Spotify Defends Facebook Sign-Up Requirement 286
An anonymous reader writes "Music service Spotify has got music lovers' tutus in a twist by insisting that new users have a Facebook account in order to sign up. The company has now defended the policy, stating, oddly, that the Facebook obligation would make sign-up easier."
Just a shot in the dark here (Score:5, Interesting)
But might it have something to do with the fact that Sean Parker [wikipedia.org] and Peter Thiel [wikipedia.org], the guys who funded Spotify's recent move to the U.S., also still happen to own a significant percentage of Facebook?
Nah, that's just cynical crazy-talk. It's just to make the sign-up easier for us consumers.
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Out! Out! Damned spot!
Facebook: New 'mark of the beast?'
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Facebook acct: Never had it....Never will....
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I have a Facebook account... but only to keep in contact with a couple student organizations that don't understand the value of actual forums for discussion.
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FB is an actual forum. Just because you're privacy-conscious and/or anti-social does not make FB a bad thing.
(I don't have an FB account, but my wife does.)
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Hey, I have a facebook account too. Actually, a few. They're not not mine, granted, but I have the password...
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What knowledgeable geek puts real information into Facebook?
That'd be crazy!
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One that actually has friends.
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The only real information I have in my account is my name and email address, which is my name, so it's enough for people to confirm it's me but not enough for FB to scrape anything meaningful out of it. Oddly, the fact that the rest of my profile is total BS seems to make it easier for my friends to find me.
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Ok, here's your project of the day: Pick a former classmate or former coworker that you haven't talked to in five or more years and email them.
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Who says alamandrax has to put personal info into the account? FB doesn't know personal details if they are not entered.
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What about tracking cookies?
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Tracking cookies on a company computer is not personal info - it's company info.
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Those are an issue regardless of whether you're on Facebook.
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What about doing Facebook in PrivateBrowsing/Incognito Mode/InPrivate Mode?
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I think you forget what facebook is tracking - such as you, on every website with a facebook like button across the web.
so you give up an enormous amount to get a facebook account - you may as well give up your soc and drivers license along with every purchase you've ever made on the net in your life and every website you've ever been to, because that's about the ridiculous extent of reach here. In other wards, it's the same amount of info the ISP's monetize about every customer they have.
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Your company requires you to give out personal information on the internet (aka having a facebook account)? Time for a new job, but then the damage is already done since you can never really get the information back once you give it away.
If you're stupid enough to post real information to a test account, you should be getting a new job sweeping up in McDonalds after the cleverer burger flippers.
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You are welcome to go here [facebook.com] .
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Yeah. I believe they delete the only dollar generating asset that they have.
Facebook and Google and all these crap 'services' are like a "welcome to the Hotel California".
Tracked by "+1" and "Like" buttons, forever.
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If it would be just to create a seamless user experience, they would do the standard "here are the 6 most common platform sign-ins, go pick your favorite". The fact that they require FB points to either your guess, or to FB directly paying Spotify for this move. Either which way, go suck it, Spotify. I'll stick to Pandora and, for as long as Pandora isn't on Xbox, Last.fm.
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Yeah, because asking people to choose from six options (of which at least two or three probably apply to them -- most people who have a Facebook account probably also have a Google account, a Yahoo account, etc.) is super seamless. Like the man said, the key to usability is "don't make me think." [amazon.com]
Not that I'm a fan of Spotify going Facebook-only -- I think it's a terrible move from a business perspective, because it means they now have a middleman standing between them and their customers, which means they
Re:Just a shot in the dark here (Score:5, Insightful)
"Don't make me think" is fine if there's indeed only one plausible action. But FB is not the passport for the Internet, no matter how many people keep saying that. As a result, putting in one action that doesn't apply to a significant chunk of people is worse than giving them options they don't need.
Not to mention: do you REALLY want FB to be the defacto passport for the Internet? Especially as a company whose only ability to hold on to people is their user preferences, which are now shared with FB?
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Dunno how much good that will do... hordes of fake facebook accounts (or even real ones that are never seen by the users who created them) will only dilute its value to advertisers.
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I hope you're right, and this isn't a new trend that other online services will follow...
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Ya think? :)
I think I'll decline (on both memberships).
finish the sentence (Score:2)
"...the Facebook obligation would make sign-up easier." ...for Spotify.
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Hey, at least Spotify won't leak user data...to anyone but Facebook.
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Attention Industry! You are competing with a product that has no sign in requirements, and low (a vpn service) cost. Keep this in mind and prosper. Deny it and fail.
Facebook karma (Score:4, Interesting)
There have been murmurings about the privacy stuff and general griping going on for a while now but there was no "real" alternative. Then G+ goes live and Facebook makes some pretty big interface changes. I figure a lot of people just Facebook because it's comfortable and cozy... but when you introduce a crapload of new things and push people out of their comfort zone that just makes checking out G+ that much easier.
Now they just keep doing things to dare people to leave
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Except people won't leave Facebook. With the new changes (I call it the 'stalking update 1.0'), I've been preaching to everyone on FB to move over to Google+.
Not a single person has moved. They're too comfortable on Facebook, even with the recent UI changes. They're happy to make post after post bitching about FB, the new UI, the privacy problems, but they're too lazy to DO ANYTHING about it.
Until Google+ gets a significantly larger userbase, it's not particularly useful. *sigh*
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Why are so many people so reluctant to leave FB? That answer is simple: A VAST MAJORITY of their family and friends (real friends) are on it. If they leave, they won't find those people on G+... so why leave? Tolerate the changes, but stay in touch with your 'peeps. Seems to be working.
Re:Facebook karma (Score:4, Insightful)
Before facebook was MySpace. Mass migration/hemorrhaging of users is not unprecedented in recent social networking history.
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About 5 people I know have signed up to Google+ since the recent Facebook updates. However, none of them seem to be using it. I think the main problem is there's no events functionality, which is the most important feature of Facebook.
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I use Facebook for events, and pretty much nothing else. Plenty of people do this. Friends invite me to stuff, so the invite is either an easy way to give 15 people an time and address (and in many cases have it appear on smartphone calendars), or else it lets me see who else is going to a gig/concert/etc that I'm interested in.
It's easy enough to ignore inane posts. There are two options:
1) Don't have inane friends.
2) Don't bother reading the latest newsfeed (whatever it's called)
I do both, but there ar
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Google+ should allow me to have completely non-public profile etc. Until then, Facebook is better than Google+ in terms of privacy.
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You can only use one or the other? I only use G+ so I donno. I suppose its technically possible for each side to intentionally screw up the other guys cookies and whatever else (keyloggers?)
Sounds like an artificial problem where you "must" only have landline or cell phone, or you "must" only use one of windoze mac or linux.
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People go to facebook because that's where their friends are. What good does a social network do if your friends aren't there?
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Wait, wait, what? You mean, people have real friends on Facebook, too?
I dunno, I may be old fashioned, but ... if I need something from my friends, I call them. If they need something from me, they call me. If there's anything they need to know about me, I tell them. If they want to know something about me, they ask me. I kinda fail to see the advantage Facebook would offer.
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I guess it might be non-obvious to people who never use it, but the vast majority of the value I get from Facebook is the things that my friends post that I may not otherwise hear about. I'm talking about things like concert announcements, parties, etc that I see posted there that someone may not have remembered to call me about. The rest of the value is from family updates. My sister isn't going to personally email me every picture or video she takes of her son, and I wouldn't necessarily want her to.
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On the other hand, Facebook is where all of your worthless Farmville friends are.
A new service could sell itself for being a tool to actually connect with your own social circle rather than random strangers in Thailand who's "friendship" is merely useful for playing inane Zynga games.
The S/N ratio on Facebook (driven by it's design and business model) tends to make it less and less useful. Constant mindless spamming from the likes of Spotify might be just what the 'danes need in order to start fleeing to an
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Anyone murmuring about privacy stuff won't be using a Google product as an alternative.
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Anyone murmuring about privacy stuff won't be using a Google product as an alternative.
Exactly
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Facebook has been doing some questionable things lately, which is interesting considering they have an up-and-coming contender in Google+ to compete against.
It is not intentional. But a while ago, they switched over to Google Docs, and sense then, memos and directives have changed occasionally. ;)
Well it makes NOT signing up easier... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh well (Score:2)
Sad day for Spotify founders (Score:2)
How embarrassing to spend all that time building up a company only to effectively "resign" from the internet and cede your entire company to become just a feature of another company. Facebook is the king of getting people to work for them gratis. Spotify did the heavy lifting with the labels and Facebook eats their lunch.
Re:Sad day for Spotify founders (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. If Facebook wanted Spotify to become Facebook Music, you would have thought that they could have at least had the class to buy Spotify and give the owners a payout. I suppose there's a reason why "Facebook" and "class" aren't words you think of together too often, though.
Part of me wonders if Facebook didn't give them the old Offer You Can't Refuse, the way Microsoft used to do in the old days. Back when Windows was the monoculture, Microsoft could extract enormous concessions from potential partners simply by threatening to dump a competing product into Windows and give it away for free if they didn't play ball. One could certainly see Facebook having similar leverage over any social service; so many people are on Facebook now that if FB picked up a Spotify competitor (say, rdio [rdio.com]), rebranded it as Facebook Music, and gave it away 100% free, Spotify's business model would be in serious jeopardy. That gives Facebook a pretty big hammer to wield over Spotify at the negotiating table.
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How embarrassing to spend all that time building up a company only to effectively "resign" from the internet and cede your entire company to become just a feature of another company. Facebook is the king of getting people to work for them gratis. Spotify did the heavy lifting with the labels and Facebook eats their lunch.
Maybe its a very public display of affection for FB... they really wanna get purchased...
Either FB is going to purchase spotify or spotify is going to be really embarrassed when FB rejects their advances.
Venn Diagram (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Venn Diagram (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah seriously, who needs customers anyway? They should also push their chosen political agendas, and screw everyone who thinks differently. Might as well make it religious also, and screw anyone with different beliefs. Everyone should just stick to their own. Business don't really need customers anyway. My local bar took the same tactic. New owners came in and kicked out all of the regulars. Granted, today it's just an empty building, but at least they stuck to their business model and didn't have t
Everybody knows. (Score:2)
If you want a good relationship with your customers you force them to do something against their will.
I have quit all these Facebook requiring sites... (Score:4, Interesting)
"...The company has now defended the policy, stating, oddly, that the Facebook obligation would make sign-up easier."
I guess the questions are:
1: Why not let me the user determine that?"
2: Why not pitch the idea that I might find Facebook signing easier?
The end result will be easier and better for Spotify but guess what, I am gone!
well fuck spotify then (Score:2)
because I'll be damned if I'll ever join one of those brainless twit websites that completely invade your privacy. Hell if it ever gets to a point where i'm somehow legally or financially required to surrender my privacy to facebook my page is going to be a big white banner that says "FUCK YOU FOR BOTHERING TO LOOK HERE!". I've seen presumably 'personal' sites like this used all the time to discriminate against job applicants. Several times they got teachers fired because someone ELSE posted a picture of a
Sad. :( (Score:5, Informative)
I really used to Love Spotify.
I'm a premium subscriber and still like it, but this trend is depressing... I noticed a few days ago that I can't play Spotify links off Facebook. "Your platform is not supported." even though I run the native Linux client, and now this?
Gotta hate it when mainstream corporate pressure slowly eats away what once was a Good Thing. :/
No more privacy... (Score:4, Interesting)
The funny thing is how Spotify spams Facebook's life stream with what you're listening to. I'm sure the music industry loves that, constant free advertising. And most people will just go along with that because it's a fun new feature. Privacy doesn't even enter into the equation.
Unfortunately, there's no viable competitor to Facebook out there. Facebook has stolen a lot of Google+'s thunder. They've introduced a bunch of new features, including matching a lot of what Google+ offered. Google could prove me wrong but I think Google+ is another one of these things that will linger for a few years before they finally kill it like so many other things they've done. And it's not like Google is a paragon of privacy.
And whatever happened to Diaspora?
Desktop vs Mobile Listening (Score:2)
My big gripe with Spotify is that you can subscribe for $5 / month and listen all you want on your desktop machine. If, however, your end point is your phone, they charge $10 / month. I really don't understand what difference it makes to them if the stream end point is my phone or a computer.
Re:Desktop vs Mobile Listening (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't understand what difference it makes to them if the stream end point is my phone or a computer.
They know that people who'll spend $600 on an iPhone won't notice that they're also spending twice as much for their music as someone with a computer.
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Isn't Spotify P2P-based on desktops? It probably can't do that (or can't do it as well) on mobile, so you pay to leech.
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I tether my laptop to my phone all the time and use Spotify that way with absolutely no problems. I really am not sure though if the mobile version uses P2P in the same way as their desktop program does.
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My big gripe with Spotify is that you can subscribe for $5 / month and listen all you want on your desktop machine. If, however, your end point is your phone, they charge $10 / month. I really don't understand what difference it makes to them if the stream end point is my phone or a computer.
That is easy. Those who get Spotify accounts for streaming to thier phone are willing to pay more than those who get it to thier desktop machine. To phrase that slightly differently, the number of people who will not get a Spotify account to stream to thier phone at $10, but would at $5 is less than the number to make up for the decreased revenue per customer from that price reduction. On the other hand, the number of additional subscribers for desktop machines who will pay $5 a month but not $10 a month mo
One of the two things is going to happen. (Score:2)
1) Spotify is not going to get my business.
2) Facebook is going to get a bogus account against their terms-of-service with a fake name.
Multiply this by every other person who wanted to try Spotify but refuses to sign up for Facebook.
For me- I'm leaning towards #1. I've got Sirius, MP3s, CDs, Cassettes, Pandora, and FM. If I have to live without Spotify because of their rediculous sign-up requirements... so be it.
No brainer (Score:2)
Does Facebook take a 30% cut? (Score:2)
The Real Reason Is... (Score:2)
Have you ever noticed that when a business says that "We're doing this in order to make it easier for
Customer filtering (Score:3)
By requiring a Facebook account for registration, Spotify ensures their future customer base is already on board with having their demographic information sold in return for "free" services.
Spotify sucks (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.slacker.com/
http://grooveshark.com/
http://www.pandora.com/
Facebook & Yahoo is worse (Score:2)
Easier to what? (Score:2)
"Facebook obligation would make sign-up easier."
To market you. And to you.
Which other service? (Score:2)
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What about Grooveshark?
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Tinyshark is still up there, and even if it weren't, you realize that you're not limited to the official market, right? It's not like on iOS.
Re:Which other service? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to take you up on your offer. Which alternative to Spotify do you recommend for listeners in the United States?
Pirate Bay.
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Region-agnostic and works on all devices, no proprietary client software needed. Right now it's the best, no question.
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Pandora springs to mind....?
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I jumped on the Spotify bandwagon and got an account as soon as they became available in the US. Since then, I've barely used it but I continue to listen to Pandora almost daily. A lot of times I don't know exactly what it is that I want to listen to and in these cases, Pandora is far, far more useful to me.
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rdio.com
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Don't like it? Don't use the service.
It's not as if a facebook account is required to get a drivers license, vote, be employed, whatever. It's a private company that is free to partner with another company to provide a service. Vote with your money and don't use the service. If enough people do so, then maybe Spotify will notice and change their practice. Or maybe they will feel that a pool of 800m potential subscribers is enough for them.
Re:Which other service? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe they will feel that a pool of 800m potential subscribers is enough for them.
The pool of Internet users with FaceBook is smaller than the pool of Internet users. However you put it, by requiring FaceBook, they eliminated a lot of potential customers. And I am not sure what they got by doing this...
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Don't like it? Use another service.
I'd like to take you up on your offer. Which alternative to Spotify do you recommend for listeners in the United States?
Don't like it? Don't use the service.
Well, that takes us full circle.
Re:Which other service? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have every right not to but it's in my interest if they change, and presumably in their interest to have me as a customer. We're asking for a solution in which we both benefit. Hardly unreasonable.
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I've checked out Spotify and still don't get it. What does Spotify offer me that a million other streaming services don't already provide, for free? If I'm looking for random background streaming music that I can use for music discovery or just don't want to think about making a playlist I can use Pandora or Shoutcast or any other Internet radio stream. If I want to listen to a song and have it available on any device then I want to "own" it so I can buy that from Amazon or iTunes or rip the CD.
Spotify j
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I've checked out Spotify and still don't get it. What does Spotify offer me that a million other streaming services don't already provide, for free?
I like it because I can listen to whole albums that I'm somewhat interested in but not so much that I actually want to buy it. Band XYZ came out with a new cd? Cool, I'll listen to it for a week and see if it's worth owning...
Re:Whats the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't like it? Use another service.
And in that short post you claimed that all criticism is pointless.
Why criticize a movie? Watch another movie. Why review a game? Play another game. You don't like this Beatles song? How dare you say so - go listen to something else!
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Don't like it? Use another service.
And in that short post you claimed that all criticism is pointless.
Why criticize a movie? Watch another movie. Why review a game? Play another game. You don't like this Beatles song? How dare you say so - go listen to something else!
If you are bothered enough by something why wouldn't you look for an alternative? Why continue to watch a movie, play a game, listen to a song or use a service that offends you? That's not criticism, it's finding a better use for your time.
Sunk cost + caveat emptor (Score:2)
Why continue to watch a movie, play a game, listen to a song or use a service that offends you?
Sunk cost + caveat emptor. Sometimes one doesn't discover that a product is unsatisfactory until having purchased it. This hurts especially if standard practice in the industry is not to offer a satisfaction guarantee. Or perhaps someone else is enjoying the work and is unwilling to offer one a ride home until after it is over. Songs have an additional complication in that they're more commonly played to a captive audience, such as people in a home, a vehicle, a restaurant, or a grocery store. But the rele
Re:Whats the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you get it. Colonel Korn is saying that the criticism can be valid, whether Spotify has the right to make this decision or not. He's not suggesting that those who criticize Spotify for this decision should continue using the service begrudgingly - in fact, I'm sure many who are criticizing Spotify on this forum have never used it and don't intend to - but that doesn't invalidate their criticisms.
To me, "Don't like it? Use another service" seems to say, "don't make an issue of that which you disagree with unless it is forced upon you." While following this maxim may result in less whiners throughout the world, it would also result in turning a blind eye to that which is deserving of criticism. To which I have to say: "Don't like trivial criticisms? Don't visit Slashdot."
How do I handled straw man? (Score:2)
Piracy forever (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy forever man. Accept no substitute!
Always a superior product. Always in the format the market wants. Even with a negligible price point, these dumb companies are just not agile enough.
No weird-ass, windows only client to download. No signup, lock-in and DRM.
The piracy scene has all the web 2.0 social crap like the commercial sites now, so you can talk about the shit you're pirating.
Pure win.
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I'm pretty sure I can cover the penny they'd otherwise get by donating to the Salvation Army.
Or they could do the same things other people do, and go on a tour, sell merchandise, etc.: if extortion was the sole option they had, how come Chinese artists (in a market where piracy is much more rampant than in the Western world) do quite well?
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The problem is, sometimes there is no alternative. A distressing number of news sites are now switching to Facebook for their user talkback logins. My reaction is to go away. I do use Facebook, but I might say something on some random talkback that I don't necessarily want my Facebook friends and associates to see. Then don't say it, they respond. Well, ok, if they let me log in with my Google account, which allows me to designate who gets to see what, then I suppose that's somewhat better.
But even the
There is an away (Score:2)
The problem is, sometimes there is no alternative. A distressing number of news sites are now switching to Facebook for their user talkback logins. My reaction is to go away.
As long as there are other news sites, there is an alternative.
I'd rather use throw-away accounts for these one-off news sites and music sites. What the hell does Spotify need to have my Facebook identity cached for, anyway?
To take advantage of enforcement of a Facebook TOS provision against having multiple accounts. Spotify limits the amount of free service per account, and it needs some measure against people creating alt/mule/plz accounts to work around this.
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Feature failure (Score:2)
I had this 'issue' with another social site in document sharing. I did not login and did not spend any money with the theatre who's document i could not read.
Quite how a website cannot serve a public pdf file without a facebook login seemed odd.
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Any service or website that requires a Facebook account will NEVER get any of my business. This is a very troubling trend. I'm seeeing more and more websites that are requiring it.
I'm not. At least not twice...