and will withdraw their music.
JT
25 March, 08:54
Bye bye last.fm. You never reached up to pandora in terms interesting recommendations, and so is not that big of a loss. I’d rather go somewhere else if money becomes part of the equation.
rikva
25 March, 08:56
Okay…
I have been a subscriber for over 1,5 years, but I really do not like this decision. I know a lot of friend don’t subscribe but listen to the radio very frequently. This might as well kill last.fm… :(
Carl
25 March, 08:56
That’s just stupid. I’ll delete my account right now.
Konstantin
25 March, 08:57
I’m an artist and i’ll delete all my tracks from last.fm
xnapoleonx
25 March, 08:58
This is quite punch in the face, especially since those 3 countries are excluded from the list.
Anyhow, I’m afraid there’s too much competion to make this a paid service. Too bad no other way was found.
Me
25 March, 09:00
Maybe some day I will pay for listening to music online but it won’t be till I stop being treated as a 3rd rate customer because of the country I live in.
ashok pai
25 March, 09:01
thanx! it was fun while it lasted!
Pedro Machado Santa
25 March, 09:02
Cut the crap. Answer this simple question: Why?
And why it’s only free in US, UK and Germany?
You want to be heading to fail?
Spotify is great anyway. Don’t give me a reason to abandon Last.fm.
Cees
25 March, 09:02
Horrible. Seems contradictory to the Last.fm philosofy. And why are we paying for free radio in UK,US en GE? After fabchannel.com the second big dissappointment.
Jan
25 March, 09:02
I hope this means that users without subscription outside the three übercountries don’t have to watch the ads?
Grimmo
25 March, 09:05
Man this really sucks, I had just arrived at last.fm since a couple of months and was really enjoying it. I even managed to make it work with my airport express and stream it to my living room hi-fi, that’s too bad!
I hope you’ll rethink about it.
Paul Geest
25 March, 09:06
I’m outta here. Have been a member since 2002 and now I’m screwed by the service that I helped exist.
Can someone send an invite for Spotify to paul.geest@mobielbetalen.nl?
Thanks!
Michael
25 March, 09:06
I’m amazed that so many people think that radio is free. It’s not, radios pay performance rights to the songwriters – which is all some of them have to live off (unless they are a touring band). These rights are paid by advertising revenues or, in some countries, radio licence fees. There is no such thing as free radio.
Even on the web, somebody somewhere has to pay for the bandwidth usage. And that money has to come from somewhere.
I don’t know what specifically pushed Last.fm to make this decision, but I’m not in the least surprised. All those mentioning Spotify might want to bear in mind that the company has no real revenue to speak of. It’s just another (rather cool) Internet gamble and so will eventually start asking people to put their hands in their pockets as well.
donbasilio
25 March, 09:07
I would understand it if that would be for everyone and it would cost way less, say, one euro.
I’ve been a spot subscriber twice and I regret I did so. Why not everybody? Why that much?
Foobaroo
25 March, 09:09
can you put button delete account in player, it will save time.
Drunkmaster666
25 March, 09:10
This will be over. I’ll delete my account and search better and free radios.
Adios
Aaroncast86
25 March, 09:10
I’m a Canadian, living in Canada. I don’ use the radio feature of Last.FM right now and never have. I’d compare charging a monthly subscription fee for it to the fee I assume people with XFM or Sirius Satellite Radio charge, in that I have no problem with the idea. However, I do use Last.FM to scrobb my music and use the site to learn what musicians I really listen to most. I also use Last.FM to find new bands I might like based on bands I listen to. As long as the features I use are free, I wont be complaining.
nadir
25 March, 09:11
It’s funny to see how at the end everyone acts the same way…
I’ve been using last.fm for not so long but I was already a fan…now I WILL FOR SURE LOOK FOR OTHER OPTIONS.
I’m sorry guys, but you did the wrong movement. I’ll just remove my account and profile…
¡adios!
j-a-n-u-s
25 March, 09:11
There goes Last.FM…
BTW, I live in Germany, but I have no illusions about how this will affect the network as a whole.
It’s been fun tho, and I am sure somebody with their heads not quite so up their asses will pick up eventually.
Jan Jansen
25 March, 09:11
that’s really a great fuckup for alot of countries (including the Netherlands where I live).
I will go back to scrobbling music since I like that too about LastFM.
Marek
25 March, 09:13
this resembles the worst practices of segregation and imperialism. let’s divide the world for “the better ones” and “the second league”. oh yeah! me, coming from CE Europe really like this way we are treated all the time. You suck big time!
MantiCora
25 March, 09:13
good bye last.fm
BART
25 March, 09:14
the solution
control panel> add/remove
I’m not a german, american or english, so i will pay money????GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!!!
Erik
25 March, 09:16
Been with you for years now, but this is it – off to delete my account. NOT a smart move.
Marc
25 March, 09:19
Crap! Really don’t understand why there’s this type of discrimination…
But, no worries, plenty of alternatives ;)
On top of my list:
http://www.imeem.com
http://www.deezer.com
http://www.spotify.com
http://www.playlist.com
http://www.grooveshark.com
Have been thinking about songbird too.
Some more suggestions:
AOL Radio, Imeem, iTunes Music Service, Pandora, Musicovery, MSN Music, Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Zune Marketplace, Amie Street, Blip.fm, Deezer, Fairtilizer, FineTune, Grooveshark, Highnote, Hype Machine, iJigg, IdioMag, iLike, lala.com, Live365, Magnatune, MixWit, Mogg, MP3.com, Muxtape, Playlist, Spotify, Seeqpod, skreemr.com, Slacker, …
Andrey Ivanov
25 March, 09:19
I have a more interesting question. Why haven’t you send this announcement to every user’s inbox? The decision is rather important and applies to everyone but not everyone reads your blog. Don’t you feel obliged to notify every user upon any big changes to your terms of service?
I really hate the fact that I learned about this not from last.fm main page, not from announcement sent to my last.fm inbox but from a link my friend forwarded to me.
Lazerbeat
25 March, 09:19
You know, I really think people would have donated huge amounts of money to this service because it was so good. Forcing this kind of thing on people is no way to win friends. Just a good way to lose customers and encourage them to look elsewhere. Users are a privilige not a right.
Paddis
25 March, 09:19
Goodbye Last.fm – Hi Spotify!
Riky
25 March, 09:21
I’ll leave my lastfm account and move to another alternative website, jango, etc etc
djude
25 March, 09:21
Is there a way i can export my scrobled data (csv, xml or something like that) before i delete my account?
A disappointed user
25 March, 09:21
Now, you fucked up big, this time!
Jonas Finnemann Jensen
25 March, 09:22
If you wanted to make more money, you should advertise more for subscriptions…
It took me a few months of last.fm usage to realize that I could subscribe… Now I have been a subscriber for over a year…
And if you really want to get subscribers you need create an API and desktop applications for easily modifying playlists!
You need make more and better features for subscribers instead…
And make advertise more! People doesn’t know about subscriptions!
That said, I understand you need change… BUT charging different fees per country is not acceptable… And it makes me reconsider my subscription as I don’t want to support such behavior!
Atrus
25 March, 09:23
This is idiotic. I don’t care what your business model is: we’re in 2009, in a supposedly free market, so everyone should have the exact same service for the exact same price; anything different is just blatant discrimination.
Now you’ll tell me that this discrimination is not your fault, but because of the different national laws. I don’t care. To the end user, the only valid business model is one that is transparent and equal for all. We do not care what happens behind the curtain: either all pay, or no one pays.
I’m saddened because I was just starting to use the Last.fm radio a lot, since I can’t dump my whole music collection on the laptop at work. But if the alternative is paying just because I’m in the wrong country, I’ll just find another free radio and lose some scrobbles. Or just stop scrobbling at all.
jukey
25 March, 09:23
I’m from Germany.
I’m a subscriber of your service since June 2007.
I can’t accept this evil “compromise” that says People from DE/UK/US don’t have to pay for something which cots in all the other countries 3 EUR/month.
I’ll delete my profile until 31.03.09 and remove all of my generated content (it’s not much I know).
Bye-bye last.fm!
Luke
25 March, 09:23
I know im just repeating what has been said but im dissapointed. I was hoping to promote my music on here but it has really lost its reach. If a subscription provides the ability for you to allow your music to be heard by the wider populus (especially if your not signed and not applying for royalties like me!) then ill be doing it. Very dissapointed by the decision and its pretty obvious that CBS have something to do with it as its been fine for years.
V
25 March, 09:25
Thank the Lord for proxy servers, and if that ain’t going to work.. It was nice to know you and farewell.
Ro
25 March, 09:27
R.I.P. Last FM :-(
PixlPushr
25 March, 09:28
Byebye Last FM for me (and a lot of other users form the ‘other’ countries I imagine)… It has been fun. A shame that moneymaking has taken over once again.
abrahaz
25 March, 09:28
“A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound
…a buck or a pound
…a buck or a pound.
Is all that makes the world go around
That clinking, clanking sound…
Can make the world go ‘round
Money money money money
Money money money money
Money money money…”
That’s what the song says.I hope that the money makes you happy.I don’t want be a part of this…
hesitate@last.fm
25 March, 09:29
Ok…
I can already see this as an Ask Slashdot post about Last.fm alternatives….
If your advertising business is better established in the US, UK and DE, why don’t you simply try harder to improve it in other countries?
I understand that it there´s this financial crisis which hitting some businesses hard, but I also understand that it is hitting some businesses like a convenient opportunity…
Now remember that US, UK and DE users use last.fm because what makes it good is the basis of a community. If you start killing the community (did you ever realize how big is it outside the aforementioned countries?). Yeah, you have a huge catalog of tags already, but remember there are discussions, comments, new artists emerging etc. that need a strong community to be alive.
OK, enough talking and back to see if it’s still worth bothering with Last.fm.
P.S. Would be nice if you last.fm guys comment a bit more here instead of just answering the easy questions.
cade3
25 March, 09:30
Hello.
The day this policy starts is the day I close my last.fm account.
That is all.
-cade3.
game0ver
25 March, 09:30
I’ve scrobbled 99,331 tracks, use the site for recommendations and events every day, have never seen an ad or subscribed and have never tuned into the radio.
you guys do a great job, but I never knew how you were going to make any money.
Sean
25 March, 09:31
A lot of people are pissed off that a free service is turning into a paid one. It’s so typical.
Last.fm isn’t going to die from this change. Bad luck of course if you as a user will need to start paying.
This change can only make last.fm an even better service.
youngmrcurtis
25 March, 09:32
I’m already a subscriber-from a country that is affected by this change, and I’m happy to pay the subscription free given the choice, and there’s the important part, I pay because I feel it’s warranted and I choose to.
Charging the rest of the world a flat fee that’s fair by the standards we hold here in western europe is kind of bs too. Localised pricing would be a pain in the ass, but for the sake of supporting artists and continuing to support them, wouldn’t it be better to get people to pay something reasonable by their standards to listen? The alternative is that people will start just using last fm for the recommendations list, then offing to their torrent tracker to download, or they’ll stop using last fm altogether.
The notion that some should get it for free is ridiculous too. Especially considering most people in the 3 countries that will continue to get free radio, can easily afford to put a few euros aside a month to listen if it’s that important to them.
I don’t feel the indignance of some users in response to this is at all justified, this isn’t a charity, people need to paid to keep the service going and with an increasing userbase and pressure from record companies for more more more advertising revenue just won’t keep things afloat. People seem to forget that just because you don’t pay for something yourself, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s free.
vate
25 March, 09:32
goodbye, last.fm
Llama
25 March, 09:32
One of the main reasons I chose last.fm over Pandora was that I had access to the radio in Poland. I’m a subscriber, I already pay for your service, and now I’m meant to dish out even more? Something’s not right here.
Also, since when are Germany and the UK covered by different EU legislation than the rest of the Union?
I won’t be leaving last.fm as I like my charts too much, but I sure as hell won’t be renewing my subscription.
oo
25 March, 09:33
It’s been fun to use last.fm for the last five years. But now I’m forced to move on. I feel sorry about it, however there are other services out there. I always wondered how you could provide last.fm for free. It won’t take long, however, for someone starting an open source P2P last.fm variant.
Litos
25 March, 09:33
La habéis cagao
dee
25 March, 09:36
Just connect through proxy which is located @ those 3 mentioned countries. ftw
Joaquim Rocha
25 March, 09:36
I have no trouble dropping last.fm… There are alternatives and I already listened with great joy to music before you started streaming.
-1 for last.fm
Dean Francis
25 March, 09:38
What a horrible move, this will do more damage to Last.fm than they think.
kenjisdose
25 March, 09:38
It is nonsense and I am sure it goes beyond the original purposes of last.fm. Last.fm and Spotify are the future of the music indeed. I do not know what kind of reaction you are trying to get from the audience, but personally, I think it will prevent users from subscribing.
Federico Pistono
25 March, 09:38
I realise this has to do with international rights and licensing, but please don’t do it.
There has to be another way, I started using this service and told all my friends about because it was following the philosophy I loved: opens source programs, clean interface, simple and free.
Just improved the quality of the subscription service, don’t downgrade normal users, they’ll hate you for that.
Don’t do it, please.
Alan Riaso
25 March, 09:38
To financially discriminate against your users on a geographical basis is indefensible. In future Last.fm will be a study in how to drop the ball business-wise.
Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Goodbye.
Mustang
25 March, 09:39
[i]In order to keep providing the best radio service on the web, we need to ask our listeners from countries other than USA, UK and Germany to subscribe for €3.00 per month[/i]
And why these 3 countries are not ask to contribute too ?
What’s your justification ? How can you even come up with such an unfair bullshit idea ?
FUCK YOU
Former subscriber
25 March, 09:39
bye. It was not that nice after all..
siktar
25 March, 09:39
Very disappointed.
Chris
25 March, 09:39
this is absolutely bullshit. well i live in germany and i even donated cause i like last.fm and support their doing. the reason that this is be done is only cause the big heads on the musicindustry still don’t realised that we need a global charge (like 1$ from every internetuser) and not seperated services here and there that do an extra charge. WAKE UP DAMNIT, WAKE UP!!!
ikariya69
25 March, 09:39
proxies or byebye !
velimir
25 March, 09:39
never used radio anyway since i got bunch of music and theres a lot of free trance radio stations with live events around the net.
Marc
25 March, 09:42
Did I already mention:
http://www.mixtape.me
SlimG
25 March, 09:43
I don’t use the Last.fm streaming anymore since I’ve got Spotify, but this announcement totally killed the love I had for this former splendid service.
fwiw free Spotify invites:
http://spotify.mikromann.net/
http://www.lakka.se/index.php?p=spot
Anyone know of a good alternative scrobbling service? Sure hope there’s a way to extract all my statics from Last.fm
geodude
25 March, 09:44
What comes after 30-3!!!???
1 April.. its hoax!
Zarrix
25 March, 09:44
I don’t mind forking out a few bucks for a service, I am a last FM Subscriber, but when three countries get it for free and everyone else is forced to pay, that annoys me a little bit.
pingwin
25 March, 09:45
#Jeremy
for me the coffee is not free anymore but my neighbour gets for free.
jasquigl
25 March, 09:45
Okay, so Last.fm’s whole business is based on the listening habits data which we users provide.
So, let’s make a deal, I’ll let you keep using my data to keep your business working, and you don’t charge me for listening to the streaming stations which, in effect, generate sales for the record companies.
Or, you can pay me $3 a month for the use of my data.
Sean
25 March, 09:49
Charge everyone or charge no one.
Alan Riaso
25 March, 09:50
3 euro/month to listen to streams crippled with Net radio rules (cant request specific song, cant play artist more than 3 times per hour etc.)?
Good luck with that.
Ya see this is exactly why I torrent. Last.fm, you have overestimated your own importance to music on the internet.
Kostas
25 March, 09:53
Last FM provided a very good service for a long time now. However, I am not willing to pay for it. Goodbye Last FM…
ggz
25 March, 09:53
What radio? Scrobbling is enough :D
Eric
25 March, 09:54
“And thus, with one stroke, the mighty beast crumbled and fell.”
I guess that’s the end of Last,fm, then.
Shame. I was actually planning on buying a subscription again. But this ‘pay or fuck off’ attitude for everything but the Three Glorious Countries (Praise Them) makes me go for the second option. And, I suspect, many more with me. I foresee the death of Last.fm before 2010…
in_cognitus
25 March, 09:54
La cupidigia rompe il sacco!.
The only living boy in New York
25 March, 09:58
“Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Spotify will run you over.
mtoaboy
25 March, 09:59
****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************Why not treat the “rest of the world” as one big “country”?******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
gysgewys
25 March, 09:59
I don’t mind paying a subscription fee, since you offer a great service. However, offering your service for free in three (of the richest!) countries only, and asking people from other (and especially poorer) countries pay is not very social, and in that sense last.fm unworthy.
Besides your way of communicating this is not very diplomatic and subtle, but let’s wait for your message to us on the 30th of March.
Still in doubt if I will quit: I love your service (and I’ll happily pay for it) but I don’t have respect for this distinction you make between US/UK/Germany and the rest of the world.
junkie
25 March, 10:00
@Tony Dodd excellent points. As someone from a 3rd world country, South Africa, I can barely afford the bandwidth to stream, nevermind a subscription fee, which I would happily pay… but this just reeks of licensing issues, so why should I pay for a service that’s being (ab)used by the european countries?
K3Z
25 March, 10:02
We don’t want you…
Is this how you guys treat the old members who sticked with ya over 3 years.
YOU SUCK!!!
Henk
25 March, 10:03
Last.fm has become Evil
Go fuck yourself
Perronaider
25 March, 10:03
Unbelievable
i’m already a suscriber. This sucks. Bad movement guys, webservices should be free as in free beer and should work with donations.
Thats all.
Iv
25 March, 10:03
If you operate as a commercial entity in France by doing this, I’ll ask through the CNIL to have my personal record completely erased from your database as the French laws give me the right.
I’m okay with you using my data to feed your consumer databases in exchange of free music. Now if the deal ended, let’s end it both sides.
czert
25 March, 10:05
is there a way to export all the data i scrobbled to last.fm over the years, believing the service would stay fair to everyone forever?
FuckYou
25 March, 10:06
What bullshit.
Had discovered lots of interesting music because of the HUGE variety of listeners here that I would not have normally. Guess greed prevails always….
Extremely disappointed.
And oh… I live in the UK
Johannes Wolfram
25 March, 10:06
the end of last.fm usage for me (and many other students) living in austria
i already have to pay a Radio Licence Fee in this country becaus i have a PC and i am able to listen to internet radio stations – now i have to pay for the station too … i understand last.fm but im really getting sick of the music industry …
goodbye last.fm
Byproduct
25 March, 10:06
I’d rather charge for $1 or $2 for all users instead of charging someone $3 and someone else $0. That kind of inequal treatment easily pisses users off.
gio
25 March, 10:06
bye bye last.fm
markusk
25 March, 10:10
and it’s getting even worse:
http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+Web+Services/forum/21604/_/517212
no more streaming to clients on mobile phones.. (there is no official client for symbian, is there?)
starba
25 March, 10:11
… yak …
me
25 March, 10:12
People in a lot of countries can’t pay money on the Internet because technology hasn’t kept up.
sardaukar
25 March, 10:13
I would gladly subscribe if it were mandatory for all users (and if it were, I’m sure it could be less than 3€ a MONTH). This is just unfair.
Niels
25 March, 10:13
I’d be happy to subscribe (and would have done so already). Unfortunately I live in the Netherlands and don’t have a credit card (most people don’t). There is no convenient way for me to pay. I can imagine this problem will exist in other countries, too.
MHB
25 March, 10:14
I must say that we really don’t need a concept like nation borders on the internet.
Then again, I wonder whether you can keep foreigners out just by doing some IP filtering. I guess proxyservers will be available for those who really want to listen to radio.
I am just wondering: with all the playlist data you guys have compiled by now, wouldn’t there be another business model apart from radio-service charges that would bring revenue? I think record companies would be interested in seeing which songs/artists do well on Last.fm?
spoon
25 March, 10:15
Charging for a random steaming service is too much. I’d pay for a streaming on-demand service that played exactly what I selected, but not for a random one. And the way you have gone about it, charging some countries and not others, is unfair, unequal and will infuriate people, as can clearly be seen here. Goodbye Last.fm, I shall be closing my account.
Martin Fluch
25 March, 10:15
This just plain sucks. :-/
Even though I am not affected .. but this is not the point.
lossless
25 March, 10:17
From spain, I can’t listen last.fm from my squeezebox (only from US, UK, Germ.) and now I have to pay 3$ month?
Continous dreaming, folk!!!
We don´t need pay to you, we have shoutcast, spotify, di.fm, somafm, deezer, musicovery, pandora and many more COMPLETELLY FREE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ken
25 March, 10:17
I guess it is time to remove the Last.fm client from my PC. I am so tired of non US countries getting treated like crap. I am a US citizen living in Italy. However with the economy being what it is currently, I simply don’t have the euros to spare for a subscription to what was previously an ad supported service. I don’t mind seeing ads in exchange for streaming music. I do mind having to cough up money I don’t have to listen to the same music, streamed. If I am going to cough up cash for music, then I prefer to have it downloaded in the format of my choice. Too bad, Last.fm was great while it lasted. Ciao.
Filipa Andrade
25 March, 10:18
why not charge the richest countries instead of the poorest?
Fooled!
25 March, 10:19
How do you know from which country I do listen to last.fm? Physical borders is soooooooo stupid non-web! Ever heard from proxies? Try to tell me whether I do logon from outside the US or not!
Go Ultrasurf!
UltraSurf allows you to overcome the censorship and blockage on the Internet. You can browse any website freely, so as to obtain true information from the free world.
yomismo
25 March, 10:21
Good bye Last.fm
Now is easy download free music yet. I don’t need you…you’re still alone.
darkestblood
25 March, 10:21
I’m really sorry to read this.
I’ve been a subscriptor for 2 years now and i don’t think i’m renewing my subscription anymore. (i don’t really use radios anyway)
I think this decision has killed the whole last.fm former spirit.
All this is terribly sad.
joeblow mcgee
25 March, 10:21
So FOX news tells Canada to fuck off last week, now it’s CBS’ turn with last.fm.
Just like you screw up your fantasy hockey pools (on a weekly basis at that), you’ve fucked up again CBS. Good job.
Nico
25 March, 10:22
I enjoyed it while it was free. Now I have to switch to another service.
Fooled!
25 March, 10:23
http://www.ultrareach.com/
JustERR
25 March, 10:26
It’s time to say good bye then.
Avinash Meetoo
25 March, 10:27
Guess what song was played first in my Recommendations Channel today?
“Mad World” by Tears For Fears!
exuser
25 March, 10:27
If U did the same in all countries I would pay. But U are not.
So bye bye last.fm, I hope this filthy move will make last.fm crumble and die.
Theo
25 March, 10:30
Too bad, that was one of most useful services for me. Goodbuy last.fm :(
Bunzinator
25 March, 10:31
So why the inequity? Totally unacceptable. If the charge was global, I wouldn’t have a problem. But I’ll be fucked if I’m going to subsidise users in uk/us/de.
Bye.
gwrtheyrn
25 March, 10:33
ssh tunnel to germany and the thing works again.
but i still don’t think it’s an ok thing to do. especially for people in third world countries.
as a subscriber, would we at least get full-time sound “samples”?
growlingchaos
25 March, 10:34
I really don’t like where this is going… :/
qube_pl
25 March, 10:35
Last.fm sucks! It’s time to say good bye. There are other good online radios that doesn’t cost a Last.fm sucks! It’s time to say good bye. There are other good online radios that doesn’t cost a thing.
geekaholic
25 March, 10:35
Just makes you wonder how true
http://tinyurl.com/dhok7r is. ANyway it sucks that we who live outside only have to pay.
Goodbye lastfm
daniel
25 March, 10:36
epic fail!
John Bäckstrand
25 March, 10:37
Well, its been said already:
“I’d personally love to see you finally moving forward by launching an on-demand service such as the one Spotify now offers but building on the last.fm recommendation engine. Such a service, I’d gladly pay €10 a month for but please hurry before Spotify adds community features.”
+1
last.fm down!
25 March, 10:38
This sucks deeply. 3 big countries can listen free and others pay, wtf?? Hopefully you are happy of this discrimination.
Гога
25 March, 10:38
педерасты блядь
ivan
25 March, 10:39
This doesn’t affect me, but I’m really really disappointed in last.fm. Looks like the beginning of the end.
bleh
25 March, 10:43
Great job, let’s charge the people who have LESS money!
Way to fuck up your userbase, jerks.
music lover, disillusioned last.fm'er
25 March, 10:43
this is a horrible move.
Bye bye last.fm.
Been here and gone.
And in the very same way I recommended your services to everyone around me, I’ll now un-recommend.
The whole thing which made sense about last.fm will be gone. And cherry on top of the cake, this very indecent move of the “3€/month except for our fav 3 countries”.
I’ll keep paying attention to the local (non-US, non-british, non-german) music scene as it should be, i.e, discussing with people, reading magazines, attending to gigs, sharing the excitement about this and that newly found musical artist/group/movement.
Long-live the thrill and love for music, fuck off this bloodsucking musical commerce.
aranka
25 March, 10:45
Unfriendly. Not because you ask money for something that was free, but because you do it with certain countries, and not with others. I spend most of my time in Germany, so I could consider myself lucky, but I don’t. It is the type of capitalism I really despise.
Agusti
25 March, 10:46
Yes, the beginning of the end. Bye Last.fm.
geodude
25 March, 10:46
April Fool’s Day || April Fool’s Day || April Fool’s Day || April Fool’s Day || April Fool’s Day || April Fool’s Day || April Fool’s Day || April Fool’s Day
smilelover
25 March, 10:47
I’m already a subscriber, so no change for me I hope…
But what I REALLY DISLIKE is that you do this move, while at the same time you practically hibernated development od the Last.fm app and you don’t have the iPhone app for all states…
I very much hope that you do something about it or it will be a sufficient reason for me to cancel the subscription.
v
25 March, 10:47
goodbye, last.fm.
Kasper
25 March, 10:47
For a different scrobling service try: http://www.twones.com/
Eirik H
25 March, 10:48
This means bye bye, last.fm, hello Spotify.
Sane
25 March, 10:48
so, piratebay it is…
ananymous
25 March, 10:48
i just make tunnel from US server
so – no problem ;)
Vladimir
25 March, 10:48
педераст сука киска ебать Хуй
Joop
25 March, 10:48
It’s ridiculous that some users have to pay while others can listen for free. Won’t be using last.fm anymore…
Luckily there are plenty of other ways to enjoy free music.
sorry
25 March, 10:49
forget it, there are plenty other services like this one and free. goodbye last.fm, pity you fail like this…
Erlend
25 March, 10:50
Good bye Last.FM. You used to be great.
Sad
SanderEv
25 March, 10:50
THIS IS ILLEGAL IN EUROPE!
“European Union law disallows unfair pricing and difference in service in member countries. As both UK and Germany are in EU, you can’t legally discriminate others 25 countries.”
I today deleted my last.fm account, goodbye and I will never come here again.
Ex user
25 March, 10:52
World Wide Web
Read that again… WORLD WIDE web
If it was meant otherwise it would be the DE US UK wide web…
Hmmm, DE U SUK wide web…
www.deezer.com, www.musicme.com and www.imeem.com (and others) will welcome many new users.
snif
25 March, 10:53
I am also very disappointed…we all contributed to the community… feels like a stab in the back.. too bad
Richard Loerakker
25 March, 10:55
Does that mean that people will have to pay to listen to music of my band that we offer for free and we don’t get anything out of that?
Last.fm, this is a move I can’t agree with, I’m pulling our music out of your service.
Mario
25 March, 10:55
This is a sad, bad and wrong movement IMHO.
I’m paying my subscription for more than 2 years and I’m an user since 2004… and this is gonna mean for sure that I won’t renew my subscription for the next time and, most likely, that I will stop using Last.fm in the short term.
As other previous comment claims… “Go fuck yourself!”
ba3haus
25 March, 10:55
Goodbye Last-fm,
You have kill the idea.
It was a pleasure.
Notyet
25 March, 10:57
It is really sad to hear about the discrimination of non us/uk/de users who loaded up their music royalty free, and now they have to pay for listening to it.
it is a SHAME, and it is IMMORAL.
I immediately stop visiting last.fm
Theodric
25 March, 10:58
Eheh….screw that. There was life before Last.fm and there will be life after. I’m not paying, so you can shove it, ok? :)
kthxbye
tnkflx
25 March, 11:01
I’m selling access to a german proxy for 1.50 EUR/month! :D
Godwin's Law
25 March, 11:03
This is awful. Why are you sparing people from richer countries? Good that I don’t use the radio, I guess – couldn’t afford this if I wanted to pay. Feel pretty discriminated against though tbh.
Gav
25 March, 11:03
Good luck. I am the first one to ditch Last.fm. You are definitely the last in the industry now.
_ch4ng3d
25 March, 11:06
Whats wrong with you guys!
OMG 3 euros! thats really terrible…
so you fat asses will eat 3 cheeseburgers less per month :D
Would be interested why those three countries are excluded too, though…
they seem to be pretty silent ‘bout that
Jaina
25 March, 11:07
Not a user of Last.fm, so no problem!
remington.style
25 March, 11:08
that’s the stupidest idea ever
nationality 2.0
wasn’t the net about overcoming these obsolete borders?
‘world-wide-web’, ‘global village’ and stuff?
i like your service and i would be willing to pay a fee
but why the hell should i have to pay for something the guy living 50km to the north (across the border) gets for free?
this is unfair and discriminating
you have lost 1 user
Dentharg
25 March, 11:08
Bye and thanks for all the fish.
Tom
25 March, 11:10
Here’s the funny thing: I work for a company in The Netherlands, we have a proxy server in DE and one in BE. So surfing the net is done through my proxy in BE, listening to Last.fm is from now on through the proxy in GE. When is the music industry, and nitwits like you, going to understand that the internet is not bound to national borders?
Saddamus
25 March, 11:12
So you will stay with users from those 3 countries.
animal
25 March, 11:14
“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”
George Orwell
Good bye Last.fm…
Paulo Capiotti
25 March, 11:14
I`m a user for a long time. I`ve been a subscriber twice, at times I thought I used the service so much that it deserved to be paid and supported and because it offered some nice treats while paid.
I was considering becoming subscriber once and for all, but after this? I`m appalled. So I`ll have to pay to maintain free services to US/UK/DE? Hell no.
Kosher-X
25 March, 11:15
For these idiots ass-licking Spotify:
http://www.spotify.com/en/why-not-available/
I am supporting Last.fm decision, because I know how hard it is to keep business running and not being like these spoiled dumb and lazy brats whining and assininely complaining here.
3 euros a month is NOTHING! All listeners are good-for-nothing imbeciles that spend a lot more than that for parties and music shows. Hypocrates.
Allards
25 March, 11:18
Bye Bye Last.fm i’m leaving you, for Spotify.
Valentin David
25 March, 11:18
I am a subscriber. But I will stop paying if it is so. The reason is that Last.fm is interesting mostly for the social networking (and specially the system of events). If people of my country stop using it, then it will be uninteresting. Think about it.
I already stopped listening to music on Last.fm. The last thing interesting in subscribing was to create play lists. If people cannot listen to them, then it is useless.
hardcorl
25 March, 11:21
Bye bye last.fm
Two steps back…
Jan
25 March, 11:21
Please die from cancer, last.fm
braza
25 March, 11:21
I don’t wanna pay free music listening for US, UK and German people. All countries must pay or go fuck with this idea. BTW thanks for the fish)
Jakob Breivik Grimstveit
25 March, 11:21
Damn. This marks the end of last.fm’s web radio superiority. Business finally caught up with Last.fm and ate it. So long, and thanks for all the fish. Please turn off the lights when you leave.
Alexandre
25 March, 11:23
I would gladly pay, especially if I had a salary like people In the us/uk/de. But I don’t, so farewell last.fm
Charging the poor while keeping the rich free is weird. Why don’t charge the rich and free the poor?
Jan
25 March, 11:24
Oh, and the large international music labels should die even harder. Fucking assholes.
Anders K. Madsen
25 March, 11:24
I’m publishing music via Last.fm (among other things) and the ‘radio’ feature is one of the better ways to get people to listen to my music. This change is going to seriously limit my potential audience, hence last.fm will become the equivalent of a web server hosting my tracks… :(
georg
25 March, 11:25
so, can i charge you 3€ a month for providing the data the recommendation algorithm is based on?
Long time user and advocate
25 March, 11:25
Why? I would like an explantion for this change. Is it the bandwidth costs?
Also why does it remain free for the people who happen to be in Germany, UK and USA?
I would be a lot more understanding of this, if you treated all your users equal. I don’t like being discrinated against.
Herman
25 March, 11:26
Why not in the US, UK and Germany?! This is pure discrimination! :(((
Cristian
25 March, 11:27
Nothing to say. Just this:
http://thepiratebay.org/
AngryUser
25 March, 11:29
SO LONG, LAST.FM !
Belgian
25 March, 11:30
Making the radio paid I don’t mind really. The days of free internet radio are over already, I realised that a long time ago.
What fucking pisses me off though is that Last.fm is using two systems with two weights. Apparently fat, lazy Yank slobs are better people than us, even if as they post themselves here, 3 € is nothing to a Yank. It’s a cheeseburger or a Starbucks coffee. Fuck all you Yanks.
The idiotic excuse that other markets can’t be supported by ads is also bullshit. I get ads in my localised language for stuff in my local region all the time on Last.fm.
Last.fm are nothing but internet nazis. Racist jackasses.
superwuju
25 March, 11:31
You are going to the dogs guys!!
Paolo
25 March, 11:31
So, good bye Last.fm and MP3 ftw again :)
interaktiv
25 March, 11:32
Last.FM RIP
2002-2009
Hello thepiratebay!
Anomuumi
25 March, 11:33
Ok. Bye Last.fm.
Hello
25 March, 11:33
Have you guys even heard of Goodwill?
Marcin
25 March, 11:35
It is nasizm. Few contries are superhumans and other to gas chamber. It is nasty :(
kudna
25 March, 11:36
Discrimination. Bye bye last.
Nathan Lenkowski
25 March, 11:37
I love last.fm, but I’m bummed. What bugs me, like so many others, is that the radio streams will remain free for the richest countries in the world and go pay for many of the poorest. Beyond this, the “Free The Music” program appears to still be limited to the US, UK and Germany. So, even if I do pay the €3/mo, which is no problem for me financially, I still don’t get all the benefits of those living in the primary markets. Just out of principal this makes me want to tell last.fm to fuck off.
I am so tired of region restrictions on web content that due to where you live, lock you out of services (Netflix, ABC, BBC video), rip you off with €1 = $1 exchange rates (Steam, I’m looking at you) or prohibit purchases outside of the US. This is something most people who don’t live in the US never experience and I gotta say, it blows.
One of the best features of the web in it’s early years was it’s ability to provide free information to all people as equals, no matter where you lived. Now it’s becoming a location restricted medium due to GeoIP, the main service that let’s websites know where you live.
The only option to get around this new form of web censorship is to pay for a proxy (VPN) to trick web services into thinking you live somewhere you don’t, but it’s a pain and can be costly if you want one that is fast and reliable enough to do video. Why should someone have to pay to be equal?
Rant complete.
Notyet
25 March, 11:38
some Jeremy wrote this
“
Oh boy, here comes the whining from people who have been using a free service for years and now simply can’t afford to pay $3 a month or they’ll starve.
If your local book store provided free coffee for years and stopped because of the economy do you go there every day and demand your free coffee? No, you don’t. You either pay or you go elsewhere. It’s that simple.
“
In fact it is rather like this:
I gave books to our local library, and now they want to charge me for reading them. At the same time they don’t charge some other people.
Mikko
25 March, 11:40
oh well time to kill my last fm account i will never pay for radio!
Mario
25 March, 11:40
bye bye last.fm
Hello Jamendo
Andrew
25 March, 11:41
I have no problem with paying 3 euros a month for a service I like, but I have a serious problem with paying while others get it for free just because of the country they live in.
Why exactly are US, UK and Germany excluded?
Przybył
25 March, 11:41
Krótko i na temat “takiego chuja”
vicosoft
25 March, 11:42
Mala idea, seguro que esto provocará muchas bajas en Last.FM
Bad idea, certainly this will bring about many losses in Last.FM
Duey Finster
25 March, 11:43
I am a subscriber in Ireland; no more; fuck you last.fm
hawk
25 March, 11:44
While I understand the intention was not to discriminate against people living outside US/UK/DE, I strongly refuse to be offered paid service inferior to the one in aforementioned countries. Differentiating service quality on a country basis seems deeply unfair, especially when you think of the Internet as a place where country borders are virtually nonexistent. So please, either offer the same service in all countries for the same price (so I can get the on-demand streaming just as anyone else) or leave the basic streaming functionality as it is. If you really cannot afford the bandwidth/licensing fees to offer free streaming to other countries – maybe it is time to start charging everyone? Sure, it does make sense to say that advertisers pay for UK/US/DE citizens, but I doubt they will buy ads just as willingly if LastFM user base drops significantly (and it will) around the world, even if advertisers’ target market is “the privileged three”.
Seriously, this looks just as bad as US companies offering exactly the same products in the US for $100 and in the EU for 100EUR (or pounds for that matter).
Greetings from Poland. It was fun to use your service. It is really a HUGE disappointment to see it end this way…
Lfm user
25 March, 11:45
Isn’t it illegal in EU to have different service prices for different member countries?
crispynoodles
25 March, 11:46
It is not about the cost, the problem those outside of US, UK and Germany have with this plan is the selectiveness of the demand.
This is completely unfair. If anything you should ask all users to pay a fee less than $3/month to use the radio, rather than excluding 3 countries from the cost.
DISCRIMINATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Marcel
25 March, 11:46
So let me get this straight. It’s just the radio feature that will require subscription?
The world scrobbles and through that supplies Last FM with the core of its business : data to compare what music goes well together. Without this data Last FM does not have a basis on which to create its radio station, recommendations, everything.
Now the world outside the core focus countries gets to pay in order to use the information they supplied in the first place. Starting to see how bent this is?
Of course on current music the data from 2002 until now is already there, so effects will slowly appear, but especially in the course of 2 or 3 years I suspect there will be impact on Last FMs ability to match, especially in scenes that largely operate outside the 3 core countries.
Has this been considered? Do you guys expect to keep a large enough userbase? I suppose the idea is that people will continue to scrobble and supply you with free data, right?
Ben
25 March, 11:46
Folks, this gets worse. Last.fm are about to break the ability to stream to mobile phones. See The future of last.fm radio APIs (hint: there isn’t one.)
It was the ability to stream via Mobbler on my mobile using the wireless connection at home and at work that made a subscription compelling. I’m going to ask for my money back from my credit card company. I think I have a good case: If I had known about the modified Terms and Conditions, I would never have subscribed.
Zip_RUS
25 March, 11:46
But what about Russia?
Acey
25 March, 11:47
You could atleast offer some apologies… I mean sure, this decision might make business sense but it goes against what most users see as “fair”.
I have nothing but contempt towards Hulu and all the other quality video sites on the net that work according to the “US only” principle. It’s online segregation at its worst when countries are being divided to first class customers and the other crap countries. And now, to my horror, Last.fm is one of these companies.
This is going to be incredibly disillusioning to many of your long time fans and take away a lot of the positive energy from this community. I’ve been using Last.fm (or AudioScrobbler) since 2005 and have never seen you make such a short sighted and damaging decision.
But I guess now you can cut the “we’re just music fans who want to make a great service for you all” crap and admit that nothing has a higher priority to you than money. Of course it would be naive to think that a company could put something ahead of it but I guess you made many of us believe that music was your first priority…
Deepak
25 March, 11:49
This is really a shame. Why the partiality? Think UK & US users would quit? Posting a blog without any substantial justification will kill the cause even before it starts! Time you guys had a review of the revenue model. How about charging labels a fairly small amount for publicity and the potential of not lost sales thru piracy? For me the options are clear. I’ll start trying out Spotify and imeem.
asgaard
25 March, 11:49
lipa,ciekawi mnie ile userow po prostu da sobie spokoj z lastfm po tej zalosnej decyzji…. I czy serwisowi wyjdzie to na dobre, watpie…
Account deleted in 5.. 4.. 3..
25 March, 11:49
No explanation what-so-ever? This is weak.
Or does Last.fm do things at random? Without reason?
It certainly looks like that.
alahasta
25 March, 11:50
I’m a subscriber. Decided to go for a whole year without blinking because I believed it was a way to help with a project that I quite liked. Gives people the chance to find new bands and purchase their music or attend their gigs. In my case, the type of music I listen to make it very hard to find new bands unless you really dig online for new bands or releases. In short, it’s not mainstream that we get pushed through our eyes and ears everywhere like it happens with more “common” genres. Lastfm was an excellent choice for people like me and so I decided to pay even tho’ I seldom used the radio (my recommendations came mostly from contacts I had here). I have just checked I can’t revoke the subscription without loosing my money, so I’ll have to live with the 193 days left I have, but I’ve deleted all of my data and will probably delete de Lastfm client from my computers so that no information whatsoever from me or the music I listen to is uploaded here. I can’t believe we’re paying for US, UK and D only because their ads give Lastfm a larger profit… making sure more users from those three countries keep listening AND CLICKING AND BUYING from them. Bad, bad idea. Like some other people I’ve read before, I’ll make sure to warn all my contacts and tell them not to use this service anymore. Also, dork is right. Offering a free service for 2 countries within EU and not the rest is not legal, but nothing forbids users to connect through a proxy, right? stablish a VPN tunnel and just get a US IP for instance.
Thanks for saving me some good 30ish € a year, I will never pay for your service again, or rather, for free music for USians, UKians and Germans.
Luigi Assom
25 March, 11:50
Can’t do this!!!
LFM can help new labels / players in other countries to emerge, but even more, the listener of other countries to buy/listen to the most well-known music too.
I hope you will refrain by this decision.
Shyaam
25 March, 11:53
This is apartheid all over again. Why? Because:
a: We (International subscribers) also feed our top tunes via our scrobblers.
b: It is possibly our artists such as A R Rahman (gift to the World of music), Lata Mangeshkar (Nightingale of India), Sonu Nigam, Shaan, K.K. et al will not get a share of the revenues. Global Intellectual Property goes for a toss.
c: Talk about the web being a level playing field. BOO!
I am deleting my account including the scrobblers, iPhone app and logging out of this system.
All the best to Last.fm
Cheers!
Shyaam
Andrew Moore
25 March, 11:53
Either charge everywhere or don’t charge at all. Your costs for providing service globaly doesn’t change from country to country, and it is extremely elitist and borderline racist (and it could be argued in court) to exclude different country from free service.
Nils
25 March, 11:56
RIP Last.fm
Talk about digging your own grave…
me
25 March, 11:56
fuck you!
Giaco
25 March, 11:58
Ohh, bad choice. I think, that its end of my cooperation with last.fm. Misfortune.
msbeintema
25 March, 11:58
@SanderV: today I mailed your remarks to the cabinet of the responsible EU commissioner. Quite curious what they have to say about this matter!
Kasper Souren
25 March, 11:59
I really like Last.fm and I think it’s a very unfortunate decision to let people who are not from the US, the UK or Germany pay.
Like this you’re alienating a huge user base. I’m sure other services can jump into the gap you’re leaving open.
tymon9208
25 March, 12:01
die, die, die my darling…
Anna Fischer
25 March, 12:02
Just sit and watch your millions subscribers saying bye bye!
I’m one of them!
Yet we still have deezer, blip,…
We won’t die without you!
I’m just removing the widget from my blog!
sneaky
25 March, 12:02
Very disappointing news – this will cost you a lot of users and goodwill.
I’m one of the lucky few that happen to live in a last.fm country, but this decision will encourage me to stop using lastfm and listen to music in other ways.
Complain
25 March, 12:02
Stupid move. Your uncontrolled greed spoiled a cool service! I can pay, but I also can make my own decision and not using it anymore is one of them. Besides, I think we from the countries you have left outside are not interesting for you anyway…
me
25 March, 12:05
I would subscribe, but NEVER if some people pay and others don’t.
Rutja
25 March, 12:05
Dear last.fm,
Regarding your announcement on future fees for using the radio that includes most but not all people: Fuck you too.
If and when this restriction comes to effect I’ll come back an american via a proxy.
mosquitokillah
25 March, 12:05
I don’t mind. Never liked the last.fm radio
Andre
25 March, 12:07
Curtain down for the last.fm .. goodbye!
André (Norway)
25 March, 12:10
I am happy to pay a small fee for listening to music. I am already paying for accessing RadioIo.com, and I did for Pandora before it was stopped for listeners outside US. Discriminating listeners based on their location is a really bad. Why are the music industry trying to segregate people in the world?
Eric
25 March, 12:10
It could very well be an April Fools’ Day gag, but if it is, it’ll backfire on Last.fm. They’re pissing so many people off and reading through the comments tell you people are leaving over this already. If it’s a joke, it’s the dumbest one ever: one that cuts into your revenue stream.
BarryL
25 March, 12:11
I understand how this is meant to work but I still think the discrimination is dodgy.
I don’t actually use the radio much, 30 free a month will be fine for me. Though the knock on effect of people exiting will ruin the charts.
wolny rynek panowie
25 March, 12:11
“Kliknij tutaj, aby usunąć swoje konto Last.fm i wszystko co z nim związane.”
JeyG
25 March, 12:12
It’s like an auditory racism…
Then we should stop to share the music… I laught.
Bye last.fm
Virpi
25 March, 12:12
Either make everyone pay or make it free for all. Discrimination is a really, really bad idea. Consider your brand tarnished.
John
25 March, 12:12
The problem is that corporations still invest more in conventional TV/radio commercials than internet while this one has more and more possibilities every day.
Probably increasing revenue from ads could help remain lastfm free but probably it would end full of shit like current TV/radio too.
It’s very reasonable then that a paid service exists but same for everyone dammit!
lordofanywhere
25 March, 12:12
Use this as your display picture: http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/126/25952411.jpg
Henk Engst
25 March, 12:12
3 euro’s for all … why not.
But 3 euro’s based on geographic location ?
Maybe you could sell our userdata to some big marketing firm and charge nothing ?
Colin
25 March, 12:15
Hahahaha, this doesn’t affect me, but I think its a stupid idea, which will undoubtedly turn off a lot of people. I mean, if it did affect me, there is no way I would pay the subscription.
yezu
25 March, 12:15
I think you don’t realize that this IS a bad idea. I guess I will be added to the list of FORMER last.fm users.
A shame really…
Agustin
25 March, 12:16
Im narnian, a subscriptor from argentina, i have a lot of friends and i know they will not pay for this service, so, if they left, i left.
I think this is so unfair, you might find a way to fix this problem, maybe chosing randomly countries or users, i dont know, but this is true: you’re digging your own grave and im so sad cause i really enjoy your website. Please rethink about this and find some fair solution.
A very loyalty user.
Agustin
orby
25 March, 12:16
I wonder how long it will take for the CEO of last.fm to get fired? Did he recently (and apparently very successfully) complete a course in ‘how-to-kill-the-business-in-one-move’?
I have no problem in paying the fee, but I do have a huge problem with the three privileged countries (which happen also to be richest countries in the world). And this means, bye bye last.fm… R.I.P.
Ambybunny
25 March, 12:17
How about royalty free music? Do I have to play for that too? If so this decision sucks monkeyballs.
I’m ending my relationship with last.fm, no further support from me. Jamendo here I come!
Phoenix
25 March, 12:18
Seen so many comments saying people are moving to spotify…. but how are they any different.
Their free service is only available for free in certain countries, the rest have to pay for the premium package, and in some of the included countries, you need an invitation to join.
3EUR is absolutely nothing. I’m in the UK and still pay to be a subscriber because I think its worth it. Even more so with all the upcoming updates.
If you’re moving away from last.fm, good luck to you, to the rest, continue enjoying the great services and music that they have always, and will continue to give us.
daniel
25 March, 12:20
I’m sorry but this is crap. I’ve been a member since 2004 and subscriber since 2005 and there’s nothing wrong with needing to charge for a service, but why should I have to pay a fee for your inability to sell ads outside of UK/US/Germany? That has nothing to do with me at all. Charge everyone or no one!
If there’s one thing I hate about the online media business, it is to get treated differently for being from a certain country, please stop this nonsense!
jb
25 March, 12:21
Wrong move, you can’t pretend to treat differently one person from the other based on where this person has been farted.
Hope you are clever and reverse this decision before we all leave.
Terminator
25 March, 12:22
Why not in UK , USA and Germany? We’re second citizens for you. 3 $ isn’t too much but i can’t tolerate this discrimination. HASTA NUNCA! :(
Mick
25 March, 12:23
Shove it up your arse last.fm Here’s hoping your shitty discriminatory company goes down the gurgler because of this craptastic move.
Fuckin’ Yanks/Poms/Krauts.
An irate Australian.
Tim
25 March, 12:24
We donated you the best (ever) data of world’s listening habits.
And this is your way to say thank you.
ofcourse, we all where fools,
but I hope, all long time last.fm users will boygot this
anty.last.fm
25 March, 12:27
Fck U , a’im not a subhuman , fckin nazi scum !
André
25 March, 12:29
Bye, Last.fm!
I don’t support any kind of discrimination…
Alex
25 March, 12:29
Sorry, Last.fm. Here’s another user you’re losing. I was actually considering getting a subscription to your service. That is, when it was still a choice. Now, however, I’m going to delete my account instead.
It’s not like I need your service. I can access the music at my computer at home from anywhere there’s Internet, your solution was a little less of a hassle, but not worth a forced $3/month. I’ll rather just set up a stream from home that I can listen to.
I would accept this change if you turned into a pay-for-all solution, but to give special grants to the US, the UK and Germany just smells of inequality, and I, for one, will not be part of it.
Joris
25 March, 12:31
I’m really dissapointed in Last.fm. I won’t be using the radio anymore. GFY
Anthony
25 March, 12:32
Goodbye! last.fm
Maxx
25 March, 12:34
screw you
Linker
25 March, 12:36
why 3?
I just registered and felt very satisfied here. If the 3EUR costs for all I would pay for it, but now I have no choice but QUIT.
kalatorulStalk
25 March, 12:36
somebody is Somebody,
and the rest are just .. the rest of the world.
I’m wondering why everybody contribute to development of the content equal, and as a service is treated unequal ?
thanks for the answer.
Paul
25 March, 12:37
Pay $3 a month? No big deal.
Paying for a service inferior to the free one offered in UK/USA/Germany? No thanks.
valothepox
25 March, 12:39
Actually people in Germany, UK and USA can afford 3 euro per months, people from poorer country can have a problem with get it. Typical discrimination. I’m from Poland and my voice is GO F*CK YOURSELF. I hope you will lose all listeneres.
rafal
25 March, 12:42
sad to say: bye bye.
I was spreading the goood news about last.fm, doscovering many forgotten tracks and band from high school. 3 EUR is not a big deal, but discrimating some countries in favour of other is not fair.
I’m removing all backlinks and “last played” from my blogs. I guess, nobody cares, but no more spreading the last.fm promotion for free.
ceeeyaaa
mz/x
25 March, 12:42
one word: disgusting
Ian
25 March, 12:42
I am afraid I have not had time to read each of the 700 or so comments.
I think that the issue here is that you got sold to CBS and I imagine you now face all sorts of commercial pressures from your new owners.
At the time of the sale (2007) I assumed it was the end of what was a great and free radio/music service. RJ at this point assured us all that last.fm had not sold its soul for £140m.
I have been using last.fm since 2005 and at the time of writing have scrobbled 29,744 tracks. I subscribed for one lovely month because I really wanted to hear my loved tracks radio and at the time I truly felt part of your free music/radio revolution and I was delighted to support a startup who genuinely deserved my cash. I was happy to part with my listening data and delighted to tag and describe bands to help your community evolve. It was a startup, you seemed really decent, genuine people and it felt really good to contribute and I only wish my finances had allowed me to subscribe more in those days.
Whilst I would have been happy to pay my cash to you, and still may do so, there is in the UK no great incentive to pay money to CBS, I therefore find it hard to imagine that my friends overseas, who are not in the ‘last.fmG3’ (as at least one comment put it) would have any greater desires to provide them with their monies.
You have my user data and you know an awful lot about my personality from my music tastes. You can provide targeted adverts and band recommendations for fledgling artists based on this. I can click on the webstore links and buy their records. I will continue to provide my listening data because of the great service you provide and primarily for the worldwide music recommendations.
Please do not discriminate against your user base. It is surely commercial suicide; either make us all pay, maybe a yearly nominal sum and provide us with some really great reasons to do so or get CBS to provide some more money.
If you loose international users, you loose music recommendations. The community shrinks, our collective music tastes shrink; we all loose.
MooKeele
Tomato
25 March, 12:44
I’ve been a user for a long time, but only recently started liking the radio stations that Last.fm has to offer. I was actually thinking of subscribing just to support the site (not that anyone’s going to believe this, heh) but I’m not so sure now.
The service is really good at the moment, but the fact is that a lot of people will leave for good (unless this actually is an early April Fools joke!), so will the service still be excellent this time next year? I doubt that.
I wouldn’t mind this if they started charging all users for the radio stations, but I guess I just don’t like the thought that I would pay so that someone else can enjoy practically the same service for free. The subscriber features here at the moment aren’t that great, I suppose that most of the people don’t subscribe only to get the features, but to support this site.
Another thing that I don’t like is that there are a lot of people all over the world who have contributed to this site for free in many ways, and now Last.fm will start charging these same people to use one of the “core features” of the service.
Will the UK/USA/GER users and the relatively small amount of subscribers be enough to keep the artist bios up to date from now on? The sad thing is that the service just can’t be as good as it has been until now, no matter how much they suck money from the subscribers. I love (and hate) reading the comments and discussions on the artist and song pages for example, but if a lot of people will leave, I guess there’ll be a lot less comments as well.
I definitely won’t be leaving this site, and may even start paying for the service at some point (only if they improve the subscriber features a lot though), but right now I do feel a bit disappointed, like so many other people. The Last.fm team could have handled this so much better.
Nicolás
25 March, 12:44
I live in Argentina. For me, 3 euros a month is 15 pesos, wich is sincerely a lot. I understand the need for money that you have, but i will have to find myself another streaming site. I’m really sorry.
Thanks anyway
Nelson
25 March, 12:44
Everything’s for sale!
Probably it’s good way to maintain the site, but doing that kind of discrimination?
Count me out!
CBS-white power
25 March, 12:44
YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR LAST.FM IF YOU ARE NOT A WHITE ARIAN FROM US , UK , GER
FUCK YOU , FUCKIN NAZIS
Johan
25 March, 12:45
Ah well, found another good use for my proxy server :)
Ove K
25 March, 12:46
Good bye, last.fm. Too bad you are braking up with me. I loved you, but it seems you don’t want my love anymore.
Alas, if I had moved closer to you, we may have been able to continue our relationship, but it seems you don’t want this long-distance-affair.
Have you met someone else? In the english speaking world? How can you do this to me? Why am I less worth to you than someone else? Why must I pay to see you, when others won’t have to? Is it my native tongue? The colour of my skin? What’s wrong with me?
I can change. I promise, I’ll be good. No more bad words. Please, please take me back.
Flyingup
25 March, 12:46
Once again the poor rest of world will have to follow the only one that thinks they are the best.
Sorry UK, US and DE, but if the world is in so bad moon about financial crisis .. it’s your only fault.
So, I’ll stop in all application that I allow to scrobble for the last.fm community to not do it anymore.
Really bad news.
Bye last.fm
bluellyr
25 March, 12:47
It doesn’t explain why just tells me that i’m going to support the richest ones so bye bye last.fm
Joshi
25 March, 12:47
This is a reason for me to find another source for Music.
I am German but I don’t believe showing my passport will give me free access when I am abroad.
John Goodman
25 March, 12:48
Hmm..
Thanks but no thanks…
I’m out of here… I didn’t like the home made app and now I’d have to pay to listen to suggestions?
No thanks!
Bert
25 March, 12:48
What a ridiculous amount of drama. Just because a company has been able to offer something for free in the past, doesn’t mean that we have a god-given right to continue to expect something for nothing.
To all the people flouncing off – last.fm is much much more than a streaming radio service, it’s the best internet community I know for meeting people, discovering and discussing music. Not to mention the geek-heaven of all the charts from your scrobbled listens. I’ve never been a big user of the radio service myself, but last.fm is my favourite website anyways because of everything else it offers.
If you don’t want to pay for the radio, fair enough, but why give up on the rest of the site?
Ex-suscriber
25 March, 12:49
We all knew this was happening since the day Last.fm sold to CBS :(
CBS will just screw this service.
I used to be a suscriber, and promote AudioScrobbler and Last.fm for many years. I’ll do just the opposite now.
Also, there’s a lot of free software media players with Last.fm Radio support. I bet many will drop it (or support will be degraded for sure) and will start adding support for other free streaming services.
Well, it was about time. Last.fm is dead.
Niva, from Brasil
25 March, 12:52
well, goodbye then.
Sindreda
25 March, 12:52
Thats it.
I will no longer subscribe to your service.
Good by Last.fm
Hello & welcome spotify
HIJOS DE PUTA
25 March, 12:53
Os podeis ir a tomar por culo!
Felipe Bachian
25 March, 12:55
That’s too bad… :-(
coxy
25 March, 12:55
Congrats, Last.fm
I still love you, even through all your flaws.
karwasz
25 March, 12:56
I’ve got only one question: do the “My Loved Tracks” playlist/radio in Last.fm player will be available with that €3.00 subscription?
Now I pay €2.50 monthly only for that option. If it will be removed I really don’t see reason of spending more money on Last.fm.
Belgian Payer
25 March, 12:56
Great businessplan!!! let all the other countries pay for the radio listening in US, UK and DE, why can’t it all be shared equally. This is pure discrimination. Why can’t the add revenues count for the connections all over the world and everything! So I pay for listening and an american doens’t have to. what happenend with equal rights and stuff!
Agustin... again
25 March, 12:56
Lastfm users from all the world, lets join
www.last.fm/group/lastfm+is+unfair
That group is for discuss politely about this problem, this is web2.0 this is not a dictatorial governmet, i think we can giver our opinion and be listened by the lastfm crew
David Delgado
25 March, 12:57
WARNER PULLS MUSIC FROM LAST.FM TO IMEEM. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=32507
Things happen with movements like this. Last.fm starts dying?
Oskar
25 March, 12:57
Charge everyone or no one!
I’m also sick and tired of this “oh sorry, you’re not allowed to listen to/watch this because your IP address seems not to come from some fu**ing country”.
You want to make the Internet to a USUKDEnet.
No wonder people use bittorrent and other things.
Sigh.
C.M
25 March, 12:57
Bad idea to let three countries have it for free and the rest of us pay. The alternatives to last.fm that I’ve tried aren’t as good, but I’ll switch anyway. If the rules were the same for everyone I would just pay for it, like I had planned to do already.
cherry
25 March, 12:58
and why precisely the privilege for these countries,if you don’t mind?
and why in the name of god do you request this fucked up tax?!.. or do you really expect me to believe that you poor things do not earn enough from those google ads? it’s not about money that i complain,but about this shameful decision! with such a well conceived site,you should be able to get your money from ads only,not from users! shame on you guys! greedy smart pants!stolsvik
25 March, 12:58
I’ve also been a paying subscriber from Norway for at least a year now – just to get all the features unlocked. – And because I felt the service was worth it.
I must agree with everything “M F” said, 24 March, 21:01. Hear, hear. I have for example been tagging over a 1000 tunes by now, and although I obviously benefit from it myself, I do know that you also benefit.
And that “free for the three Nice Countries – paysite for all others” attitude might kill you. And I further agree with MF in that I just cannot fathom how you think this will “tick over”: You will not get ONE SINGLE NEW LISTENER, not fucking ONE, from any country outside your chosen three, with this logic. 30 tunes? Are you kidding me? It took me about a year to become a loyal enough user to start paying.
Several others have pointed out that you should provide an hour or three of free listening each day. Without something like that, you’ll gradually shut yourself out from all countries except “G3”.
What about listening ads for the freeriders, like Spotify?
The music labels are slowly killing their market, that is certainly for sure. And last.fm is apparently giving up, bending their ass over to the inevitable doom. (You didn’t even wanted to be a part of the One Day Silence protest a year ago or so.. And now this).
Well – at least you don’t do a Pandora on me. THAT was royally nasty. But I’ll obviously start looking around for other services again..
g
25 March, 13:01
I hope you do realize you will get sued for this kind of differential pricing practice within EU territory? Especially being an EU based company.
bachterman
25 March, 13:01
cbs, you greedy bastards, you.
if you don’t want the second rate users, then fine, be that way.
pawelrodak
25 March, 13:02
I wish this whole damn thing is happening because of the 1st of April, but i think you are serious, so let me say one thing (frankly I doubt if you ever gonna read this, but I fee obliged to wrte this).
I don’t think that people in these 3 countries are better than the rest of the world, but you treat them so. And stop saying bulshit about law and adverts – if you cared about people who loved what you’d been doing, you wouldn’t dare make such discrimination.
I know that not many people will delete their accounts , even if they threaten to do so and you know that too. But remember guys – this is the moment when many, many people stopped to belive in your mottos about music revolution, about FREE music, about music avaliable for everyone. You lied about that and you don’t differ to any greedy young businessmen.
Thanks again for your cowardness, you were not that brave to announce this on the main page.
You are not special anymore.
gothy
25 March, 13:04
I’d pay for last.fm if rules would be fair for everyone.
I understand that last.fm receives most of revenue from US\UK\Germany advertisers and now it’s bad days for ads-supported web services.
I can see 2 ways – lock last.fm down to this counties or force everyone to pay i would say 20 euros per year, or 2 per month. That would be fair.
This move is a good way to loose millions of users and lot’s of subscribers(why stay on empty social network? free music can be found in other places too)
I hope Last.FM will survive, but it will never be the same again… first, best, free.
Agarshaker
25 March, 13:05
convince me why I should pay for listening in Switzerland and not in the UK and I might pay – its not like 3 euros will break the bank – but then it really isn’t worth the hassle
ciao
len
25 March, 13:05
Oh. Great. Thanks. Again. For us in those stupid latinamerican countries.
anguibev
25 March, 13:06
manga de soretes! se estaba volviendo popular y ahora vienen y lo recortan a 3 paises? soretes primermundistas de mierda!! vayanse a cagar
Luigi Assom
25 March, 13:07
I would like to add that I do not understand still the business move, on terms of “loyalty” of users.
Last.fm has the 4.1% of access from China, 4.1% from India, 2.5%from Netherlands.
Considering per city, Bejing hs the same % of people accessing last.fm from London.
So why make them pay?
Jamendo and deezer are other platform which could compete.
It is a shame because audioscrobbler is really a great great product.
I am disappointed, really.
Jake Holman
25 March, 13:08
God forbid you might all have to pay for something you probably use to death anyway. Seriously, the days of “everything on the internet is free” are coming to an end.
Get over yourselves, whiners.
Gonzalo
25 March, 13:08
I will delete my account now.
Last.fm is as good as dead for me.
I still cannot believe how this kind of decision was made.
You’re digging your own grave.
schndr
25 March, 13:10
this is a joke. i have to pay because in my country advertising doesn’t generate enough revenue, which last.fm needs to buy the provided content…
if the service was worth 3euros i still would say FUCK IT!! this is unfair and stupid
and besides: “compensating the artists,labels”…pff for what?giving them more publicity,and information about the musical preferences of their audiences????
1000veces
25 March, 13:10
This is a bad new… but i understand… By the way i´m from Venezuela , southamerica… i look myself as a heavy user of this excelent service but in my country we have a money control over the dollar and euro is too dificult suscribe and pay in this kind of money… is so sad i will miss a lot my station… if you have any solution for the latins users, please let me know… right now this web site is so important to me and for many people all over the world…
Saludos desde Caracas, Venezuela
Jim Moore
25 March, 13:11
I think that you were expecting such a response from ‘us’. Do something about it or you’ll loose a major number of your users!
davnull
25 March, 13:12
wow, way to go, last.fm
we made you, you exist because of us, with the data you mined from us, which we provided.
I want my data back.
sergio
25 March, 13:14
Then, I will stop using last.fm
Future exLastFm User
25 March, 13:14
As always in human history, the poorest parts of the world assuming the expenses of the richests parts of the world.
Shame on you LastFm.
Shame on you.
Now turning to grooveshark.
Kimiko
25 March, 13:15
Why all the hatred? The radio was subscription-only until a few years ago. I didn’t hear anyone complain then.
And the scrobbling, building a profile, discovering new music, are all still available for free. I’ve always found that the most useful part of AudioScrobbler and Last.fm.
No worries, Last.fm. You’re not losing me as a subscriber any time soon. I still find this site very useful to look up information and find new artists, and am willing to pay for it.
gringo
25 March, 13:15
Now is time for all the Last.fm like services start to emerge.
I think this will lead to a broad range of new services for users.
This is, infact, very good news for users, but not for Last.fm, that’s for sure.
Emme
25 March, 13:15
last.fm recommendations never worked that well for me, but I liked the idea, I liked it a lot.
There are some things I do not agree on:
- I don’t like the idea of first class and second class nations.
– probably rewarding active users (those tagging and organizing) by waiving their fee would have been a good idea.In the end I wish you good luck with your business even if I will not become one of your subscribers.
Cheers,
Emme
tybek
25 March, 13:15
uncool
ehcobdrol
25 March, 13:16
Hi, forget about me. I have been paying already the fecking artist thieves from my country. Music is free and free will be. If last.fm charges, don’t mind, there’re millions of others ways to listen to FREE, yes FREE music.
Robert
25 March, 13:16
I’m from the united states, and have a paid account. I strongly object to the concept of a corporate tiered internet. I firmly believe the Internet should be blind to borders and nationalities.
If you’re going to charge for your service, fine, charge for it. I for one think it is good enough that I am willing to pay for it. But charge for it everywhere. Discriminating based on nationality is evil and wrong.
If this change goes live, even though it does not effect me, I will cancel my paid account and discontinue using the service in protest.
eetjebordleeg
25 March, 13:18
this will kill last.fm’s userbase. i might want to stay and pay (although i’m not sure i think it’s worth it ) but the unfairness of my neighbouring country not having to pay makes me want to leave.
bye last.fm
Christian
25 March, 13:18
and because i don’t live in the United States, United Kingdom nor Germany.
i’ll close my account.
rap boy
25 March, 13:19
Unfortunately I’m not from one of those lucky countries. :(
bosola
25 March, 13:19
OK, I’ve been using Last.fm since 2005 on a daily basis, but this is the time when I’ll uninstall it. I live in a country (Hungary) where average salary is around 4-500 Euros per month. I will badly miss this radio, since I got to know seventy percent of my favourite artists through its recommendations, but this is the end, I can’t afford 3E per month, even it seems to be a moderate sum from your point of view. But we do not live in the same country. I’m not the only one in this region, who can’t. It’s quite sad, as I’m sure you don’t mind losing your listeners in this region, since the UK and the USA are the real markets for advertisers.
What an unfair idea! We should pay, in order that your radio could remain free in the UK and the USA! I should support your radio from my tiny little Eastern-European country, just to keep US listeners from paying?!
I will miss it a lot. Back to the old way of finding music: friends!
Agnesita
25 March, 13:19
I’m sorry very much but…. bye bye Last.fm
I think your decision is a bad idea. Discrimination it’s another bad idea.
blah
25 March, 13:20
This is ridiculous.
Instead of charging a flat 1.5 fee for the whole world, you’re choosing three countries (the ones that YOU live in and so that’s all you care about) to get it free and charging the rest of the world 3 euros to subsidize those three countries?
I don’t even MIND paying a fee for use of last.fm radio, but there’s NO WAY I’m paying a fee in order to allow US/UK/German people to get a free service which is already BETTER than the best I get even if I DO pay the fee.
ehcobdrol
25 March, 13:21
A quick question to answer this resolution:
Does the radio of the country where I live (Netherlands) comes with a “insert 3 euros to play”?
Then Why in hell should I pay for the same service through another media???
Just go to Hell CBS!
Roliverio
25 March, 13:21
Unsuscribed and deleted.
Goodbye.
groovejet
25 March, 13:22
chuje
wildpeaks
25 March, 13:24
I’m french, living in Germany (so I’m not sure if it will affect me), but I’ve been a subscriber for more than a year anyway, glad to see more advantages to the subscribtion model.
But could regular users listen to the radio of a subscribed user ? From what I understood at the time, one of the advantages you get by subscribing is enabling people to listen a radio based on your playlist, will it now require the listeners to be subscribers as well ?
Shark
25 March, 13:25
This is not fair at all. A kind of discrimination. Just 3 blessed countries. Why? Even if I’m a subscriber, I’m leaving now… Thanks for all, but I cannot stand this step
Bye bye Last.fm and have a nice life.
musicgodlything
25 March, 13:25
This is going to decimate Last.fm. DECIMATE IT.
Oh that’s too funny:
The two words I have to type to prove I’m human:
“$397 and IGNORES” – that’s SPOOKY.
SaadK
25 March, 13:25
I’ve been using last.fm way before CBS got a stake in this. I loved my experience up till now. But I’m no longer going to let last.fm know what im listening to any more.
Screw you and your greed for more money! That’s what happens when corporations devour honest innovative work. The music industry is changing and last.fm just took a U turn!
I hope your “business decision” affects your revenues.
Magdalene
25 March, 13:26
Whatever. I think is time to change that tagline into “The Asocial Music Devolution”.
It’s time for Last.fm to question what is the true purpose of the service and where is meant to go in the future.
Because to be honest at this point for 3/4 of the planet looks like is going nowhere.
macierz
25 March, 13:27
FUCK YOU GUYS
SERIOUSLY, FUCK YOU!
zaraki
25 March, 13:27
bye la$t.Fm
madscrobbler
25 March, 13:27
I stop scrobbling for last.fm the day I’ve to pay. I don’t give away my scrobbling information for free while you are going to charge me.
DOOMy
25 March, 13:28
This stinks! I think that your listeners numbers will drop…
Chili
25 March, 13:29
I don’t know why we must pay, but explain to me this: Why people in the US, UK and Germany are not paying anything? Isn’t it unfair? Is it because the majority of your users are there? Is it because you need a specificc amount of money, so to not ruin your fame everywhere, you decide to put a fee for specific countries? I hope you don’t make it. Seriously. I really liked (and like) last.fm. Now I’ll stop using it for good, except it becomes free once more.
Chris Ovenden
25 March, 13:31
As a UK-based subscriber of several years I am of course unaffected by this… except I am, because I have friends on last.fm from all over the world.
It feels so wrong to keep your basic service free in three wealthy nations, and make everyone else pay for the same damn thing. I would actually rather everyone had to pay for the radio stations than this awful division.
I get that ads are not supporting streams in some parts of the world. But have you really considered all options?
Given that Spotify somehow manages to give people the service we all really want: to choose the songs that are going to be played and the order they’re played in, I was already feeling less good about my last.fm subscription, which still prevents these things. Add in your latest mis-step and I am now seriously thinking of jumping ship.
Don’t do it! You’re making yourselves look really bad.
krzychbeat
25 March, 13:31
i dont accept this. bye bye last fm
nekidule
25 March, 13:32
i really love this site and i was really close to subscribing for premium service, but i’m not even going to consider paying for not being british/american/german, even if the price is next to nothing. there are alternatives that don’t discriminate.
btw, i want my data back and i don’t want you to use it in any way.
LastFMUser
25 March, 13:33
Big huge enormous buuuuuuuuh!
How do you say “this sucks” in languages other than German and English?
Det suger
Ya ni la muelan
…
mai9
25 March, 13:33
I registered on 2004 and this change is great disappointment.
maybe it’s time to check spotify
cjmatos
25 March, 13:33
I myself fortunelly could certainly pay for the service, although I’ve already was a subscribber and the extra features was not sufficent to keep me paying montlhy.
As most of you guys already said, the main problem is not with the need to pay 3€/mo . The problem is with that “G3” special rules. I’m sorry but it’s not this easy to understand and accept they 3 can have more rights I can have as long as I’m dayling feeding your database with my “voluntary service”.
I’m pretty sure this segregation would be the big point to make loyal users like me say NO! to your payed service.
rksV
25 March, 13:34
Very bad idea!
Bye bye!
Napo
25 March, 13:34
fuck you
David Delgado
25 March, 13:36
I was banned from posting comments since I put this one:
WARNER PULLS MUSIC FROM LAST.FM TO IMEEM. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=32507 Things happen with movements like this. Last.fm starts dying?
Managed to post it again.
Join our group: http://www.last.fm/group/lastfm+is+unfair
mabahj
25 March, 13:38
No problem. For just pennies extra I’ll just switch to the spotify <-> last.fm sites and get the same services PLUS the ability to listen to whatever I want. After 12767 scrobbled tracks, I think I’ll now leave last.fm radio.
kazeninja
25 March, 13:41
totally uncool AND this is agains EU law of same access – if it’s free in UK IT MUST BE FREE in all other EU countries – will write letter to EU council and laughting will see as you shit bricks.
Luser
25 March, 13:42
I have no will to pay for the free service of others. Thank you and goodbye.
You elitist fucks.
Tavo
25 March, 13:42
You can be sure I will not pay.
Long live P2P
korkeasaareen
25 March, 13:43
I’ve closed my account already.
I don’t think that anybody has to bare your abominable business considerations especially when they’re based on double standards.
Mengele
25 March, 13:43
I ain’t paying
jojojoost
25 March, 13:43
Bye Last.fm.
Kero
25 March, 13:46
So I’ll have to pay for it so US, UK and Germany people can use it for free?
F*ck You, La$t.fm!
Nick
25 March, 13:46
And here I was.. thinking you guys were different. Doesn’t “the long tail” apply to this situation as well? Do you have any idea of just how many users you are alienating by doing this?
I sincerely hope you’ll change your mind before March 30 or else think of something that gives value for money (I’d be willing to pay for higher quality streams, for instance).
letdown
25 March, 13:46
bad news. I’m going to other site music !
albint
25 March, 13:47
I’ve played 19675 tracks through last.fm for the last couple of years but this is the end of the road for me.
I will not support a pricing model sucking up to the richest and biggest countries. That’s just plain wrong.
There are too many unanswered questions here, “Why?” being the most obvious one.
I really hope there’s some big-media-lawyer-stuff behind it. Otherwise, it’s just a suicide attempt.
Thanks for the ride! It was fun while it last:ed.
SMYD
25 March, 13:48
I’m not paying $3 or 3 EUR just so some american can listen for free.
S MY D
jari
25 March, 13:48
I’ve been a subscriber for a long time, but this idea of making me fund few countries’ “freeloaders” will put an immediate end to my listening. Too bad, I kind of liked the service…
andrea25
25 March, 13:48
I’ve recently been to USA, and Last.fm has almost “full track” version of every song.
Since I live in Italy. and there’s no “full track” even if you’re a suscriber, I hope now it will be different.
You pay -> you receive the possibility to stream any track you want.
If not…well, I’m afraid Last.fm will lose a lot of customers.
Not me, because I totally love Last.fm, but a lot of users will move to Spotify or another website, and that’s too bad.
asd
25 March, 13:51
oh yeah. i see that rich countries wont pay. nice. good decision assholes.
stonersimon
25 March, 13:51
That’s really uncool, Last.fm..
Listening free to recommendations was the just that unique thing about last.fm, and now it’s gone.. I think last.fm will lose alot of members..
Mark
25 March, 13:54
I can’t see why anyone is surprised. As soon as I heard CBS was buying last.fm I knew it was only a matter of time before it turned into a pile of shit.
last.fm will be the next Friendster or Myspace. No one will care about you anymore.
Jayae
25 March, 13:55
Even as a UK user, if this change goes live I’ll be leaving last.fm.
There’s some good morals for you all.
Ivan Vodka from Russia
25 March, 13:56
good bye last.fm I hope you die
Leo
25 March, 13:58
Bye Last.fm! (2)
FLFM yeah!
25 March, 14:00
Last fuck, last fm you.
whatever
25 March, 14:01
Not paying for this.
LuisManson
25 March, 14:02
So, you need to lose users?
come on, its not hard to skip this stupid limitation, make the record companies think less about money and more on globalization, market share, free advertising..
geez, will they even notice that they business scheme is a dying dinosaur???
come on, we are on 2009!!!!
Ohh, and BTW, i could listen here some music and share it, or DOWNLOAD FREE the files and mail them, if you get what i mean ;)
SPKNO
25 March, 14:03
I have no problem with the fact that it will cost money.
I DO have a problem with the fact that it is “Nation specific”.
Doesn’t this mean that “the rest” therefore pays so that UK, USA and GER users can enjoy Last.fm free?
Anyway: The way things look now, I’m going to search – and hopefully find – an alternative site, unless someone can convince me that “the rest” is not paying for the free-bee countries.
REALLY a bad decision!
Tom Switzer
25 March, 14:03
As long as my subscription fee is ONLY being used to support the radio services in countries other than the free ones (US, UK, & Germany), then I will happily pay. I listen to Last.fm, literally, all day at work, so a few bucks is certainly worth it. However, I do worry that this will cost you users, which means the QoS (recommendations et al) may suffer too. In particular, I may see less Canadian bands showing up in my recommendations, since there are less Canadians to scrobble them… Hopefully it won’t, but I think you guys should consider weekly/monthly limits for non-pay users, for the low traffic guys. I mean, if someone is just listening to 20-odd songs a week, they’re not really breaking the bank on you guys, are they? I wouldn’t mind paying an extra buck to help subsidise low usage users.
Midoki
25 March, 14:04
Hi guys
Im not sure if you’re aware, but this decision seems to be in breach with the European Union law (discrimination in terms of nationality). Pls., think it over once again…
Mentalbug
25 March, 14:04
That’s one bad joke guys. Time to uninstall I fear :/
It’s funny how you speak about scrobbling and “all the other great free content” of last.fm, but without the radios those things are absolutely useless, so why bother?
(And don’t tell me about “spotify”, in Belgium you’re supposed to pay 10€/month to use that thing)
Vorth
25 March, 14:06
It’s completely racist movement. In US used to be buses for black and white. Seems to me the same will be on last.fm. So I surely will not pay any damn cent for such division on better and worst customers.
phil
25 March, 14:06
“You used to be just about the music.”
Killkillkill
25 March, 14:07
Ummm… may I know what the cost without blow?
Adam
25 March, 14:07
It would be funny if that was a joke made for liar day :> In other case, By kukluxers.
Pierdolę, nie płacę!
Bartek
25 March, 14:11
I suggest renaming to lost.fm
You lose.
Bye.
Kimiko
25 March, 14:11
Ah, it looks like I was too hasty with my previous comment. What people are complaining about is not that they have to pay for something they got for free before (you see that a lot), but that they have to pay for something that another gets for free.
Well, there’s two ways to look at it.
At first I though, well, I find Last.fm worth paying for, so what if people elsewhere (hmm, the Netherlands is right between the UK and Germany) get it for free? That doesn’t change the service’s value for me.
But then I read more of the comments above, and it became clear that what is upsetting most people is not the fee itself, but the fact that yet another internet company is discriminating based on nationality. You know, the whole “on the internet everyone is equal; except everyone who happens to live outside the USA”. Well, in this case it’s the USA, the UK and Germany, but the principle’s the same of course.
Before, I said I’d stay a Last.fm subscriber because I like discovering new music here and think it’s worth the small fee. However, discrimination against non-USAians I’m very much against, so now I think I won’t renew my subscription when it runs out.
Say, aren’t the European elections this year? Let’s vote to outlaw discrimination based on nationality.
Ykä
25 March, 14:11
This is sad news indeed. But if you use Spotify, check this out: spotify links to last.fm
In the end of the article there’s link to a greasemonkey script that adds spotify links to the last.fm web page! That’s very cool, although not as nice as the last.fm radio.
You probably need to handle the spotify links in your browser. The instructions for Firefox are here
I really would like to get Last.fm and Spotify in one deal with one subscription or free with ads (just like Spotify is now).
LAmeSTreamFeeMongers
25 March, 14:12
huh. so I am being discriminated against just coz I’m not from the US,UK or Deutschland.
“U” “S, UK”, “D“eutschland = U SUK Dudes.
I was thinking about paying a subscription before this announcement coz I liked the service, now you can stuff your
“L” ovely “AS“s “T” unes . “F“at “M“isers
Nara
25 March, 14:12
“In the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, nothing will change.” Oh! The superiority, huh?
David Delgado
25 March, 14:13
WARNER PULLS MUSIC FROM LAST.FM TO IMEEM. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=32507 Things happen with movements like this. Last.fm starts dying?
Users built Last.fm database for free. Now they are charging us for using it. :-/
JOIN OUR GROUP: http://www.lastfm.es/group/lastfm+is+unfair
ben
25 March, 14:14
That’s a shame.
WE made YOU who you are, that’s a funny way to thank us.
lurker
25 March, 14:14
It’s simply unfair.
The day last.fm introduces such subscription i delete my account immedietly. I believe most people outside uk/us/de will do so as well.
Sim
25 March, 14:15
oh noes no more free music for me in Malta! if only there was a way I can pipe my last.fm stream through a server located in one of those three countries! a proxy of sorts… oh wait a min…
limiting stuff of the internet is FUTILE. if last.fm needs money – do it through ads. I’d rather give the 39 bucks to my kid.
Joao Paulo Lages
25 March, 14:16
So people will give you for free all the information about what they are listening and like and you will charge themfor listening to the radio?
Sorry, I’m outta here.
In fact I would prefer to have ads in between radio songs than to pay for listening for something that I helped to build.
Shame on you and this business model that you are adopting.
These are the words from a “subscriber” user, that gave money to this site because he thinks that it is a great service. But I don’t think it’s fair for those who, as I do, lives out site US, UK andGermany.
I HOPE THAT ALL PEOPLE THAT DON’T AGREE WITH THIS STOP SCROBBLING THEIR SONGS AS I ALSO HOPE THAT INDEPENDENT ARTISTS STOP UPLOADING THEIR SONGS.
Bye Last.fm
Elwampa
25 March, 14:16
#WHAT A SHAME#
ociomax
25 March, 14:16
Bye Last.fm! (3)
sgj
25 March, 14:16
Don’t defend what Last.fm is doing, even if you love the service!
This is a cash grab. The owners will make more money, without having to do things other companies are doing (trim the work force, cut back office expenses). They’re shifting the burden onto consumers instead of handling their own problems internally.
And anyone who complains about people who wants something for nothing, I want them to go back to the day of their birth, and pay all hospital staff themselves. And then pay for all their toys, and all their parents love. Everyone’s a freeloader at some point.
LA$T.FM
25 March, 14:16
i dont beleive in this ! you treat us ( people from third world ) like rubbish . Do you know that 3 euro in my country is a lot of many , people here earn 250 -300 euro per month .why do i have to pay for richest countrys ( us , uk , ger ) , tell me why ? do i stink for you ? couse aim a poor man ? you want my money ?
free internet radio /…. ahahahhahaha
shame on you , it is economically segregation
-it is kind of apartheid
-i think that people from all the world should show solidarity with ppl from poorest countrys and delete their accounts
-go to hell whit your money , i hope you will bankrupt .
*sorry for my english
Vladimir
25 March, 14:20
The fact that you pissed off and lose most of your key contributors is really disappointing – without them, the service just won’t be worth paying.
This is an EPIC fail, Last.fm. Now you will just have to revert the decision to save the service, although even this wont make many offended users that left come back.
leather_girl
25 March, 14:21
Does this mean you have to pay to use the scrobbler?
I don’t listen to any of the tracks on Last fm Radio per se; but I use the scrobbling software to keep track and analyse my music listening habits on my personal ipod with the songs I already own.
Please don’t say we will have to pay for the scrobbler.
Nara
25 March, 14:22
You’ll fall
Brajt - Poland
25 March, 14:23
We – the poor third-world people, will have to pay a sum that’s a lot in many countries, to listen to just a few tracks.
They – the rich ones, won’t have to pay anything, to listen to all the tracks possible.
And what’s more – THEY, they rich people of US, made OUR economic situation much worse, by their OWN stupid credit problems, so this subscription we have to pay is TWICE more than it would be the previous year.
Do you really think it’s ethical? Do you really think it’s fair?
kam
25 March, 14:25
Bye bye, last.fm!
Hello, Spotify!
ex last.fm user
25 March, 14:26
you’re shit.
nothing else.
A devout scrobbler
25 March, 14:28
@Last.fm: You’re going to have to give more information and reassurances to people fast before everyone jumps ship. The rationale just isn’t clear at the moment.
My interpretation is as follows:
Unfortunately we live in an age where the expectation is internet=free and people don’t understand the real business issues behind the websites. Last.fm has got to do whatever it can to protect its revenue streams while keeping the content providers (e.g. the major labels) happy.
If the labels don’t feel they’re being fairly compensated for providing access to their tunes then they can pull their content and everyone loses.
I am truly sorry that people in other countries are losing the radio feature but the major labels would almost certainly expect significant royalties to allow this. Royalties which current subscriptions and advertising revenues may not provide.
I think it’s also likely to be a misconception that subscribers who are not from UK, US or Germany are subsidising those countries. I would expect those countries to be self-supporting, if they’re not then last.fm would not, in my opinion, have a viable business model. It may even be the case, that the UK, US and Germany have helped keep radio free in the other countries for longer than would have been the case.
To keep the radio free in the other countries, last.fm would need to increase advertising revenues in those countries or negotiate a new deal with the major labels (and that’s unlikely).
So before everyone says Last.fm has sold its soul, try to understand that their hand may have been forced on this issue.
sharlei
25 March, 14:28
Fuck you from Russia, fasist swine
Elwampa
25 March, 14:30
LETS ALL PLAY ONE SONG THAT WILL CALL:
Last.Fm sucks — Last.FM EPIC fail
Andrea Grandi
25 March, 14:30
I’m very disappointed about this!
Not only I’ll stop using the streaming service from NOW, but I’ll disable track scrobbling on all my clients, so you’ll stop collecting my data too.
I don’t find it right to have to pay for something that other people (in USA, UK and Germany) can have for free.
cunts.fm
25 March, 14:31
This is definitely April fools shit. They can’t be that big assholes.
FelipeDC
25 March, 14:31
This is simply ridiculous. Internet does not have a border, internet suppose to be international. That’s the beauty of it.
I feel sad for Last.fm.
I am closing my account.
tin
25 March, 14:31
I will delete my account today… Not going to pay a single cent…
Greetings from “the rest of the world”…
w
25 March, 14:32
if i am a user in the USA that travels to countries besides the UK & Germany, will i have to pay for international access?
in other words are you charging based in IP address or my registration info?
thx
btw,
i enjoy last.fm immensely but i think this is a road you will regret going down.
chuwei
25 March, 14:33
Either free for all or none. Sad thing, because I would’ve gladly paid to support you guys.
Dusan Vlahovic
25 March, 14:34
That sucks!!! we got the short end because we don’t live in those countries? bad, bad last.fm!
tin
25 March, 14:35
Does anybody know a good service which doesn’t discriminate upon race or origin???
Would appreciate comments…
Ulon
25 March, 14:35
Stop crying and let this website die.
there are plenty of alternatives.
Use spotify (google it)
kameroon diyazz
25 March, 14:35
I always thought the scrobbling we do is to the benefit of last.fm.
You get to know our listening habits and we get the service from you.
No service – no “pay”.
I don’t want to pay twice.
I’ll just keep track of what I listen to without sharing it with you.
No problem!
Thanks and bye bye!
me
25 March, 14:35
time to move my account from here
Hartm
25 March, 14:35
Unbelievable to put all the users into two categories, the ones who get service free and the ones who don’t…
Not good, not good at all. Unfair.
Adolf Hitler
25 March, 14:36
Haha, owners of last.fm, DID you really THINK before you made your biggest mistake?
It will be fun to see you sued in EU.
Ivan Vodka from Russia
25 March, 14:36
I will make own radio with blackjack and whores
Я щас ибану пузырь водяры, сяду на своего цепного медведя и приеду бить вам сукам ибалы
Burak Yiğit Kaya
25 March, 14:37
I do not object to pay for a good service but I DO object paying while some other people are NOT paying.
So until now I will focus on some other services and I started considering stop using Last.FM although I liked it very much.
A really unfair and dissapointing choice Last.Fm, sorry.
Ulon
25 March, 14:37
By the way, I’m not going to pay to let the Yankees enjoy free music. That’s preposterous!
Andrew D.
25 March, 14:38
Blah, Blah. I am canceling my account. When will the record companies learn… Sorry Last.fm but it’s been fun. Hmmm, where did I put that bittorent client?
Outsider
25 March, 14:38
Thank you for discriminating everyone outside this three countries!
t00nfish
25 March, 14:39
I am subscriber in Germany and i want a discount by subscribing for more than 3 months at one time, or bonus points or something else ;)
SPQR
25 March, 14:39
The main problem with the decision is, that last.fm is good, because it has many users. Many users mean that I get a lot of good tracks to listen to, and it correctly identifies similar artist. I would pay the 3 eur for the service I get now, because it is not significant, BUT I am afraid that the quality of the service will very seriously decline. There will be a LOT less users from non US,UK, Germany countries. I listen to a lot of Hungarian music here, but because the country is price sensitive, there will be a lot less users, so the main point of the site(that it’s a social networking site) will lose its significance, because hardly anyone will subscribe and use the site. Even if I would pay the 3 eur, others won’t, so even I get a lot worse service. I hope you see my point. This decision is the capital sentence for the site outside those countries. Why don’t play country-special ads between tracks or whatever?
Stickmatrix
25 March, 14:39
sigh. i wouldnt mind if you didnt get rid of streaming reccomended artists since thats how i found most of my new music, but now i cant listen to it i’ll have no idea if i’ll like it or not.
crososster
25 March, 14:40
The WTF in the U.S., UK and Germany is the most popular portal. I am from Poland and I have to pay for those who listen the most? Fuck it last.fm :/
And I apologize for my English
kudlaj
25 March, 14:41
This is really sad! In other words this means the end of last.fm!!!
KiKo
25 March, 14:43
Bye Bye Last.fm !!!
Could someone invite me to Spotify? :)
rothi
25 March, 14:43
Hey folks does the MU force you into such things? It’s really really really unfair to base a service on customers effort (scrobbling) and then charging them for it.
For my side I will stop scrobbling and hopefully everybody else living outside those 3 countries will aswell.
You’re service wouldn’t live without all the users scrobbling their music behavior. So you will loose your most important customers very soon.
Dani Thomaz
25 March, 14:43
Just FEW comments, han..? ;)
cdn...
25 March, 14:44
Guys, use free anonymous web proxy servers to bypass the restrictions.
http://www.xroxy.com/proxy-country-GB.htm
Jairo Lopez
25 March, 14:45
“we’re announcing an upcoming change to the way Last.fm Radio works in some parts of the world”
In some parts of the World??? Almost in all the world!!!
3 euros is a lot of money for Colombia. I’ve been a user since 2003, but if CBS can’t partner with an advertisement program that works globally they are screwed.
Good bye last.fm and thank you. Other services will fill your place.
This is an opportunity for Zune.
BAD MOTHER FUCKER
25 March, 14:45
I won’t pay! I will delete my account like luker.
pissed
25 March, 14:46
You ppl are charging for songs that are for FREE?. WHAT THE FUCK.
FUCK YOU ALL. FUCK LAST.FM. FUCK YOU
Mick
25 March, 14:48
I will refuse to pay for last.fm as it is. You really have to go Spotify style if you wish to get a penny of my pocket.
jeromesson
25 March, 14:48
That’s unfair and ridiculous. I’m leaving for Imeen which have better sound quality anyway. I can’t believe we’re valued less than UK or the US…
Thanks lastfm, that’s really humiliating and mean.
an artist
25 March, 14:49
Not good. Up until now I was going to use thousands of euros in Powerplay campaigns this year, but this makes me put my money elsewhere.
Mark
25 March, 14:50
Why you chose those three countries to continue without charge, I’m not sure.
I think I’ll start charging you for benefiting financially from the data that my music listening supplies you with.
I’ll charge you E3 per month.
Matteo
25 March, 14:50
How come I didn’t know a damned thing about this? When where you guys planning to let the users know?
I mean, I just found out by chance while reading a newspaper website, without any notification whatsoever from last.fm…weren’t you supposed to let all the users know in some way?
I don’t know how all these folks above me found out but…hey!!
Anyway I’m a big fan of yours…I hope the changes won’t change my point of view.
omermaras
25 March, 14:51
I won’t pay either… I guess, it’s time to look out for alternatives..
Ex Last.fm
25 March, 14:51
I can’t believe in my eye.
Who do you guys think you are? You guys turned traitors to all users.
Boycott last.fm now!!!
fuck off you
a Last.FM user in the rest of the world
25 March, 14:52
Instead of doing that stupid thing…. why not to push a little more advertising on the rest of the world (everyone but us, DE & UK) a lot of companies do that… they live their lives based on show adv. I’m quite sure that your revenue will be a lot larger than requiring 3 euros for every one of the 10 users that are going to be there next month.
Last.FM.Sucks
25 March, 14:53
i dont beleive in this ! you treat us ( people from third world ) like rubbish . Do you know that 3 euro in my country is a lot of many , people here earn 250 -300 euro per month .why do i have to pay for richest countrys ( us , uk , ger ) , tell me why ? do i stink for you ? couse aim a poor man ? you want my money ?
free internet radio /…. ahahahhahaha
shame on you , it is economically segregation
-it is kind of apartheid
-i think that people from all the world should show solidarity with ppl from poorest countrys and delete their accounts
-go to hell whit your money , i hope you will bankrupt .
*sorry for my english
^^^
TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!!!
Here, in Argentina, 3 euro is a lot of money!
You are crazy Last.FM?
alfredo
25 March, 14:53
Ya no cuenten conmigo para recolectar información ( NO MÁS SCROBBLING en spotify/itunes/songbird/firefox) y hacerse más millonarios con la VALIOSA información que ello supone.
Vivo en en Perú, país 3er mundista, puedo usar spotify sin problema alguno, así que pueden irse a la RCTM!
NO MORE SCROBBLING!
Bye L0st.fm, Hello Spotify!
KW
25 March, 14:53
Well, that will relieve some of the bandwidth load on the last.fm servers for sure when all the whiners leave. For those of you who claim 3 euros is too much money, how much did you pay for your PC and its necessary bits, hm?
I would rather see last charge a small fee than shut down completely.
disapointed
25 March, 14:54
I would probably pay those 3 euros per month, it’s not a big deal, but only if the payment would be asked from everybody, without any kind of discrimination.
In current situation I wont pay. I don’t like to be considered as a 2nd class customer. Bye.
Richard
25 March, 14:54
Bye-bye, last.fm. It’d been very nice but I don’t like the “rest of the world” treatment. :(
Why don't take a step back and literally fuck your own face, you greedy asshats
25 March, 14:55
http://code.google.com/p/thelastripper/downloads/list
hawkse
25 March, 14:55
Thanks for the link to that greasemonkey script, Ykä!
Now if only Spotify could open up their API so I can play my last.fm recommendation radio through Spotify.
That’s a service I’d pay for.
Asher
25 March, 14:56
Dear last.fm,
Mark the date: March 30, 2009. In the not too distant future, when you look back and try to analyse when your fall began, it will be helpful to remember this date.
So long, and thanks for all the songs.
becerro
25 March, 14:58
1000 responses. 99.9% against
It’s been a while since any of the staff members appeared here. Where are they now?
SPQR
25 March, 14:58
The main problem with the decision is, that last.fm is good, because it has many users. Many users mean that I get a lot of good tracks to listen to, and it correctly identifies similar artist. I would pay the 3 eur for the service I get now, because it is not significant, BUT I am afraid that the quality of the service will very seriously decline. There will be a LOT less users from non US,UK, Germany countries. I listen to a lot of Hungarian music here, but because the country is price sensitive, there will be a lot less users, so the main point of the site(that it’s a social networking site) will lose its significance, because hardly anyone will subscribe and use the site. Even if I would pay the 3 eur, others won’t, so even I get a lot worse service. I hope you see my point. This decision is the capital sentence for the site outside those countries. Why don’t play country-special ads between tracks or whatever?
I mean there are a lot of radio stations even in Hungary, which produce a lot of profit. You don’t even have to pay concession rights for the radio frequencies. The listeners of last.fm are more important for the companies, then what an average radio station has, because there are no grannies, internet users are richer etc… You should rather place advertisements between tracks. I don’t say that it would be worth the hassle for just one country, but the internet has access to all the countries of the world,and reaching the market of the remaining ~200countries you just qualified “not important” is I guess quite an important thing. Throwing away such a huge market would be stupid, you should rather try finding ways to make profit at these countries too.
Oh and one more thing, getting new users is a much harder thing then losing old users. Once the number of the users starts to decrease, it most probably won’t ever stop. It’s especially true at a SOCIAL NETWORKING site, where the number of users is a lot more important factor…
juan david
25 March, 14:59
I´m spanish, lisen music wiht last.fm but if the dirección of last.fm want that i pay for lisen her music whit last.fm they see that have one usuary less. one kis
Soy español, escucho musica con last.fm, pero si la dirección de last.fm quiere que pague por escuchar sus canciones con last.fm verán como pierden un usuario. Un abrazo
Darren
25 March, 14:59
I live in Canada. No more last.fm for me I guess. First Pandora, now this…. the licensing just doesn’t make sense. I’m not paying for something when its free for people standing on the other side of the border.
thespeckofme
25 March, 15:01
I am a subscriber, but ever since I read this announcement, I don’t feel the same about Last.fm
I really wish we had access to a line graph of Last.fm’s membership with time on x axis. Would be interesting to see how many people closed their accounts in the past 24 hours.
Forget (just) alienating your users, even when you think about this from a purely business-like outlook (CBS, I am looking at you), adopting a technique that makes you lose the users who make your algorithms work is not financially sound.
Is there no other way to make more money? At least, without discrimination?
I really hope you have something planned to stop the hemorrhaging of users. Without the masses scrobbling, you – Last.fm – are nothing.
Also, @Notyet who said:
“I gave books to our local library, and now they want to charge me for reading them. At the same time they don’t charge some other people.”
That is an excellent analogy. All over the web, everyone says that what is unique about Last.fm is the billions of scrobbles that make you own a treasure of user listening trends. We gave you those trends, and now you are making us pay for using them for our radio stations. Even other sites that require a monthly payment do not even have as much data as you do. And we put a lot of effort into scrobbling (time, running your software on PC/Mac/Linux/iPhone, accurate ID3 tagging, etc…)
I will clarify that I am not against requiring payment for some services. My beef is with:
1. Country discimination
2. Making that service the “radio station”. You could put a quota, time-limit, other limits on it. But to deny those who do not pay the service completely (again, your USP), just sounds wrong.
All I’m going to say is that I am starting to pay much more attention to Jamendo from now on.
This is massively bad news.
For you too Last.fm, I hope you realize that.
P.S. The whole issue of discriminating on the basis of IP address would require a paper on its own.
LuisManson
25 March, 15:01
Im back…
Now that i think…why do we have to pay and the rich countries dont????
Like elwampa said, LETS PLAY THIS SONG:
Last.Fm sucks — Last.FM EPIC fail
Also we could mail them and ask them to delete our account AND all the scrobbed music… DELETE all my interaction with the site…
Look, they added frontiers to the internet!!
Christ Saddler
25 March, 15:04
i’m an artist too and i have tracks uploaded to last.fm. if the rest of the world will pay for what i intended to give for free, does this means that i should be payed by you acording to the percentage of listeners playing my tracks? why should you be payed for what i give for free?
Ginfress
25 March, 15:04
Seems a lot of the internet kids are in full force again today. And not the brightest either.
Life isn’t fair, better get used to it while growing up.
There is nothing wrong with last.fm’s decision from a business point of view.
But hey they could also state:
Sorry guys but we close our service to all countries besides three because we can no longer make enough profit from it. Remember Pandorra?
Canada
25 March, 15:04
And Canada?
steinfeld
25 March, 15:04
Account deleted, no more scrobbling for ya, fare thee well last.fm <beg>
Gabrielle
25 March, 15:05
Hey, thank you very much. I won’t be listening to Last.fm radio anymore.
I’m paying for US, UK and Germany listen for free, right? [2]
Apostolos
25 March, 15:05
am a subscriber…so no problem for me… it is hard though to say all countries exc us-uk-ger….but dear music “lovers” whats 3€ per month for a service like this?
golem
25 March, 15:06
You’ll loose any user in every country except those excluded. It is insulting that I have to pay, so others can listen for free.
Another failure.com
Bring back the free last.fm!
25 March, 15:07
http://www.last.fm/group/Bring+back+the+free+last.fm
ED
25 March, 15:07
Bye Last.fm.
last.fm.user.many
25 March, 15:08
damn.. but I didn’t listen to last.fm’s radio stations much anyway.
I hope there will be agreements in all other countries soon!
A Last.fm user.
vajorie
25 March, 15:10
I just deleted my account after seeing your announcement. Thanks and have fun with such discriminatory practices.
Mustang
25 March, 15:11
@ geodude
??What comes after 30-3!!!?
1 April.. its hoax!??
Nope, it’s 31-3
Fuck last.fm (CBS) those greedy bastards
CAPITALIST PIGS!
Trexmaster
25 March, 15:11
Today was the last day I ever connected to Last.fm
I don’t live in the US, UK or Germany and there’s no way I’m going to pay for someone else to enjoy your service for free.
el_natre
25 March, 15:11
1.read the bad news this morning
2.erase account
3.??????
4.PROFIT
RestOfTheWorld
25 March, 15:11
LETS PLAY THIS SONG:
Last.Fm sucks — Last.FM EPIC fail
_
second that iniciative.
miguel
25 March, 15:12
panel de control = enter
agregar o quitar programas = enter
last.fm = quitar
bye
Eddy
25 March, 15:16
It’s outrageous this will be only for European countries. You could’ve easily reduced the amount of fee if EVERYBODY has to pay.
Eventho I don’t agree, I hope you can fill your pockets nicely with our money.
cough! sarcasm
Germán
25 March, 15:16
Bye Lastfm…You were one of my precious apps till today!
whaler
25 March, 15:16
ostatni gasi swiatlo
MugsErrant
25 March, 15:17
Ok lets break it down more simply.
For those whining about having to pay consider that the other option is that Last.fm cant afford to stream to you and so blocks that country completely.
Im sure you’d all love that.
Of course the other, other option is that Last.fm stays totally free because you all demand it (haha) and then goes under in a few months…
Really – get some logic people.
Mark Guertin
25 March, 15:18
The last nail in the coffin for me …
Too bad, at one point last.fm was great and innovative … then the buyout happened and it slowly turned stale and controlling.
There’s waaaaay to much mislabeled content and now enforced monthly subscriptions are the last nail in the coffin.
So much for getting the “right content to the right people” … “right” people apparently are now only those that live in certain countries and the rest of us are second rate citizens.
R.I.P last.fm
Pixieguts
25 March, 15:19
As an independent artist and long time subscriber at Last.fm I just don’t know what’s going to happen from here…
It’s not clear from any of this whether track and album previews on artist pages will still play in full for everyone. It would be much appreciated if Last.fm could clarify this.
If not, it seems extremely likely this will dramatically reduce playcount stats and possibilities for distribution of independent music as there are likely to be massively less people to play the music. If that is the case, Last.fm seems likely to lose a lot of artists too.
Despite dismay with many changes in the middle of last year, I have continued in the intervening months to believe that Last.fm was still the best place for an artist to be in terms of finding and developing an audience. I wonder if this can possibly be the case from here on in.
Non-paying users are the majority on the site so this latest move by Last.fm is surely going to kill off a very large number of them, especially as there are so very many internet music sites where listening in full is free – such as Blip.fm, The Sixty One, Jamendo, MySpace, a multitude of music networks at Ning, Reverbnation, Soundclick, Imeem, iLike, Internet Archive – this list goes on and on.
As for the royalties we artists are meant to be getting to support us, I didn’t even bother signing up for it – the percentage is miniscule and only benefits the big artists (more precisely, mostly the commercial labels) with massive plays. The way this is claimed as a heroic effort on the part of all artists is very misleading when the cold hard reality is that most artists on any independent music site earn nothing or almost nothing for their radio plays, revenue share or whatever the sites like to call it.
I blame CBS. Last.fm started off as an idealistic, globally oriented project. Now it is just another commercial exercise limited to the G3 (as an earlier response put it so well).
I guess we will all see what happens from here. I’m just glad I stopped spending almost all of my net time at Last.fm with the changes last July and have developed so many other backup internet music options since that time.
Chris
25 March, 15:21
“I’m paying for US, UK and Germany listen for free, right?” Wrong. Streaming is being closed down in countries which can’t support themselves with ad revenue
UK/US/DE are the main markets for Last.fm, have more users than other countries, and are able to support themselves. You’re not subsidising our streams, the ads pay for it. Your subscription pays for Last.fm to buy the licenses needed to stream online in your country.
Aru
25 March, 15:21
One word: discrimination.
and I agree with thespeckofme on all the points he raised.
I’m considering to cancel my free account that has been here for over 2 years because I’m not accepting this.
And it’s not the 3€/months (which is so totally not worth it) but it’s the way this is being handed down.
I don’t even listen to the radios on here but honestly, how long will it take to make the whole service pay-for-use after this decision?
I have a feeling the answer is “not too long.”
Good bye!
hrst
25 March, 15:22
Good bye last.fm. Deleted my account after 5 years, but I don’t see why I should pay for US / UK / GER people.
Control Freak
25 March, 15:22
Why the complaints? This is what they said they were going to do ages ago…
Last.fm Acquired By CBS
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
This deal with CBS gives us a chance to really make Last.fm suck, and gives us more flexibility than other funding options would for doing crazy stuff like abandoning the majority of contributors to the site database.
CBS understands the Last.fm vision, the importance we place on putting selected listeners in charge, the vibrant, vocal and soon rapidly declining community, the obsession with music stats, and our determination to control who has the privilege to listen to every song ever recorded for free and who pays for it all.
http://blog.last.fm/2007/05/30/lastfm-acquired-by-cbs
Areocam
25 March, 15:23
…and so it’s goodbye to LastFM from me. This sucks. This is a racist policy…don’t charge the first world countries for the service, instead charge us here in Indonesia. Yeah people really make paying for internet radio a priority in this country. I don’t really care to know why you’ve decided to do this but from where I stand, it looks like filthy racism. Disgusting.
UudiS
25 March, 15:23
And that is how dies democracy with thunderous applause. shame, shame. Last.fm I thought you were user friendly. :(
gypsy_eyes1982
25 March, 15:24
I pretty much quote all thespeckofme said. very sad news, although I ain’t been listening to the radios for months.
malkav30
25 March, 15:26
I used last.fm mainly to discover new music. I recently started to use the radio station, which proved to be very nice and useful. now, i am very pissed off to learn that because i live in an “other country”, i am a less worthy user than the us/uk/de ones, and that the record industry once again asks more than i can pay for what they have to offer.
I wont pay for something other countries have free, and am very sad to learn that last.fm think that way about country discrimination. it just sucks…
Chris
25 March, 15:27
I’m glad to see an internet company come up with a good way to generate revenue that doesn’t hit the pocket book too hard. I have no problem paying a few bucks a month if it means that last.fm isn’t going to shut down like some many other startups have over the last little while.
Peter
25 March, 15:28
@Matthew Ogle
You know what? I could pay to use this but since you’re being such an ASS just thinking in the MONEY and fucking the users then I prefer to pay a VPN connection to the STATES and pay you NOTHING.
Btw, I use ad blockers.
Or since I will be using VPN, I’ll switch to Pandora :)
Paul
25 March, 15:30
It had better be 30 tracks free per session or at least per month.
Otherwise I likely won’t be using the site anymore.
I liked you better before you sold out.
Im not part of the G3, its obvious.
25 March, 15:31
As always in human history, the poorest parts of the world assuming the expenses of the richests parts of the world.
Shame on you LastFm.
Shame on you.
ching
25 March, 15:33
If you want to keep this thing alive without fighting go and join
http://www.lastfm.de/group/Last.fm+payment+subscription+protest
That they see how many users they would loose
angro
25 March, 15:34
RIP
msbeintema
25 March, 15:34
This is a genuine back stab to all the people who made Last.fm what it is right now. And now you’re turning your back on us, instead of doing the RIGHT thing, generating more advertising or even try to THINK about a seriously good solution (like time limits per day etc.)
It is clear you chose the path of least resistance. Foul play, Last.HQ!
LLRNR
25 March, 15:35
You can treat this as USER FEEDBACK, choke on it for a while. ACCOUNT DELETED, SO LONG.
——————————————————————
The hell with you!
Money-hungry bastards!
You can’t support the infrastructure? You can’t pay the labels?
How FFS then did you manage to do this all along?
Now you’re just basically saying bye-bye to 50% of your users.
You might as well have made last.fm non-free from the very beginning, or, even better, accessible only to you elite UK and US folks and you Arian German people.
The hell with “other countries”, eh?
Well, same to you, last.fm!
I used to be an advocate of this service. Well, not any more.
There are always alternatives.
Your former “LLRNR” user, from a non-US, non-UK and non-German place who knows this is nevertheless a useless protest. You don’t need us anyway.
pks
25 March, 15:35
I alway thought about last.fm as a cool idea, but despise owning a account I never really jumped on the bandwagon, tbh.
Anyway, this move is questionable at best – you are basically alienating your users, who (despise some comments above) has gigantic share in the success of this service. Hey, it is social/community site, right? As I noted before I’m not really one of them but this new way of doing business gives me bad taste. And yes, I am outside those 3 privileged countries, but 3€ is not much to me either…
And one more thing – are you sure your are not breaking EU laws with with the new policy?
Miłoszek
25 March, 15:36
I’m going to destroy UK, US, Germany and Last.fm HQ
buba
25 March, 15:38
I like the new proposed name for last.fm -> “LOST.FM”…
Another one bites the dust……… lost.fm, R.I.P. I can’t wait to see your stock to plunge. Oh, and, even if you change your mind about this idiocy, I will never come back.
For those in the “lesser” world: * Anywhere.fm * Batanga * Blip.fm * deezer.com * iLike * imeem * Live365 * Jamendo * MOG * Musicovery * Pandora * Playlist.com * Slacker * SpiralFrog * Spotify * We7 * Zune Social
Enjoy!
bdu
25 March, 15:39
Aw c’mon last.fm don’t do this!
Mark
25 March, 15:39
Shame on you, indeed. Why are you doing this? Imeem and Pandora are going to kick your sorry assets [pun intended] if you do this. You better be joking.
Federico
25 March, 15:40
So in order to solve your financial problem you turn it into a bigger financial problem (alienating so many users) by creating new ways of net neutrality violation. Way to go corporate air heads!
ravelithium
25 March, 15:41
if its true… prepare to delete my profile
no more last.fm
what a shame :(
Marc
25 March, 15:41
Dear Last.FM-Team!
You are right, at the end, nothing is possible without costs.
But THINK!
It’s NO GOOD IDEA to fix a price.
‘..here have a dollar
in fact now brotherman here have two
two dollars means a snack for me
but it means a big deal to you..”
(Arrested Development – Mr. Wendel)
ReTHINK.
PLEASE!
Marc aka TheCyb
o.me
25 March, 15:42
For sure! Shame on you last.fm! What’s the deal with that steamroller tactics? Although I’m out of Germany it’s an audacious step in your history! Turn around or you’ll lose lots of your members.
LivingInAPoorLocation
25 March, 15:43
Who cares I hope last.fm wil bankrupt soon.
It was nice with you bye bye.
tst
25 March, 15:44
Free services :) What a joke! You left them free since your data-mining techniques (some sort of context-based recommendation) depend on scrobbled data. The more data you have the better are the recommendation results. Making this commercial will kill your service.
eldergod
25 March, 15:44
Canadian listener here, wow this is a huge disapointment. Yes its a relatively small amount of money, but knowing that in the USA this will still be free is a bitter pill to swallow.
Now i have to ask myself if i truly value this service enough to incur the hastle of setting up an ongoing monthly expense. I’m on the fence, you may have, and probably have lost me.
jeromesson
25 March, 15:45
Someone up there posted L0st fm, very funny… These guys are zeros : they couldn’t imagine a more humiliating thing than that!
In terms of communication, that’s sending a message to the users that are not American, Brittish or German… saying how last fm consider them (rubbish). Please, German, American and Brittish users: tell them what you also think of that!!
peppoMus
25 March, 15:46
You are going to loose me.
Marc
25 March, 15:46
Do you guys in UK have a March fool day or what?
terramigma
25 March, 15:47
Am leaving too….
Javi Moya
25 March, 15:48
- Worst Decisions in History – Beginning of time: Adam and Eve eat the apple
12th Century BC: The Trojans let it the horse in
1962: Dick Rowe rejects the Beatles
1990: Tom Cruise becomes a scientologist
2009: Last.fm commits suicide
Please… dear last.fm users (specially UK, Germany and US users)… delete your accounts and all your content.
thx
european 'used to' listener
25 March, 15:49
indeed shame on Last FM
as with adobe European Listeners will be part of discrimination
hope there will rise another initative, so we can forget this one
dRifter
25 March, 15:49
Well, it was nice while it lasted.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
WebCM
25 March, 15:49
Set the whole last.fm service paid for Polish users because we are the Chosen Nation and we must get featured. Nice plan! Return to 1939 when United Kingdom hadn’t helped us to defeat Nazi-German troops? Keep up good work! Good luck for futures. I’m looking forward to next news title: “Last.fm paid in Poland”. Remember that Poland is the Chosen Nation and site maintenance cost so much – RIAA gets most profits.
titoose
25 March, 15:50
I am a subscriber since 2006, but it is obvious that amount of users is going to decrease, along with the quality of scrobblings (only English and German music?), so I guess I won’t renew my subscription. Music industry is killing itself.
I’m really sorry about this.
kitaro
25 March, 15:52
you owe your huge success and all the income the site generates to millions of users from all around the world, and now you just say “go fuck yourself” to them. Shame on you Last.fm.
This site wouldn’t gain the status it currently has with decisions like this.
Para
25 March, 15:52
As an EU citizen living outside UK & Germany, I’d like a clarification to whether it’s even legal to charge me for the same service Last.fm offers for free in those two member states.
Marc
25 March, 15:52
FROM THE ABOUT PAGE
==================
Sometimes we get nostalgic for the early days. Then we give ourselves a slap around the head and say “Wake up! There are still people who can’t get at the music they want the way they want to. So, back to work…”
HAHAHA, WHAT A JOKE!!!
====================
Lis
25 March, 15:54
All this sounds like bloody fascism to me. If you make new rules, at least make them for everyone. I guess next step will be making colored people in the USA, UK and Germany pay.
duh
25 March, 15:54
So far, you’ve provided different service to users (e.g. squeezebox, direct song/album streaming available in US/UK/DE only – however, for free. Now you expect users in third countries to pay for even less service than others get at no cost. Who tells them anyway you’ll support new features in their countries in the future, even if they subscribe?
Other services struggle for a large, worldwide user community, you choose to let it go – well, this is at least original. And stupid.
waldnzwrld
25 March, 15:55
OK so here is a novel idea . Google does it why can’t you . You are taking an enormous amount of information in by user , why not just add user generated ads in say once every twenty minutes . Ta Dah , no more problems . The ad execs and lawyers hop off of your back and a great thing stays great . Everyone is hurting for $$ in this economy but tell the bloodsuckers to go chase an ambulance and find a new way . Einstein would . And he has puffy hair so why not give it a try ,…. you know the younger you would have fought for it .
Romualdo Zwolinski
25 March, 15:55
This sucks balls; couldn’t there be some alternative?
Canadian here, just hate when I’m getting the shaft.
b0rsuk
25 March, 15:55
You’re going to be surprised how many people are actually going to pay $3/month just to have essentially random tracks marketed to them.
romulogmx
25 March, 15:56
Well it´s unfortunate and predictable that something like this happens. Last.fm is to well organized to be a free service, with some failures but still a great service, but not to take money from everyone that don’t belong to the richest countries.
If the chart service is still to be a free service I’ll keep connected… otherwise f.c. it. I won’t pay a cent for this elite service.
lolz
25 March, 15:58
KUTASY!! DAWAĆ TO ZA DARMO DLA POLAKÓW!!!!!!!!!
danny
25 March, 15:59
Suicide. A real shame.
ECK
25 March, 16:01
So much for a great alternative to torrents for the poorer countries.
Good job. Really.
I fully expect people from around the world to use last.fm for suggestions as to what to download now.
I just hope the suggestions won’t get removed because of that. If they do, I hope last.fm doesn’t die until after I export my scrobbles to somewhere else.
Anyway, I have no intention of sponsoring the US, UK and Germany.
Russian
25 March, 16:02
I created about a 100 wiki pages, uploaded a bunch of album covers to help the site. And now, what do I get? Bye bye, cuz you are Russian. Thanks a lot, nazis.
P.S. even the captcha to this post says $8.95. Shame on you, bloodsuckers.
Luis V.
25 March, 16:04
What do you mean “recommendations will remain free”?
We would be able to listen to recommendations radio for free like always??
But you just said Radio would be not-free!
.
Pls, clarify that!
ZaphodBeeblebrox
25 March, 16:05
yea. this is fail
i subscribed, but i don’t know if i will be anymore, this isn’t right, to pay is fine, but that others get it for free, (and even more?)
NO.
i at least demand to be able to change my name – or to be able to have more than 200 tracks on playlist – or be able to actually edit my tracks et’all.. oh wait? that doesn’t HAPPEN, DOES IT?
WTF IS WRONG WITH NORWAY? are we not rich enough for you?!
john
25 March, 16:06
i use last.fm to keep up to date with new music,through recommendations and the tag radios,so i can go into the little independant record stores and buy music.so,having to pay to listen to something,in fact paying CBS to listen to a track that i may or may not like,seems a bit misguided.
it’s sad really,as i’ve discovered quite a few artists on last.fm,and i’ve gone out and BOUGHT their releases,so i’m no freeloader.this is just the corporate cocksuckers(that’s you,CBS) trying to claw all that money back that they’re losing through the major chainstores.i have to admit,i was a little worried when i heard CBS were moving in,and i was right.
besides which,why should i pay for what is basically a social network with a radio station,that works sometimes…when the big 3 can have it for free?tbh,i get more of a kick out of the forums than some of the music you recommend to me,so should i have to pay for misjudged reccs and inane bullshit in the forums?
mattycon
25 March, 16:07
Oh fuck.
I hate my country.
k-roll
25 March, 16:08
mercenários
j-a-n-u-s
25 March, 16:08
@Para: I fear it is legal to create such differences between Member States of the European Community. In general, differences created by private business are treated a lot more carefully than those created by one or more of the states.
That being said, creating such differences can come into conflict with both EC competition rules and – in very rare instances – the economic freedoms. There is absolutely no question that the latter case doesn’t apply here so your only chance would be competition law.
Selective pricing for different states can, however, only come into conlifct with those rules if it is an arbitrary misuse of market power. Now, in our case Last.FM shall be able to make a very convincing argument as likely they – so far – were only able to secure favorable agreements with the music industry (f**** ‘em all if you ask me) in the U.K and Germany, meaning that it would essentially be losing money if it did not charge the rest.
That is only an educated guess, of course. I sure would like to see the case before the CFI :).
curious
25 March, 16:09
I’m still hesitating on whether to use proxy, because I’m lazy. Probably I’ll delete my account and uninstall Last.fm…. Unless you convince me that I should sponsor US/UK/Germany users. Go on, Last.fm – have your say!
Gert
25 March, 16:09
This is REALLY discriminating politics
And i am sure that because of it you will
loose a lot of listeners and supporters
it is indeed a sad day for last.fm
Luis V.
25 March, 16:09
Recommendations would be only free for 30 days????
This is SO unfair.
We helped with our feeds and our data of our tastes to help you to build your “recommendations” tags database.
And now you’re ditching us!!!
.
Forget it guys!! there is also Jiwa!!!!
Lets go to Jiwa!!!
A
25 March, 16:10
(Disclaimer: I never use the radio features, I’m mostly interested in charts and artist discovery through networking)
I understand why you might start showing your greed now that you have a huge user base, but moves like this might cost you more in reputation than the revenue gained.
I bet most of your users are casual users who will be driven away by this kind of monetization attempts.
Skywriter_
25 March, 16:11
Hey, if this really happens i’ll delete my account (don’t know if it’s possible) or at least stop using your services.
This is ridiculous.
If you’re starting to charge money for the service, i think you should charge everyone… not just some countries…
whatevr
25 March, 16:12
so, the €3 is for countries that can’t support themselves by ads? how about austria, we don’t have an own site. we use the german one. guess at least some clicks on the ads have also been made by people austrian ip adresses.
A
25 March, 16:14
@Luis V.
Quote from the article:
“Everything else on Last.fm (scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc.) will remain free in all countries, like it is now.”
Just the recommendations radio will be a payed service.
newservice
25 March, 16:14
Yeah, I will start a new web service where everything will be for free! Bye bye last.fm
Nick
25 March, 16:14
Yes, sorry, I have to agree: this is a terrible, terrible move. I’m in the UK, so it doesn’t affect me (for the moment, anyway…), but it really makes me feel differently about last.fm. You can’t suddenly radically change terms and conditions (change your business model, even) like that without alienating users, who have scrobbled their music in good faith on the understanding that they were being offered a choice between a basic advertising-funded free service and an enhanced subscription service.
This change undermines that understanding, and means that even those of us in the UK, USA & Germany can no longer safely assume that last.fm will continue to offer the same services in future, on the same terms. That really takes the edge off the (until now massive) enthusiasm I have for last.fm.
Saying that ‘Everything else on Last.fm will remain free’ doesn’t cut it, because intelligent radio is absolutely central to last.fm. (Sure, it’s interesting to see charts of what you’ve been listening to, but it’s not enough to make last.fm worth getting excited about). Combining last.fm with audioscrobbler back in the day was genius, and surely is the concept that last.fm’s success was founded on. With this, you seem to gone some way towards separating them again.
el_tigro
25 March, 16:15
Will the charging depend on IP address or where your account is registered to?
alionsonny
25 March, 16:16
Well, as long as my music is available for free from my LastFM-Page, I don’t care. But once this is no longer the case, I’ll and all my music will be no longer at LastFM. Many Free MP3 Sites out there. Mark my words LastFM!
nah
25 March, 16:16
even tho im from germany, this doesnt feel right.
NocnikStargazer
25 March, 16:17
MugsErrant wrote:
“Ok lets break it down more simply.
For those whining about having to pay consider that the other option is that Last.fm cant afford to stream to you and so blocks that country completely.
Im sure you’d all love that.
Of course the other, other option is that Last.fm stays totally free because you all demand it (haha) and then goes under in a few months…
Really – get some logic people.”??
I’ts totally wrong.
If you read what people wrote – most of them wouldn’t mind paying. Actually many of them DO pay, they are subscribers. What makes them angry is the fact of treating people from different contries differently. It’s against the spirit of Internet and it’s against the spirit of Last.fm.
Another way that makes us angry is the way of telling it – just five days before it happens and in the blog, not in some well exposed place on the site. I find it rather disrespectful and I know that I’m not the only one.
tukker
25 March, 16:17
Funny. I live in the Netherlands, a mere 400 metres from the German border. The Dutch call me a German By Default. If I walk to the kitchen, my mobile phone will switch to a German carrier. But that’s not good enough for Last.fm, apparently. They think I’m completely insensitive to German ads. sighs
I just stopped scrobbling and unless this is the worst April 1 joke ever, this is the end of the love affair. GFY
Slovenian
25 March, 16:20
Another semi-insulted European here.
Favouring already privileged markets is a cowardly decision, unworthy of new media with non-precedented potential.
As some others, I’m already beginning to regret the time and effort I put into creating the “rich content of the site”, as you say.
I will be searching for alternatives instead of paying for this increasingly corporate project.
endaksi
25 March, 16:21
ok.. so for me this is goodbye last fm..
zhoppa
25 March, 16:21
What is the meaning of lastfm? I do not think many people agree to it..
BB
Z
25 March, 16:22
The Internet is a global network. This trend of restricting content to certain countries is ruining the Internet.
This is only going to cause people to either a) use proxies, or b) leave the site, never to return.
€3 isn’t much… but it’s €3 more than I used to pay. I’m not going to pay for something that is, for others, a free service. Free for all for free for none.
Sorry, but fuck that.
orck
25 March, 16:23
shame on you
Pete.Hurd
25 March, 16:24
well, that’s it for me then. It really was good, bye from Canada.
Someone from EU
25 March, 16:25
So why discriminating people not living in those countries? Not getting the big picture.
You are shutting down something that was one of the main reasons to use last.fm; forgetting about some of the people that let you grow this big.
pretender
25 March, 16:25
redicoulos.
it’s not the 3 bucks i am angry about, i would pay them, but that some coutries are excluded!
hope you go down
x
25 March, 16:27
Really, go fuck yourself.
Charge all or none!
You won’t see me any more
Darrell
25 March, 16:28
First Pandora, now Last.fm? Sure, yours is still available for a price, but it’s one I’m not willing to pay. Getting nickle and dimed to death by monthly subscriptions as it is. Thank goodness for internet radio!
Renske
25 March, 16:30
I’d consider paying those three euros if last.fm would devise some easy way of paying from the Netherlands, that doesn’t involve a credit card or paypal account. Something like the Dutch iDeal service.
Otherwise people that aren’t from the UK or US are double screwed, cause paying last.fm from abroad is complicated as it is.
Oh, and why change things for the Netherlands and not for Germany? Doesn’t seem fair!
Anonymus
25 March, 16:30
LOL
what about the rest of the world? Best stupid decision ever. Congratz
PS; Just deleted my lastfm.
booklover777
25 March, 16:32
This is truly disappointing. I only use the radio to listen to music. Since I live in Canada I don’t have Pandora or Spotify as an option. What am I supposed to do now?
Quiquex
25 March, 16:33
Paying for services outside our country is pretty difficult right now, we’ve had a controlled currency exchange in Venezuela for several years now. AND few of your most avid users, namely teenagers, have a credit card.
Besides, it doesn’t feel quite right to contribute to your site with info, music, and building comunity, and then having to pay so that users in the rich countries receive the service for free.
This should be an issue between you and your shareholders, partners, the labels, etc.
How about creating the gift suscription model, like Flickr? That could be an alternative.
o.me
25 March, 16:33
@all: bring that news to your profile page ‘cause less people will read it here!
Bordeaux03
25 March, 16:35
Will changing your country in the settings allow users to get round this?
Starting to charge people to use your service especially in today’s economic climate is not exactly a great way of encouraging more users to use Lastfm is it? I reckon it’s just a way of CBS to start clawing back the £140m the paid for this site. Still CBS are only worth a few billion £££‘s aren’t they! Why not ask those millionnaires on the board of CBS if they would like to pay for this service instead of your average person who are struggling to pay their bills anyway.
Duarte
25 March, 16:36
it’s really sad that last.fm decides now to build walls and borders in a globalized world..
Goodbye. There are plenty of free online radios..
Marc
25 March, 16:37
Look at this
6740 Diggs…
And this one
Only 93 Diggs. Such a shame…
Mjn
25 March, 16:37
I just wiped out my account completely. I didn’t do it because I don’t have money to pay, but because I have no intention of subsidizing services that others get for free just because they happen to live somewhere. I had nearly 70000 scrobbles.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
FREE IS FREE
25 March, 16:37
Join if you belong to the discriminated countries or if you respect all of the people around the world. http://www.lastfm.ru/group/FREE+IS+FREE
Todor
25 March, 16:37
So pity! A year ago you shouted to the world that you will free the music and do nothing but lied everybody. This is miserable.
kraymer
25 March, 16:38
This is sad to hear. I was under the impression that using banners and whatnot was enough to financially support the service. One note must be allowed though: Music coming from the big $$ labels just is not for free. People tend to overlook that.
I’m not sure if lastfm really needs the extra money or if it’s just CBS who want their investment to show it was financially worth it.
One thing I want to add though: People are mentioning “spotify”, which was unknown to me before. Well, it says to me on the start page that “my country isn’t supported”. So in what way is that service any better now?! Still, you’ll always find a page where you get quality internet radio streams.
Wake up, users: Labels want money for their artist’s music.
Wake up, labels: There will always be sources for music on the web. For free!
DropDop
25 March, 16:38
не слушал и слушать не собираюсь. идите на хуй например!
whittag
25 March, 16:38
LastFM sucks. Fucking corporate hogs! Charge money to people in the poor countries of the world and provide the music to people in the rich countries at no charge!!!
If there’s any justice in the universe, you will fail.
joe
25 March, 16:39
buahahahhhahahahaha
you funny people… best joke ever,
money for music? good luck with that.
Manuel
25 March, 16:39
Spanish resident. I stop scrobbling from today.
Stop Scrobbling Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=56512292573
javiflames
25 March, 16:39
Good bye Last.FM.
Tomas
25 March, 16:40
Well… what can I say? Hey, yes: goodbye!!!!
gwynbleidd
25 March, 16:43
This is an amazing and unbelievable way of killing your own business: charging for something that used to be free in the middle of an economic crisis (where every single euro is taken into account) and when new competitors with same or better perks are trying to steal your market size (e.g. Spotify) and creating “first level” and “second level” users (and thus frustrating and angering the latter, who will eventually abandon you).
Pity for me, I used to like this site… but I don’t feel like paying for what others get for free just beacuse they live in a different country… that’s too far from what Internet is supposed to be…
So long, last.fm…
Nacho
25 March, 16:47
On the one hand, you haven’t stated clearly the subscription’s terms (we do know its cost, not the benefits we are to get out of it). Will there be a basic subscription (just listening to the radio) and a premium one (my recommendations,…) or the fee will include access to the whole set of features?
On the other hand, last.fm does rely on scrobbling (popularity, recommendation, ranking), so I suggest that you pay users a fee for each scrobbling. Mmm, I think that a fair amount could be around 3€ per month.
Cheers
Rawnsley
25 March, 16:50
One less user.
www.newmusiccanada.com FTW!
Don’t worry – Canadians will still share our music with YOU.
Bas
25 March, 16:51
No way!
You’ll be losing both users as well as artists this way.
thn
25 March, 16:53
Completely understandable move. But why not scrap the free, ad-sponsored radio stream in US, UK and DE, too? My guess: last.fm (or CBS) fear for the relatively safe income.
Either charge all or none. This would be a courageous move.
BTW, I am a happy subscriber from Germany since 2005 and currently last.fm is the best music service for me on the web. Pandora or Spotify don’t offer anything to Germans because of licensing restrictions.
asd
25 March, 16:53
Lost an user…
Bye…
looking for other online radio
GPX
25 March, 16:54
This is the total vibe killer.
Feels wrong in a plethora of ways:
- Country discrimination.
- asking money from people too poor to pay the fee
- a subscription outside the G3 doesn’t even gets you the features that a free user has within the G3 gets.
- opposed tot the global internet/internet without bounderies ideal
- opposed to the social principles of the site
- shutting people off from the data they built with scrobbles and other contributions.
I know it’s just the streaming radio that gets killed, but it’s an integral part of the lastfm experience.
You LastFM people might as well quit the whole site altogether and find something else to do. I already stopped scrobbling from the plugins and I might delete the whole account.
For me this isn’t about the money I can afford it, but LastFM will feel so much more empty without all the people that are bound to quit the site.
LastFM should be about reflecting the tastes of the world, about finding music from allover the world, about new artists promoting their music. This decision will make all these things eventually impossible.
GPX (Last FM user since 2005)
Jaime Zamora
25 March, 16:56
www.deezer.com much better that this!!
Bas
25 March, 16:57
Does this mean I will have to start downloading music illegally instead of streaming it in exchange for royalties?
SanHolo
25 March, 16:58
Bad decision, letting the rest of the world pay for the privileged three countries.
I guess you’ll regret this move soon.
Seán Harrington
25 March, 17:01
Way to stab us in the back last.fm.
I bet Spotify are creaming themselves at the thought of last.fm alienating millions of users :-)
AndyW
25 March, 17:03
goodbye!!!!
bombadil25
25 March, 17:04
And what about all data provided by the users: photos, bios, tags correction, events. Last.fm is a social site built every day by users all over the world, so now that the site has added value thanks to us, then you want me to pay for something I helped to raise? No, no, this is not fair. And this bussines model you at last.fm are about to implant has no future, you will fail as other free sites that became “pay-per-use”.
Helvete
25 March, 17:04
Why the fuck doesn’t USA, UK and Germany get affected by this? They’re the countries you’ll make the most money from, you fucking sell-outs
Victor - spain
25 March, 17:04
Last.fm is killing its own community and destroying the best thing it had: “diversity”.. by reducing it to 3 country users..
We all know what happens to free internet services that become pay per use.. They just go empty and die..
Rest in peace Last.fm..
stefanie
25 March, 17:06
well, i generally would be happy to pay the 3 euros for the radio but i really dislike the fact that you discriminate between countries… so sorry but no more radio for me, although i really like the concept… why not make a 10euro or even less fee per year for every country, including the big markets – should even bring more money and would be fair at least.
grüße aus wien
faby-brain
25 March, 17:08
Sorry, I didn’t understand: what about ‘My library’?
Is it also gonna be paid?
ALL the radio-stations will be?
That sucks, I’m not going to pay, anyway.
We, russians, ary pretty sure, that in the Internet everything should be for free =P
Привет :)
Slovenian
25 March, 17:08
I’d like to know if deleting my account would delete all my stats and info permanently or if you have backups somewhere you’re not telling us about (in true Facebook fashion). You had the right to poke around in the database we willingly provided you in exchange for free service. This decision has now cost you that right.
Also, thanks to the users posting alternative websites in the comments. Some are looking pretty good!
marmey
25 March, 17:11
3€/$ isn’t much but you shoot yourself in the foot. It’s not about the money, everebody knows that, it’s just about being fair. Everyone or no one. Simple thing.
Jason
25 March, 17:11
Either make it pay for all, or free for all. Doing anything else is just morally reprehensible.
Jason,
Canada
andrea25
25 March, 17:11
@Owen Parry
“Scrobbling is free and will always be free. Other services that will continue to be free to everyone, everywhere:
[…]”
they’re based on OUR listening DATA.
so YOU should pay us for using our listening habits.
after years of data input, helping you upgrade your algorithms and fill your databases, after helping make your service more accurate and valuable, you expect us to pay for using it?
do you think we are all IDIOTS?
aoh wait, i’ve forgot that there is another advantage of being a subscriber…as it’s written on the FAQ: “Show off an attractive black icon wherever you appear on the site.”
wow.
wickedpt
25 March, 17:11
So “the rest of the world” will pay so that US, UK and Germany can listen for free…
Pretty fair.
Good bye, it’s been fun.
Janus
25 March, 17:12
Goodbye Last FM. It was a nice service too bad the businessmodel isn’t workable in my country. There are all kinds of alternatives though!!!
Bjorn Stromberg
25 March, 17:13
Goodbye last.fm, I knew that when you got bought by CBS that your days as a decent service were numbered.
In under two years you went from independent service to corporate whore.
j-a-n-u-s
25 March, 17:16
Man all this only shows how incurably stupid the music industry is… I have been a member of Last.FM for fell than half a year now and already I spent more than 200 € on CDs after listening to recommendations and similiar artists because of it. I would be extremely surprised to learn that that isn’t what many people did.
Last.FM always seemed to me like the first credible lifeline the music industry has had ever since Napster. The very first time the internet actually brought them a truly remarkable and new way of making business. No surprise it wasn’t created by them. Now, in a classic show of how they never learn, they choke it off by not allowing it to operate without charging a few €€.
Good bye Last.FM; it’s been great and I feel for those of your creators and employees who I am sure are not having a good day today. Good bye CBS and oh: Fuck you.
But most importantly: Good bye music industry. Have a safe trip on your way down.
Eleonora
25 March, 17:17
This idea SUCKS and it affect me, as I live in Italy…
You’ll lose many users (and I’ll probably be one of these)..
I’ll return to Virgin Radio…
This is the best stupid, the silliest decision ever. Congratz!
karwasz
25 March, 17:17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTAORLq-1Eo
ewentualnie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQqdXIXAr8k
z pozdrowieniami z Polski, takiego kraju koło niemiec gdzie wiedzą co to jest proxy ;)
Chocolim
25 March, 17:18
Mmm do you wants my Guaranies, mmm i think will give air radio one more change… Sorry it is free, and
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
There is not Paraguay in Paypal!!!!
markkcurtis
25 March, 17:18
To : All the countries complaining about not getting the service for free
You have you own services that us in the UK can not access – you don’t see us complaining about that!
You’re not responding to ads or advertisers aren’t paying last.fm – so therefore last.fm pull out of your country because it’s too costly for them.
Get on to the suppliers of your countries and lobby them to give you something.
It’s simple business!
On the other hand, how last.fm are going to get this past the EU free trade and competition rules remains to be seen…
Adrian
25 March, 17:19
Presumably you’ll measure how many people pay, and how many don’t and what the impact is on overall full subscriptions. Interesting. You might find that people who have already paid €3.00 are more willing to fork out an additional bit to get the full subscription whereas those who have in the past paid nothing would not have made the jump to full subscriber. Whoever dreamed this up deserves a bonus – he’s going to make you a lot of money.
pink
25 March, 17:19
I stop scrobbling from today.
a former subscriber
25 March, 17:20
microbusiness hits globalisation – it’s really a shame and i guess it’s because CBS took over. pandora did have the same issue and nearly disappeared.
i really wonder why in these days there is a matter of protectionism in music.
i guess most of the license holder sit in US, UK and DE and that why they are excluded.
there is no lobby for less important markets.
last.fm will be the last fm on internet.
RIP last.fm
drvid
25 March, 17:20
We scrobblers are providing you with voluntary data on our habits… This demographic information is the basis of all value of Last.fm!
In return you gave us decent recommendations based on our tastes, and fancy views of our own data.
Now you charge in my country (Canada) for what reason? To stream audio? I am not here for your audio I am here for your users, band and show information!
Keep your shitty audio. There are many better places online for that. But If I have to pay to keep scrobbling and accessing MY DATA … I am gone and so is it.
Igor
25 March, 17:22
Well as I enjoy service I’ll gladly pay 3 euro, but it’s not fair to make difrences between countries. It sounds a bit like – you are worse customer if you are not from USA, GB or DE. Monthly fee is ok with me, but i feel realy bad wbout being treated that way.
Ian
25 March, 17:22
Well LAST.fm, that is what you get for not doing it right.
zhoppa
25 March, 17:22
Напишу-ка я тоже по русски.
Я, можно сказать, только что начал пользоваться вашим сервисом. Открыл для себя пару 8 bit исполнителей. Хотя бы за это вам спасибо.
Но, повторюсь, смысл вашего ресурся теряется.
Какой смысл, если мне легче пойти и купить диск? И слушать до потери пульса.
Вы стали одним из тех сайтов, на которые посмотришь, плюнешь и никогда не вернёшься.
Я опять скажу – какой смысл??
Это риторический вопрос – не отвечайте на него.
James
25 March, 17:22
I listen to airwave radio for free, I would conjecture that you need a better business plan for your company if you can’t glean income from the personal information you have and the clickthroughs to amazon/itunes (I’ve bought dozens of tracks/albums from amazon as a result of listening to last.fm – you can’t tell me that you didn’t make $ from that!).
I use last.fm in my classroom nearly every day. I will no longer do that for $6 CAD. There will ALWAYS be an alternative service (spotify) that CAN make things work in order to have free viewship/listernership (see my switch from Pandora->last.fm when they shut their doors to internationals). Thanks for the years, and goodbye
john
25 March, 17:22
sad that even last.fm is going to comertialiaze.
hope, one day, you’ll change your mind.
till that day many people will abandon you.
Dassie
25 March, 17:23
Did it occur to anyone that the UK, US and Germany (where the advertising model works) have actually been subsidising the other countries?
Saying that you’ll be paying for the UK, US and Germany seems a bit misguided.
I agree that it’s not fair that some pay while others don’t, but please make sure you really understand where the problem lies.
And for all those who talk about this being cold-hearted business, think about the people who work for last.fm who might get made redundant as the company doesn’t make enough money.
And no, I don’t live in one of the magic 3 countries. I’m in Cape Town and I’m sticking with last.fm.
Ainse
25 March, 17:24
Sorry, not paying for something that my U.S. neighbours are getting for free. Thanks for the good music. It was fun while it lasted.
Pepe - spain
25 March, 17:26
This is really unfair, and sad.
3 euros isn’t that much in spain, and sometimes for some months I even payed for full account but now that I’m forced to pay I won’t do it ever again!
You won’t put your greedy hands in my money again..
Think its time to check out http://listen.grooveshark.com/ , http://mixtape.me/ , http://fizy.com/ , http://www.thesixtyone.com/ , http://music.myspace.com/
bye
FREE IS FREE
25 March, 17:27
http://www.last.fm/group/FREE+IS+FREE
Bye, last.fm. Thanks for being there for me.
I’m a subscriber, I don’t even live in these areas. Your commercialisation and overcharging is too much for me.
See ya, losers.
A
25 March, 17:27
bit funny that i was subscribed while i was living in UK, which is not so easy anymore for me here (SK) not because of 3e but creditcard
anyway this is not relevent (i understand reason of UK/US/DE) point is: do we have to pay also for free (Creative Commons) music?
D_AND_S
25 March, 17:32
I am artist and my music is on last.fm. Last fm want pay me? No. So i think it is stupid….
Mark
25 March, 17:33
Why would you choose to do this just after Spotify starts to roll out. CBS, this couldnt be any more of a mistake
fuk up
25 March, 17:35
How to kill a whole “revolutionary” website in one stupid move?
werner
25 March, 17:39
Hey, I’m sitting in Austria, about 10 km away from the border to Germany. WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR LAST.FM? I want to use it, without any tricks, proxies or whatever.
Helvete
25 March, 17:40
http://www.last.fm/group/Bring+back+the+free+last.fm/forum/119952/_/517524
Good alternate websites there for those who quit Last.fm
Alessandro
25 March, 17:41
C:\Program Files\fooba2000\components> rename foo_audioscrobbler.dll foo_audioscrobbler.oldplonk
newlands
25 March, 17:41
And so passes last.fm, such a nice service. Seriously guys, do you think people will stay for just the scrobbling and events?
Radio on last.fm was never the best on the web – there are better places to look for if I want to listen to one specific artist. But combined with the recommendations, it helped me find out about great bands. But if i have to pay for it, this is goodbye.
Bad, bad move guys. And limiting the free services to 3 rich countries is even more unpleasant. Here in Brazil, €3 isn’t pocket money. Rest in peace last.fm, you guys just dug your own grave.
Apache
25 March, 17:42
Nooooooooooooo, CBS takeover will not change aaaaaanything, it’s a prooooomise. At least we get to keep on scrobling for free </sarcasm>
Well, last.fm was more than good while it lasted.
Now let’s wait until the next startup comes takes over where last.fm ditched us and keep using that one. Too bad we can’t take our profile with us, I’ve been using last.fm for 5 years now and my whole collection of music in on there.
Funny how there’s a drawing of a network cable at the bottom of this page, is it going to unplug itself now?
Maybe some people here will move over to musicbrainz and help expanding that site.
steve
25 March, 17:42
Common sense seems to be lacking in the music industry. At least last.fm will be memorialized in upcoming case studies for business schools. Probably filed under “How to Destroy Your Online Community in Less Than A Week!!!” or “How To Bite The Hand That Feeds You!!!”
T
25 March, 17:43
In Canada we don’t pay by the €. So are we exempt? Dang, I think I lost my € converter too. Maybe ya’ll should re-think this. If not, “good-bye, and thanks for all the good times”.
Scott
25 March, 17:43
I already subscribe and have done for a few years. I was very happy to pay for the service knowing I was supporting the freeloaders – the service was worth it. But now it seems like I’m going to be paying for people in just 3 special countries to get a free service. This doesn’t sit right with me and I don’t think I’ll be renewing when the current sub expires. This makes me sad.
Chibi Jeebs
25 March, 17:44
Add me to the list of Canadians who won’t pay to use last.fm anymore. If you were going to apply this charge equally across the board, I’d consider it, but singling countries out doesn’t sit well with me.
It was great while it lasted. On to find a new music site.
remmstein
25 March, 17:45
the only thing i can thing of is. booooooo! If this starts i’ll never use lastfm again. I’ll just turn on the normal radio or listen to my cd’s.
Yddra
25 March, 17:45
Lol while you are at it, write the official “How to get rid of your customers”-book!
dugong
25 March, 17:45
I’m from Germany and never used the stations, but sometimes the streaming on demand although mostly for music that would be free anyway…
I share a napster account with two friends so we can listen to as much music as we want to for 3,30 per month. i like last.fm for scrobbling, recommendations and all the statistics. it has never been a real alternative for actually listening to music for me, so even if i was a resident of one of the “third last.fm-world countries” i wouldn mind it.
yes, it seems unfair and i can understand all the people who are upset because of that but i would’ve never thought that the main attracting part of last.fm are the stations for so many people…
mitya
25 March, 17:47
you have my sympathies for all the hate. i can guess how much it pains you. because i can afford it, you’ll get another year’s subscription out of me.
BUT i have to say your streaming library just isn’t large enough. i know you’ll say “seven million tracks” etc. but i remember the free the music announcement or whatever. for a while there, you had practically everything available. and then suddenly one day, most of it was gone again. i let my subscription lapse because of that. last.fm is frankly not worth me paying for otherwise.
Renato
25 March, 17:48
I dont pay
So bye lastfm
Neppy
25 March, 17:48
I’ve never been a Last.fm user or subscriber but I do find it really stupid that the UK, US and Germany are getting special treatment about this (and that’s coming from a Briton).
If you want to charge people to access a website’s features, then fair play. Don’t embitter the rest of the world by saying “yeah, you have to pay for something that Americans, Germans and Britons will still be able to enjoy for free”. How is that good PR at all?
Oh well.
Marc
25 March, 17:49
and now? lets not buy any records at all. Fuck the record companies. It’s not like artists benefit from this. And fuck you last.fm you lousy bunch of motherfucking sell outs.
Mog.com
25 March, 17:49
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
http://mog.com/
Looper
25 March, 17:51
Hey, this site was all around fun.
But you just fucked this up.
And US, UK, and Germany, would be the LEAST fucked up, if they also have to pay, just like the others.
Avinash Meetoo
25 March, 17:52
Read “Last.fm to charge for streaming” on the BBC news website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7963812.stm)
They even quote one of my ideas which is that Last.fm could have used a quota mechanism where one can enjoy the radio for a few hours freely (say per month) and pay for the rest.
I’m sure this (if applied across the board of course) would have caused much less controversy.
malegria
25 March, 17:52
We created the social music revolution and you make this with our creation? Didn’t you ever think that we can make you disappear?
I am from Colombia and I am so sad… your social music revolution was the best… but the day you thought a revolution as a corporation was the day of your death.
Fuck money!
Goodbye last.fm
jeromesson
25 March, 17:53
And you call that a “social” site? ha ha I see what it means now…
Sam_nimes
25 March, 17:53
Bye last.fm and hello Jiwa and Deezer !
benjamin_ptitsa
25 March, 17:55
This is very sad…
You were one of the best and most useful web-service. You were bearers of the flag of freedom and openness on the internet. I hope you will change your mind.
(Really, wasn’t ad enough?)
red_exclamation
25 March, 17:55
A very dumb, commercialised move and very discriminatory !
Your loss..
25 March, 17:55
This is how they respond to their new competition (www.spotify.com)? LoL. Goodbye, Last.fm!
Marco
25 March, 17:56
Oh well, that’s me done with last.fm, I guess. Let me leave behind a few thoughts…
1. The service mostly provides previews of tracks, not full songs. Why pay 3€ a month for previews when for $12.99 (9.50€) you can download and listen to full songs on Rhapsody?
2. The UK, USA and Germany (richest countries of the world) get it free, the rest of the world pays. Depending on how you look at it, either: a) we (poorer) pay while they (richer) don’t; or b) we pay for them! Either way, doesn’t seem right to me.
3. Many people will leave the service and go to alternatives (me included). Others will work around the restrictions by using a proxy based in Germany, UK or USA (music is streamed to your PC via a server in these countries).
4. The long-time users of the service will feel betrayed, as will music artists and those who have been adding to the site for years. Not a great PR move, Last.fm!
5. The charges completely defeat the purpose of the service: providing good, relevent, free music to the general public. Now it is only to a select few (400 million of the 6.5 billion people in the world – 6% of us). The rest pay.
6. Selectivity for the charges will also get rid of many people who would otherwise pay – it’s the discrimination that simply goes against people’s principles.
7. Incidentally, I am sure this is the blog post which will get the most posts of all those on the last.fm blog!
Thank you for the service, but I will no longer be part of it. To quote another commenter, “we have made Last.fm what it is today”. Now, it has abandoned me. Good bye, Last.fm!
Agustin
25 March, 17:58
I will not pay to give free music to people from another countries. I SWEAR if things dont change in a month i will cancel my suscription even when i paid for a year in december.
I want answers: there are another ways to solve this problem. Why dont use them?
I want an answer from someone from the staff, im a unsatisfied customer
http://www.last.fm/group/lastfm+is+unfair
http://www.last.fm/group/FREE+IS+FREE
http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+payment+subscription+protest
http://www.last.fm/group/Bring+back+the+free+last.fm
Waldir Leôncio (Brazil)
25 March, 17:59
Well, it was good while it lasted (no pun intended). :-P
Liars
25 March, 18:00
“Create your music profile and
See charts and stats for your music taste
Listen to PERSONAL RADIO STATIONS
Discover new music, people, events
…all for FREE”
NOT!
Tal Shafik
25 March, 18:04
Ridiculous. Fail. Boo.
Fukov
25 March, 18:08
I’m not going to pay for this service. Bye bye……!
wentuq
25 March, 18:12
It really unfair. I hope that proxy or ssh tunneling will work. I would rather pay for ssh than for last.fm ;)
Maybe It’s a joke 1st April, I hope so.
An indignant Swede
25 March, 18:13
The people who aren’t spending money on subscriptions now wont start subscribing just because you leave them no choice.
And yeah, why the US, Uk and Germany?
Moti
25 March, 18:17
Please, don´t do that! And how about us from Brazil????? Euro is too expensive to us!!!
bombadil25
25 March, 18:19
First, you create the necessity: listen to more music for free, beautiful graphs and stats..
Now that we are addicted to the service, you told us to pay for listen…
Does anybody else do this type of things?? mmm, let me guess… narcos and drugs dealers??
MedMud
25 March, 18:21
Carving up the internet into tiny paid-for pieces is bad practice.
Spitting in the face of the users who have filled your database is just plain stupid.
Breaking the licenses of everyone who have their music up here under a CC license is idiotic.