Pandora now charging

It certainly makes some sense - I don't understand how they are making money now. I would rather put up with ads every so many songs, since I also use it more for background than anything else. Maybe a 3 tiered approach would be best - totally free for 40 hours; free with ads for more time; no ads and more time with a subscription. 

I always said I'd PAY for a radio station that did NOT play ANY commercials or have DJs yakking.

I don't listen to radio at all -- haven't in several years -- simply because I can't stand it when the ads come on, or the DJ yammers on ad nauseum. In fact, one of the local "classic rock" stations went to a talk-radio morning show... Huh? WHY?!?!

But I also don't listen to music at work. And I've never tuned in to Pandora (though I've heard about it, and it sounds kinda cool).

A dollar a month? Sure. I'd do it. Even if the cap were less than 40 hours a week. I probably lose that much in the laundry each month...

Yeah, I can't fault them. I do love my Pandora stations. I also got the message that I capped out last week. I work from home, and my computer room faces the UPS transfer station and some other light industrial, so some kind of music or news radio is important to keep me from getting annoyed at the guys dragging chains around.

But I didn't cough up the money last week. My financial situation is a bit tight right now, and I wasn't charging ANYTHING last week. But I got a partial payment this week, and I'm considering plunking down the $36 for a year's worth of listening at their premium level. Or at least $1 to continue listening for the rest of August.

I think it will work out for them. Nothing is really free. The other stations I stream play annoying commercials, and often also have visual ads.

I also like Blip.fm, but the music on that is fairly limited and is mostly uploaded by other users, so sometimes the quality is pretty low.


As for the free vs. paid content, this is just the next step. I'm willing to bet that people will pay to get ad-free, premium content. Not a lot, but some.  Like how it was iTunes that really killed the music sharing sites.

hummmmmm, this sucks. I have Pandora up and playing at work too... I have not hit the cap yet, sure I will. Maybe I'll see if I can just set up 4 different accounts, share the stations and use a different account as needed.

I actually popped for the Pandora One ($36/yr) because, like everyone else, I play it in the background while I'm working. 

I figured that $3/mo for unlimited skips, no commercials, and no timeouts is a much better deal than I was getting for XM/Sirius.  Plus, PO comes with a desktop application that you can run stand-alone without a browser open.

I am a frequent Pandora user and may consider paying the $1. It really depends on what the alternatives are - I've been quite happy with Pandora so I haven't explored other options. Does anyone know what is similar to Pandora? I used to use Yahoo! Music but that was fairly limited by comparison to Pandora.

Uuuuhhhhhh, they have that. It's called community radio. Most common variety is NPR, of course, but there are several other stations that play just music. WUMB in Boston, WNRN in Charlottesville, just to name two.

SUPPORT COMMUNITY RADIO!!!!

And, to the OP, about charging for Pandora.

slacker.com

At this point I use Flycast.fm. It's free, but doesn't have the option of creating your own mix for you - it's more or less 200 stations by genre. Most of them allow song skipping, very limited ads.

And for me that's a big deal because there's an app that's downloadable to the crackberry, so on an unlimited data plan, I'm streaming music wherever the fone is in datarange. Channels have a low-data stream for when you've only got a couple bars or no 3G connection, and the data intensive stream for when you're wifi or 3G. For free. Hard to beat.

This user's post has been ignored.

Wow, how cheap are we that we can't pay 1 dollar a month for unlimited music. Talk about and entitled culture.

Who said anything about being entitled to the service? 

The issue, as I see it, is that for years they have promoted and offered a FREE service.  Now they are charging.  If it was just a fee increase, that is a different story, people would have already made the decision to pay.  It isn't even about the cost, as many have stated.  Instead, the user is now forced to make the decision....how much do I value this product that I actually want to pay for it over my other options.  $12-36 is well worth the service.  But do you want to begin paying for something you previously didn't pay for? 

Fee increases happen a lot. Those candy bars used to be a nickel. Movies didn't always cost $10. If the service is worth it, we'll pay the increase. I just find it funny that anyone would question 1 dollar a month. So if you use 41 hours (About the min you would have to pay for) that would come out to, ~0.0004 dollars per min or 0.02 dollars an hour.


ADollar79, I'm not saying anything about you. Just talking about our culture in general. Sorry if it was said the wrong way.