And oh so quietly, Spotify is now dropping the requirement that all new users must register with a Facebook account.
And in the process, taking a small step away from a potentially problematic partner.
The change happened just a few days ago, according to tips, and the proof is in the new registration page. These confusing instructions – and broader options – were captured late Tuesday from the US-based Spotify site.
Yes, the new email registration option is rather buried, and actually further down on the page. Adding to the confusion, Spotify tells users that a Facebook login is required, then offers an email option below. Which means this isn’t being trumpeted or even cleanly presented for reasons that may be obvious.
The change has also been implemented in other countries, including the UK, Sweden, and France. Spotify relaxed the Facebook requirement in Germany back in June.
The development follows rumors of heated internal debates over the forced Facebook login, instituted in late September of 2011. Or, not so internal: a drunken shouting match between Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg apparently took place on the streets of West Hollywood after a splashy party celebrating the Spotify+Facebook marriage last year. That was during the more innocent and optimistic pre-IPO days, and before a Facebook tie-up was considered a potential liability.
Still not getting how the facebook relationship is a liability in any practical terms. Still haven’t met anyone who’s adjusted their facebook usage based on the stock performance, nevermind their Spotify usage.
This line of thinking gives a lot of credit to Wall Street, suggesting they actually know the future of Facebook & aren’t just gambling.
It makes a difference to some of us.
I would never use Spotify with a FaceBook login. Otherwise, I would.
– Versus
And how are you feeling today Napoleon? Are your restraints chafing your wrists?
LOL! Yes! I was going to say “Good Luck collecting that 50K, You can buy us all drinks when you do”. 🙂
About time…
Did I miss something? I’ve never had to log in to Spotify using Facebook. I’m a paying customer – is that the difference? Because I’ve had it for a year, at least.
I never use Facebook to log into things. It’s an oath I made to my MySpace friends (R.I.P.)
The Facebook only thing was for new subs for (now) about 11 mos. or so.
You needed Facebook if you wanted to sign up anywhere between September 22nd 2011 and August 30th 2012. It was not possible to make a Spotify username. If you sign up now, you get the option to either use a Facebook login or make a new Spotify account.
Finland, United States, France, Netherlands and Australia have been confirmed to have the e-mail option. That’s such a diverse bunch I believe it’s available everywhere now.
I heavily recommend everyone to choose the email option if you want to sign up for Spotify now. If you choose Facebook, you are permanently connected to one Facebook account, but if you make a Spotify account, you can connect and disconnect from Facebook at any time. You do not know if Facebook decides to make some changes or it loses popularity in the near or far future, so it’s always good to have a disconnect option.
Facebook is heavily integrated into version 6 of iOS. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/#facebook
Where does this fear that Facebook is going to lose popularity come from? Is this just left over from the dot com bust?
Clearly, Spotify is MUCH more likely to be overtaken by a competitor than Facebook. If you’re that paranoid about connecting an account to Facebook, you’ve gotta be looking at LEAST 5 years down the road, which is decades in internet time. It’s hard for me to understand how anyone could use the internet with that mindset.
It’s not paranoia about connecting an account to Facebook, it’s paranoia about connecting an account to Facebook permanently and removing oneself the option to disconnect.
If you sign up to Spotify through Facebook, you will be permanently connected. You are gimping yourself by doing this. But if you create a Spotify account first and then connect that to Facebook, you gain the ability to disconnect if you ever wish in the future. There’s no reason not to do this, which is why I’m heavily recommending the email signup and then connecting the Spotify account to Facebook if you want the social features
I guess I just don’t understand the true benefit of disconnecting your spotify from your facebook, unless you 1) are reserving the ability to delete your facebook account, 2) suspect that facebook isn’t a viable longterm service (in this unlikely event, Spotify would certainly allow users to convert those accounts to e-mails & retain their spotify accounts), or 3) just really want to keep the music you listen to from being logged anywhere. All 3, imo, fall underneath paranoia.
As far as I understand, you can always control what does & doesn’t show up in your feed… the sign-up method seems trivial at best.
What is the tangible benefit that makes you heavily recommend the e-mail method?
I’m not recommending one over the other, my account is connected to my e-mail. I’m just objecting towards the general attitude towards facebook.
Numbers 1 and 2 are the reasons.
Reserving the ability to delete the Facebook account is exactly what I am after. Signing up for Spotify through Facebook takes you away that right. You do not know what the world is like in five years, but a Spotify account created through Facebook is permanently connected even then. Permanently means: not only in five years, FOREVER.
“in this unlikely event, Spotify will certainly allow users to convert those accounts…” They can’t. An account created through Facebook is assigned a random numerical username which you can never change. Creating a new Spotify account lets you create your own custom username that you can also never change, but you are given the ability to name your account whatever you like, something you’re likely not to forget.
If Spotify did allow a Facebook-bound user to disconnect, their username would be something like 1247457341. Their customer support would be flooded with “I forgot my number!!” requests. By the time you’re reading this, you already forgot the number I typed above if you don’t check it.
Doing email signup, THEN connecting to Facebook is smart future preservation that makes no sense not to do.
Facebook used to assign all users a random number. It was years before they implemented the option of a custom user name, & it was a first-come-first-serve situation where all users were presented the option to choose beginning on a specific day. Have you never logged into gmail & been asked “would you like to add a mobile phone number to this account?” Facebook does the same thing to collect new information. Adding that kind of parameter to an account isn’t rocket science.
But what do you need a user name for, anyhow? Logging in? Spotify is going to display your first/last names anyhow, not your user id, whether it’s numerical or chosen, except maybe urls to your profile or published playlists. If it’s a recall issue, Spotify could easily allow you to log in with the e-mail address associated with your facebook account, I’d be very surprised if you aren’t granting Spotify access to that information when you connect your account. So they likely wouldn’t even have to ask.
Furthermore, nothing is forever on the internet. Accounts can be connected or disconnected to other accounts with a few lines of code. That you would even think that a connection is permanent is just another example of paranoia, stemming from a lack of understanding of technology.
Still not seeing a practical reason to disconnect or avoid connecting your spotify to your facebook.
What I’m getting at is, if you buy into the idea that… say California breaks off & falls into the ocean during an earthquake & facebook closes it’s doors (I think the site would survive, but that’s besides the point), if you think all of those millions of spotify accounts would just disppear along with it, you’re mistaken. There’s nothing to indicate that Spotify doesn’t access and store the same data that users would otherwise be recieving during an e-mail sign-up when you agree to connect those accounts. That’s why there are terms you have to agree to before you can log in with Facebook. Spotify is obviously technically capable of severing ties with Facebook without losing those accounts. Why would they enter into a relationship where they’re collecting 11 months of “tentative” accounts? That doesn’t make any sense. To suggest that this is the case is pure technophobia.
Spotify has no more “hitched” itself to Facebook than Pepsi Cola has hitched itself to the Super Bowl. It’s simply a mutually beneficial relationship, one doesn’t necessarily depend on the other.
I agree with most of what you are saying.
However, I wanted to point out your argument that Facebook is going to be around for a while because “it is heavily intergrated into version 6 of iOS” does not agree with your statement that “nothing is forever on the internet.”
All it takes is a new version 7 of iOS with just “a few lines of code” to remove the connection.
By “nothing is forever,” I just mean anything can be changed. The nature of it is that you can always update things, change things, etc.
Yes, it could easily be disintegrated in iOS 7, but there’s no reason to think that it would. It’s easily the most integrated platform of it’s kind on the web, & becoming more integrated with each passing day. If you’re afraid of connecting to facebook, you ought to be afraid to connect to anything.
Erm, all web companies, because of the very nature of the web, are destined to go away, even Facebook. Just look back about 15 years and you’ll see the detritus of former .com companies..
15 years ago? 1997? The internet was an infant! The internet wasn’t ANYTHING like it is today. All of those companies were conceived with dial-up in mind. Why would they still be around?
But Amazon is, 18 years later. Not all web companies are destined to go away.
I am sending you this message from the year 2027….
The only people here who have even heard of Facebook are historians who specialize in the development of the old “Internet”..
The only people who interact on the “Internet” anymore are grumpy old fools who fear change….
Gotta go…..
Somebody might see me “typing” on an old time “computer” and that would be very embarassing.
How about that!
Spotify France permet enfin une inscription sans Facebook. Pas trop tôt!
Spotify without Facebook at last!! (decision made!)
That didn’t last long…
Put all of Spotify in jail. Enough of this..
A divorce of convenience?