Pandora Jacks Price for One Service, Abandons Annual Plan

[Guest]

New Pandora One subscriptions will cost $4.99 a month instead of $3.99, and the company blames skyrocketing royalty fees.

Pandora Jacks Price for One Service, Abandons Annual Plan : Read more

 

[zubikov]

I can't stand streaming music ads, so I was a Pandora One subscriber for two years now w/ the annual $36 subscription. I recently tried the iTunes radio and really liked it. It's immediately apparent that the iTunes catalog is way larger than Pandora's, and they're featured stations are solid.Now that I'm faced with either paying $25 for the year, or $48 for the year (that's with the $1 monthly discount), I'm obviously going with iTunes radio, it's a no-brainer.. There are too many legit streaming music choices out there to remain loyal to Pandora. Spotify premium is another great choice btw.

 

[theclash150]

"The company's new fees for its ad-free option is still significantly cheaper than Spotify's $9.99 a month, although the latter's service boasts offline playback."You're comparing apples to oranges here. Spotify and Pandora offer radically different services. Spotify allows the user to select individual songs for playback as well as using a radio function whereas Pandora only has a radio function.

 

[Evolution2001]

I've been a Pandora subscriber since the early days of the service. I really want to be able to remain with them, but unfortunately they are getting eclipsed by other services. I resented iHeartRadio because it seemed like a clear case of the corporate giant (ClearChannel) setting out to squash the little guy pioneers. Unfortunately, the almighty dollar rules and I have to concede that iHeartRadio has a waaay deeper playlist namely because they aren't paying any royalties since they are the owner of the music.I've found myself slowly migrating to iHeartRadio for the variety that Pandora simply doesn't offer. It makes me sad, but it is what it is... :-(That being said, I did manage to discover other artists in Pandora's early days and had subsequently went out and bought the albums of these artists that were new to me. So in that sense, Pandora was a success for some artists.

 

[CaedenV]

I have really enjoyed Pandora, but with the price hikes I think I am going to go back to throwing money at my MP3 collection again.I am oddly finding that I feel that way about most media now. When streaming videos and music was dirt cheap, free, or had very few commercials then it was awesome... but with rising subscription costs, more commercials, or in the case of Hulu having to deal with both, I think I'd rather just buy media, rip it to my server, and enjoy without having to worry about buffering and crap.

 

[unknown_]

That's it, music industry, increase your royalty rates for subscription stream services...that way you will trigger yet another crash once people stop paying and start pirating again...ahahahahaha, these guys...I am in tears laughing!