So, I booted into Windows7 yesterday to install TF2, and since I have the free Spotify account, I decided to evaluate it.

Holy damn.

This service is awesome.  I set up a playlist of all Classic Hollywood songs (Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, etc) and I love it.

I'm "this close" to buying 3 months of premium so I can evaluate it in Ubuntu.  I'd really prefer an unlimited account since I don't have a mobile phone that plays Spotify.

It's better than Pandora because I can search for what I want and get exactly what I want in the playlist.  For instance, on Pandora, I search for "Gene Kelly" and it plays everything but Gene Kelly.  I'd like some of his music mixed in with the Bing, Dino, and The Voice, please.

We'll see.  I might get myself a gift sub to it.  I'm not keen on having a recurring subscription right now.

But I can't use it.

Unless I'm willing to use Wine (I don't want that cruft on my machine) and I can't use the native Linux application.

I started it up today and got this error: "Use of this device is not enabled for your account".

Exactly what the everloving fuck does that mean?  Well, it means that you have to buy a subscription to the service before you can use it.  It means I have to fork over money before I can figure out if this will have the music I want to listen to.  It means I have to buy something sight unseen (or rather, unheard) so I can test it out.

There are a bunch of Linux users on Get Satisfaction here that are expressing their frustration and downright anger that they can't use something without paying for it.  Yes, yes, you can argue that you need to pay for the program and the service, but they offer a free tier that is supported by ads.  This is fine and I'd use it, but I want something that's native to my desktop.

There are plenty of good programs and services that are worth paying for; I just want to test out Spotify before I pay for it... I want to see if it'll work for my needs.

In the meantime, you can find me on Pandora and Last.fm.