Two-Class Community: Last.fm to Start Charging Users
The free music portal Last.fm is known for offering worldwide users an unlimited array of Internet radio options. Now, certain users will have to pay three bucks a month.
According to a blog entry by Richard Jones are all users affected who happen to inhabit regions outside of the USA, England, and Germany. Last.fm fans outside of these countries will have to soon start paying three dollars to access Last.fm. The community features such as rating, charts, events, and videos will remain free of charge. In addition, 30 units will remain gratis as a trial sample to all users.
This move is thought to correlate to sources of revenue and license costs. With 30,000 visitors per month in the US, Germany, and the UK, Last.fm should be able to
sufficiently cover the costs in these countries, but apparently not enough to cover the costs in the rest of the world.
Last.fm emerged in 2002 and is the biggest online radio service worldwide. In 2005, the platform merged with the similar-functioning open source solution Audioscrobbler. Countless Linux audio applications are capable of supporting Last.fm.
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