On March 24th Last.fm made a very controversial announcement that their services would no longer be free, except in the USA, Germany, and the UK. Suffice to say that a good majority of Last.fm members are not very happy, and they have been making a conscious effort to voice their opinions over the past few weeks. Richard Jones, one of the founding members and developers of Last.fm commented in his official announcement that “It’s not a decision we’ve made lightly, and I want to explain why we came to this conclusion and answer some common questions.” Last.fm attempted to, in 3 subsequent posts, to explain why this decision was made. However each post was just another obvious deflection of the original question and went on to discuss the many ways in which anyone outside of the 3 above mentioned countries could pay for their subscriptions.
The initial post garnered thousands of comments from enraged members who felt that they have been cheated and treated poorly, many of these comments where very explicit in nature. Here’s what they are saying…
Last.fm is going dooooown…. I’m a former subscriber, and soon i’ll be a former user…
Are you sparing the top 3 countries in terms of users while making the countries with fewer users pony up
Nice to see that lastfm is listenening to users. However it would have been better to revisit the economic model.I’m a bit utopianist but I really hopped that you would follow the wikipedia model ( where users can give money if they want, and in case there is not enough, display a message to ask for donations ) I don’t see any reason why it would not have worked that way…
it’s disgusting! what just because I don’t live in uk or us I have to pay now? No way, it’s not worth paying for the way you are treating ur users.
3…2…1…last.fm removed…
I guess Last.fm wont “Free the music” after all…
Voice your opinion on the Last.fm payment Subscription Protest http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+payment+subscription+protest
An interested fact:
Last.fm is a UK-based Internet radio and music community website, founded in 2002. It claims over 30 million active users based in more than 200 countries. On May 30th 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for £140m ($280m USD).
I wonder, did CBS have anything to do with this new economic model?
Let us know what you think? Should Last.fm remain free? Do you agree with subscription paid services? Or, do you recommend another good free service?
Official Announcement
http://blog.last.fm/category/Announcements/
Last.fm Payment Subscription Protest
http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+payment+subscription+protest
FREE Alternatives to Last.fm
http://www.imeem.com/
http://www.dizzler.com/
http://www.deezer.com/#home
http://mixtape.me
http://listen.grooveshark.com/
http://www.spotify.com/
http://www.mufin.com
http://www.pandora.com
http://www.yes.fm
http://www.goear.com
http://www.finetune.com/
http://www.esnips.com/
http://musicovery.com/
http://shoutcast.com
http://somafm.com/
That’s really interesting actually, though, I never really used Last.fm that much..so I don’t feel completely sidelined.
Though, I must say that from what I know of the service, 3 pounds a month is really not outrageous. I’d be curious to know how many active users will actually stop using it now that there is a fee.
I mean, think about it…if it’s something you use everyday – for Canadian users, 3 pounds is about $5.40 a month. Convert that into a daily amount, and we’re talking cents, here.
I mean, coming from an imeem.com users, I’m not really affected anyway but should be interesting to see what happens. Heh, and it will be even more interesting when larger social networks, like Facebook or Twitter decided to put a dollar value on their service.
Well, its not the monetary value, its the principle! Lastfm has always been a free service, and its unfair to charge your users after years of developing a solid membership with the intention of “Free the Music”. Also, its unusual and unfair that 3 countries don;t have to pay! That means everyone else has to pay for American, German, and the English to listen to their music fro free.
One of the founding members comes from the UK and the other comes from Germany, and CBS owns last.fm now, so it seems to me they are catering to their own countries and could care less about everybody else.
Their excuse that it is due to licensing agreements in all the excluded countries is not good enough, there is to much of a coincidence?
I never used Last FM because imeem did what I wanted an online music player to do.
It’s unfortunate for the regular users who have to pay a fee to utilize the services but the die hard fans will be willing to pay the small premiums.
Sucks to be a Last FM user I guess lol
You have to understand exchange rates. Don’t think Canada. Think Brazil, India, China, Russia, the Middle East… These areas have exploding internet and a great love for music.
In India, Russia and China €3.00 is the cost of a week of lunches. In Brazil and the Middle East the cost is about 3 small meals. I shudder what to think the relative cost is in Africa. In each of these places citizens scrap to connect to the internet.
Last.fm leveled the playing field and gave the rest of the world a chance to connect to music. It was a big selling point for me and my friends. We got involved. We supported. We evangelized…
Now, It is sad that they could not remember that the company was founded on the basic concepts of CROWDSOURCING. Couldn’t they have given us 4 months or even 4 weeks to come up with a solution? Have they become just another corporate giant without a heart?
Certainly we understand facing hardship – in the above mentioned countries it is often a way of life. We’re used to working through it. The worst thing is when we are cut off…
This is very sad. WE COULD HAVE FOUND ANOTHER WAY!!!
I’m upset over the paid subscriptions. it’s almost hypocritical of what the site was about. i especially hate that it’s now an elitist site–only US, UK and Germany have free access, while the rest of the world are left outside the gates. community-driven vs. corporate model…
oh well, their loss. time to jump ship to the plethora of other free streaming sites.