[kgwxd]

Advertising can be done without arbitrary code execution. Magazines, broadcast TV, radio, podcasts, movie theaters, billboards, news papers, etc. all manage to do it without that. Spotify already has a way to deliver audio and video to the machine, nothing else is required, and if they used that existing avenue, blockers couldn't stop it.

[bad_user]

Audio and video ads are super annoying and I'm reminded of that every time I listen to radio or watch TV, which is why I gave up on both. No thanks.

The issue isn't one of arbitrary code execution. Lets not be hypocrites.

AdBlock Plus has over 200 million installs on the desktop alone. Are you going to tell me that those 200+ million users of AdBlock Plus are concerned with arbitrary code execution? What percentage of those users do even know what that even means?

Between 10% and 20% of Internet users are using ad-blockers. Lets do an imagination exercise and say that Spotify would only serve images for ads. How many of those 10 to 20% of Internet users would whitelist Spotify?

"None" would be my guess.

[kgwxd]

Whitelisting won't even be a factor because ad blockers won't work against ads delivered along with the main content. At least not without way more processing power, much more complex software, and a lot more volunteers creating filters manually. The current ad delivery methods are what makes the ads so easy to block. So, being unable to block ads, users will either deal with it, pay for ad-free, or leave, and then the real value of the service will be revealed.

[Wowfunhappy]

I'm not convinced this is as difficult as you describe.

https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-audio...