I am a big fan of Spotify, mainly because it works so well. Search is near instant, playback is near instant.

I understood when, under pressure from the music industry, it limited the value of the free version by restricting the hours of play and the number of times you can play a specific track.

This is ugly though:

Spotify says:

From today, all new Spotify users will need to have a Facebook account to join Spotify. Think of it as like a virtual ‘passport’, designed to make the experience smoother and easier, with one less username and password to remember. You don’t need to connect to Facebook and if you do decide to, you can always control what you share and don’t share by changing your Spotify settings at any time.

Why care? Privacy? Because you might want Spotify but not Facebook?

I would put it another way. I am wary of putting Facebook at the centre of my Internet identity. If others follow Spotify’s example and the Web were to become useless unless you are logged into Facebook, that would give Facebook more power that I would like.

If for some reason you want to withdraw from Facebook, why should that affect your relationship with Spotify? It is an ugly dependency, and I hope that Spotify reconsiders.

See also Cloud is identity management says Kim Cameron, now ex-Microsoft.