Goodbye Spotify, hello again LastFM

So I’ve used Spotify now for almost two weeks. My first impression was very positive about the service. The app worked great, the music-quality was great and.. no ads. As of today the app started to show different kinds of banners (vertical and horizontal, fortunately never at the same time) and very soon I got audio commercials between 3 or 4 songs. These tings weren’t the worst thing, I accepted the fact that I was using the free version of the service. By trying the free service, I got so excited, I was more than happy to pay Spotify £ 9,99 for one month to get a Premium account. So I logged into my account and entered my credit-card information… And that’s where the disappointed kicked in: My card was rejected, just because I am from The Netherlands. :(

Although I understand some legal issues involved in royalties, record-companies, local commercials, bla bla.. it’s obvious that the free service is restricted to some countries. But when someone wants to pay, so localized ads aren’t necessary, why should that service be restricted to some countries as well? Is it just the record-companies that are still not thinking of the internet as one place, but still in regions/countries? Wake up Universal, Sony BMG, Warner! It is 2009, not 1999. Or could it be technical limitations (server capacity, network bandwidth) that withholds Spotify on expanding to more countries?

Nevertheless, I put Spotify aside and got a subscription at Last.Fm for € 9,- for 3 months. I’ve always been a fan of Last.Fm (already since August 2006) and the radio features I get with the subscription and listening to my loved tracks is well worth it. The only thing missing is I can’t really specify a track I want to hear, but listening to a tag or artist radio (and recommendations as well) lets you discover all kinds of new artists and music.