It started out as a completly free, and an add-free service. This worked well to bring in users, and increase their name recognition. Then they decided to introduce commercials into the radio stream to try and keep them afloat. Being spoiled on the add free music seen, it was a bummer to listen to the silly adds, but the product was good enough, and if I really didn't want the adds, for a fee i could join a subscription and get the music add-free.
Well now it seems that they can not keep themselves afloat with the adds, so they are now are forcing users to pay for service. At first I thought it was a joke, as it seems like such a dumb idea.
What are they offering? (a) radio station, (b) ability to customize music listening in a clever way. There are plenty of online radio streams out there that don't charge. Why would anyone pay for theirs? If I got to specifically list the songs I want to hear, and how often I want to hear them, that would be one thing, but pandora is simply a radio station. You say you like stuff, and it plays stuff ~like~ it. You don't get to hear what you want. Why would you pay for that?!?!?
To me, it looks like they have yet another failed business model. I wonder how long it takes for them to go the way of nabster?
The crazy part of all this is that their doom lies directly in the lap of the music industry with all of their stupid and greedy fees that they are tacking on to online music. My guess is that Pandora was responsible for a huge decrease in online music piracy, as folks could listen to good music via them, rather then having to deal with the hassle of downloading their own music and coming up with their own playlists. Now with the end of pandora, I bet music copying will go up.
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