Spotify, Other Streamers Losing Revenue To Ad-Blockers

Ad-blockers increasingly mean lost revenue for Spotify. musicians and record labels. Spotify and some other music streaming services support their free tier with advertising.  But sophisticated ad-blockers are allowing millions of users to listen to music without any ads.

Ahead of its IPO, Spotify admitted that an estimated 2 million users were blocking ads via modified apps or accounts. That’s just 2%, but still means a significant loss of revenue.

When Spotify detects ad blockers, it warns the free user at least once before suspending them. But the streamer is also building new ways to detect and block the ad blockers.

“We take the artificial manipulation of streaming activity on our service extremely seriously. Spotify has multiple detection measures in place monitoring consumption on the service to detect, investigate and deal with such activity" a Spotify spokesperson told DigDay. :We are continuing to invest heavily in refining those processes and improving methods of detection and removal, and reducing the impact of this unacceptable activity on legitimate creators, rights holders, advertisers and our users,” a Spotify spokesperson said.