Streaming turns into a jukebox

We all love music, especially to get us through the grind.  Many of us have been loyal Pandora listeners since it was born to the web in 2000, but now like many other free web services they too have been forced to move towards a pay for play platform (or at least partially).  This upset me as well as many other Pandora listening friends. Pandora now gives every non-paying member 40-hours of listening time per month.  After you’ve exceeded the monthly listening quota you are presented with two options (at least I was).  You can continue listening to Pandora for the rest of the month for $0.99 or purchase an annual premium Pandora One membership for $36.  Though Pandora offers many benefits in their premium offering such as no advertisements and higher audio quality, I really wonder if many of their members will jump onto the paying bandwagon.

Other services such as Last.fm, Yahoo Music and Groove Shark still offer unlimited listening services to their members for free.  Of course ads are played and displayed, but heck I don’t think anyone really minds.

I feel the music folks are strapping down the hatches for something that already is very successful in the UK and from what I’ve seen is going to be the killer music app once brought to North America.  Spotify is an application that reminds me of Apple iTunes.  The only difference is you don’t pay for the music you want to hear.  Of course you can purchase your own licensed copy of the music for burning, but Spotify offers a free service that has all the expected features and a low-cost option that allows you to sync your computer and mobile devices for playback even when there is no internet connection.

All I can personally say about Pandora is thank you for the great service over the years, but it may be time to give something else a shot.  So before you whip out that credit card, why not take a few moments to look at what other wonders the internet has to offer.