Corporate rock sucks #12: It wasn't supposed to happen so quickly

Less than a week ago I whined about the very lovely last.fm becoming a media corporations trendy new lapdog rather than trying to go it alone and expressed just how unlikely it was that I'd be prepared to shell out money to them. This morning my blue icon had gone grey and my last.fm page was sprinkled with ads and I was unable to snoop on who'd been viewing my profile. As of today I'm no longer a "subscriber", I'm just a "user". I was looking forward to coming to terms with last.fm's decision - having time to ponder what they had done before I had to make the "do I stump up the cash" decision.

When I first paid money to last.fm/audioscrobbler I was unaware of the perks (maybe there weren't any) and the site was unreliable and the charts were infrequently updated, but I LOVED the concept and was happy to give up my money because when it worked it was beautiful, clever, useful and (for the stats obsessed) a hours of fun.

Last week they got $280 million - I think they can live without my 18 quid.