I’ve talked about last.fm in the past. I had kinds words to say about them, and I’ve continued to use them since writing them. They’re in the news again this past week because of plans to require a subscription to stream music. Not even a large payment. $3/month. $36/year. A small price to pay if you like the service and want to support the site. I already did. I’m a paying last.fm customer.

But they’re catching hell over this deal. People hate paying for things. But there’s a special sort of hell being created for this scheme. Only those customers outside of the US, UK and Germany have to pay. That’s right, if you have the misfortune of living someplace else in the world, you have to pay. Cause the internet is all about borders and customs.

I live in Canada. I’m used to getting screwed when I try to buy stuff. It’s a fact of life even though it’s slowly changing. But to run a global service (which was created by the users I might add. They don’t have a recommendation list without us.) and charge only a handful of users based on geographical location is wrong. Just plain wrong. I have 50 days left of my subscription and I’ve scrobbled 17K tracks. I’m going to look at some other options now.