Corporate rock sucks #12: It wasn’t supposed to happen so quickly…
Posted on June 5th, 2007 by Andy
Less than a week ago I whined about the very lovely last.fm becoming a media corporations trendy new lapdog rather than trying to go it alone and expressed just how unlikely it was that I’d be prepared to shell out money to them. This morning my blue icon had gone grey and my last.fm page was sprinkled with ads and I was unable to snoop on who’d been viewing my profile. As of today I’m no longer a “subscriber”, I’m just a “user”. I was looking forward to coming to terms with last.fm’s decision - having time to ponder what they had done before I had to make the “do I stump up the cash” decision.
When I first paid money to last.fm/audioscrobbler I was unaware of the perks (maybe there weren’t any) and the site was unreliable and the charts were infrequently updated, but I LOVED the concept and was happy to give up my money because when it worked it was beautiful, clever, useful and (for the stats obsessed) a hours of fun.
Last week they got $280 million - I think they can live without my 18 quid.
Posted in corporate rock sucks, idle nonsense, last.fm |
June 5th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
If you can live with the ads, we can live without your 18 quid :). We want people to subscribe because of the features, not because they feel like they’re doing us a favour anyway, and although the subscriber features are lacking at the moment, there’s much more to come.
(And just to correct you - Last.fm doesn’t get those $280m, our shareholders do.)
June 5th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Thanks for the comments Russ, I know that the money doesn’t go straight into your pocket, I’m sure the shareholders are happy at their (not very) little windfall. Of course I try not to think about capitalist concepts like “shareholders” - to me the perfect social networking site would be owned by the community it supports and who support it - instead it’s owned by CBS (and therefore not quite perfect :))
I know it’s hideously idealistic of me to try to imagine a world where not everything has to be in the hands of a media conglomerate but it does make me sad. I loved last.fm from the day I discovered it and I will keep using - and when I come to terms with what has happened (and I’m confident that the site still has the ideals that I believed it had) maybe I’ll dip into my pocket once more.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:42 am
[...] despite what Russ from last.fm said in a comment to my post six months ago… We want people to subscribe because of the features, not because they feel like they’re [...]