Unadvertised P2P feature

[Fufu]

I am not very happy with Spotify right now. I was doing some work in my router when I noticed that Spotify had opened some ports via UPnP. I found this a little strange and after some googleing I discovered Spotify uses a P2P network for its content. The reason I am not happy is because this feature is not documented well, if at all. It is not stated anywhere in an easy to find place, and it's not even configurable. If you're going to use P2P technology, make it known. I do not like this sneaky behavior. As I said above it's not advertised anywhere and there is little to no documentation on it at all. I've already read through tons of complaints about bandwidth hogging. At least make this configurable! But I'm really more concerned about how secretive Spotify have been about this feature. I do not like sneaky suspicious behavior like this by applications. I will be canceling my premium subscription.

[Adam · Accepted solution]

We’re sorry you feel like we’re hiding the fact we’re using P2P technologies. It’s in no way our intention to hide the fact this is the way Spotify works; rather, we’re proud of it!

Here’s how it works: Spotify is a hybrid model, streaming music centrally from our giant servers as well as incorporating peer-to-peer technology, which allows the music to be played instantly as if it was stored directly on your computer or mobile phone. By setting Spotify up in this way, we’re able to provide the smoothest streaming with no buffering times.

If you needed to reduce the amount of data uploaded from your computer, feel free to reduce the cache size setting in your Preferences. Alternatively, you could try our web player at play.spotify.com which typically uses less bandwidth. Note: that web player isn't yet available to everyone so you may not be able to use it just yet.

Edit: there's also some extra information here.

[DBD]

I have, currently, found Spotify P2P feature as well. It forces me to switch Spotify off and completely kill it as it's eating ALL available network bandwith. And as there is nothing in Settings that will let set it up properly, it's main reason why not to use Spotify anymore, or just use it only when i don't need network connectivity.

Let me say, that i found disturbing, that there is nothing that will warn users, that their computer will act as P2P node and transfer loads of data, up to All available bandwith. 

Let me say, that i found disturbing, that it's not possible to throttle P2P functionality to only fraction of available network connectivity. 

And let me say, that by introducing P2P without user knowledge you might well make them pay money for connectivity or get their connectivity limited or even disabled. 

[silbaco]

Spotify can eat through a considerable amount of data on capped connections. If you have satellite or wireless it can literally eat through the entire cap single handedly (and cost you $15 per GB in overages). I'd use the web player instead of the software player if caps are an issue or find another music service.

[user-removed · Accepted solution]

Hey there.

I'm sorry that you have streaming problems.

Spotify for Mobile or Web doesn't use any P2P stuff. In mobile you can also stream with pretty low 96 kbps sound quality.

Just try these options out before you go mad ツ

Happy Spotifying!

[CraigCottam]

Unfortunately this means I wil have to stop my subscription as well as I can't use P2P at work where I mostly listen to it. Your loss.

[Merik]

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@CraigCottam wrote:

Unfortunately this means I wil have to stop my subscription as well as I can't use P2P at work where I mostly listen to it. Your loss.

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I would hate to see you leave premium! 😞 Have you checked out the web player, which doesn't use P2P?

[openstar53]

Found this via search, wondering if P2P was used.  Thought I would add an update.

Update to this is that Spotify are removing the P2P element from April 2014.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-peer-technology-from-its-desktop-client/