Slashdot Mirror
Pandora Stabilizes, No Longer Completely Free
AbyssWyrm writes "Yesterday, Pandora founder Tim Westergren announced that the music service was on safe ground once again, but will no longer be free for all users. Instead, it will be really cheap — for those with a free account, there will be a cap of 40 hours per month, and a user may pay a one-time fee of $0.99 to resume unlimited listening to music for a month. According to the blog entry, this will affect the top 10% of listeners. Certainly not a bad deal considering the price, and I suspect that Pandora is one of few free internet resources whose users are loyal enough to pay a small fee to keep it afloat. Pandora's future had been uncertain ever since the royalty rates for internet radio were increased in 2007."
its 0.99 / month, not a one time fee. Still, id pay it.
It's more complicated than that though.
It's a one-time fee if you go over 40 hours in a month, and then you get unlimited listening for that month. You have to pay again if you go over 40 hours of listening in the next month. But if you stay under 40 hours, it's free.
Probably because the scope of the agreement with copyright owners doesn't extend to use beyond the US; my understanding from what I've read about it is that it specifies a licensing fee that includes a portion of US revenues in exchange for allowing internet streaming of the music in the US.
It's not a subscription, though, because you don't have to pay it every month. If you go over the limit in a month, the fee really is one time to get more Pandora that month. You won't be charged the next month unless you go over the limit again and want to listen again. I agree it's not a "lifetime" membership for a one-time fee, but it's not a subscription either. Maybe they should just drop the qualifier and call it a "$1 fee".
E pluribus unum
Why is it that we have to pay for a service that is ad based too? It might start with $0.99/month. Before you know it, it will be $5/month.. etc.
**The following is not a shameless plug, but it sure as shit reads like one.**
Why not just upgrade to their 'Pandora One' subscription plan for $36/year ($3/month)? It eliminates ads entirely, includes unlimited listening, higher-quality 192 kbps streams, and some other random stuff. Doesn't seem like a bad deal to me.
I got it too. Here's the email: http://broadcaster.pandora.com/dm?id=A4B6D0714169DA75E4FD0F99442E55C8050542759970026E
Here's the email I received from Pandora: Hi, itâ(TM)s Tim - I hope this email finds you enjoying a great summer Pandora soundtrack. Iâ(TM)m writing with some important news. Please forgive the lengthy email; it requires some explaining. First, I want to let you know that weâ(TM)ve reached a resolution to the calamitous Internet radio royalty ruling of 2007. After more than two precarious years, we are finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates â" thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our listeners who voiced an absolute avalanche of support for us on Capitol Hill. We are deeply thankful. While we did the best we could to lower the rates, we are going to have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners. Specifically, we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the web. Because we have to pay royalty fees per song and per listener, it makes very heavy listeners hard to support on advertising alone. Most listeners will never hit this cap, but it seems that you might. We hate the idea of capping anyone's usage, so we've been working to devise an alternative for listeners like you. We've come up with two solutions and we hope that one of them will work for you: Your first option is to continue listening just as you have been and, if and when you reach the 40 hour limit in a given month, to pay just $0.99 for unlimited listening for the rest of that month. This isn't a subscription. You can pay by credit card and your card will be charged for just that one month. You'll be able to keep listening as much as you'd like for the remainder of the month. We hope this is relatively painless and affordable - the same price as a single song download. Your second option is to upgrade to our premium version called Pandora One. Pandora One costs $36 per year. In addition to unlimited monthly listening and no advertising, Pandora One offers very high quality 192 Kbps streams, an elegant desktop application that eliminates the need for a browser, personalized skins for the Pandora player, and a number of other features: http://www.pandora.com/pandora_one. If neither of these options works for you, I hope you'll keep listening to the free version - 40 hours each month will go a long way, especially if you're really careful about hitting pause when youâ(TM)re not listening. Weâ(TM)ll be sure to let you know if you start getting close to the limit, and weâ(TM)ve created a counter you can access to see how many hours youâ(TM)ve already used each month. Weâ(TM)ll be implementing this change starting this month (July), Iâ(TM)d welcome your feedback and suggestions. The combination of our usage patterns and the "per song per listener" royalty cost creates a financial reality that we can't ignore...but we very much want you to continue listening for years to come. Please don't hesitate to email me back with your thoughts. Sincerely, Tim Founder
Yes... he is
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
As far as music sites go, Pandora's functionality is one of the most limited out there.
Sites like deezer.com or songza.com offer the ability both to search for all the individual songs you want and create a playlist + it allows you to create a random radio.
Pandora is full of itself if it think it's worth any money.
Nope. Usually an obsessive-compulsive F5 finger on the homepage works.
http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/index.html
http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/aboutourcards/prepaid/index.html
* Skip All Day Long: With the standard ad supported version of Pandora you're limited to 12 total skips per day. With Pandora One you'll be able to skip as many times per day as you'd like (note you will still be limited, thanks to licensing constraints, to six skips per hour).
I rarely skip when something sucks... I just switch stations.
You can use a Virtual Credit Card number, which is a temporary credit card which is tied to your main CC account. I believe both Visa and Mastercard offer these, or it's issued by the bank who issued your credit card.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
For folks who can't access Pandora, have a look at Spotify. It's a similar idea to Pandora, but gives you more control over which tracks you listen to. I don't like it's "artist radio" as much as I like Pandora's stations/channels, but building playlists more than makes up for it. It runs in a client rather than a browser; works perfectly for me on Mac (10.4) and Kubuntu 8.10 (running inside WINE).
The one con relative to Pandora is that Spotify has audio ads; I've never counted but it's something like one 10 second ad every 10 songs. Not perfect, but much better than listening to a real radio station. On the upside, you can pay for a day or a month of ad-free listening.
There's also Magnatune which is a good source of DRM-free independant music. Not great as a radio station, as the free streaming is very basic, but I've got some good music from them.
Well, I believe they've made a mistake. Data shouldn't care where you are geographically, in almost every instance.
Licensing contracts however do care, because they can.
For the good of all of us except for those who are dead.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I think you missed the part about "whichever is greater."
WOOSH!
Someone missed the point. The fact that 128 kbs is the current standard is fucking sad.
It's not so much the gum as the amazing comics they come with.