# Worth it to pay for Pandora? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 22, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206 "2009-12-22T16:47:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/1 "2009-12-22T16:47:58Z")
It says I’m coming across the last of my free hours, which sucks. Apparently I can pay $36 hours for full access or 99 cents for something else…not sure what, but I’m just pissed at having to pay at all. What do you guys think? I do love finding out about new music. > [@](#): > > 1. Pay 99 cents. Once you reach Pandora’s free monthly listening limit, the music will stop and you will be presented with an option to pay just 99 cents to continue unlimited listening for the rest of December. This is a one-time fee which requires a credit card, and it does not recur automatically. > > 2. Pay $36 to upgrade to Pandora One. For unlimited monthly listening as well as other cool features, you can upgrade to Pandora One for $36 per year. What would you guys do? ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/2 "2009-12-22T17:00:04Z")
I listen to Pandora all day long at work… I figure it’s easily worth 36 bucks a year. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/3 "2009-12-22T17:00:53Z")
Ha, **Avatar** on the brain. I thought this was a thread about whether or not it was worth paying for **Avatar** just to see the world of Pandora (the answer is Yes). Don’t know about the music service. ---
**Author:** ![psycat90](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@psycat90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psycat90)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/4 "2009-12-22T17:02:03Z")
I say pay for the year. I love that so many awesome sites on the internet are free, but I’ve always felt that if there is a site that I really, truly enjoy and use often, it’s worth it or me to pay for whatever upgrades might be offered. And maybe help to keep the place up and running. I’d used Audioscrobbler and Last.fm for a couple of years for free, then became a subscriber because I found myself on the site almost daily. So I’ve been a subscriber for a few years now and I’ve been happy with it. It’s about the same as Pandora - $33 a year, but I’ve used both and I’ve found Last.fm to be a better experience than Pandora for me. Anyway, short answer - yea, it’s worth it if you use it a lot, which it sounds like you do. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/5 "2009-12-22T19:39:22Z")
If this is just a test to see how many people they can get to pay for it, then I’m skipping to show that I don’t want to have to pay for it and that I’ll go elsewhere if I do. I like Pandora alright, but their song list is pretty limited (I get it, you think that Weezer, The Beatles, and Nirvana=The White Stripes) and I don’t know that it’s worth paying for. If I were going to pay for streaming, I’d have an XM account. If this is their ultimate trend then I’ll just end up with Last.fm all the time instead of half the time. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/6 "2009-12-22T19:45:28Z")
Meh. If there were a way to never play certain bands but still play bands that are like those bands, then I’d pay money for that. All the variants of Pandora or Pandora-like web stations would pound you in the head with your seed choices, which I already own or they wouldn’t be my seed choices. I listen to radio stations mostly to discover new music (and thus hardly listen to it at all.) If there have only been about 3 songs on the radio that I neither got tired of nor liked so much that I bought (and thus didn’t want to hear on the radio anymore,) why think I would enjoy the same experience online? Frankly, I get much more musical variety just putting my MP-3 collection on shuffle than I get with Pandora. It’s not like it isn’t a viable solution (to be able to eliminate bands or songs from playing while still having them as a seed.) I rarely listen to Pandora or its variants and I certainly won’t pay until this is fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/7 "2009-12-22T19:46:26Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > If this is just a test to see how many people they can get to pay for it, then I’m skipping to show that I don’t want to have to pay for it and that I’ll go elsewhere if I do. I like Pandora alright, but their song list is pretty limited (I get it, you think that Weezer, The Beatles, and Nirvana=The White Stripes) and I don’t know that it’s worth paying for. If I were going to pay for streaming, I’d have an XM account. > > If this is their ultimate trend then I’ll just end up with Last.fm all the time instead of half the time. Are Last.fm and XM similar to Pandora? ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/8 "2009-12-22T19:54:30Z")
Last.fm is basically the same idea, the mechanics and presentation are a bit different, but overall it’s “you tell it what you like, it spits back out music” like Pandora is. XM is not anything like either, but it is streaming radio that will help me get my death metal fix over the Iphone without using up precious hard drive space. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/9 "2009-12-22T19:55:09Z")
In that you can make your own station, I’m not sure. I don’t pay for it. And their paying scheme is weird… so if every month someone pays 99 cents, they’ll be paying about a third of what the person who paid $36 for unlimited time did… Unless the Pandora One is vastly different from their regular Pandora. For my tastes, I don’t pay it. I’ve found other sites that do cater to some of the music I listen the most (Spanish/Portuguese). And those are still free. What good is coolness, when you cannot listen to what you enjoy the most? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/10 "2009-12-22T20:02:07Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > Last.fm is basically the same idea, the mechanics and presentation are a bit different, but overall it’s “you tell it what you like, it spits back out music” like Pandora is. > > XM is not anything like either, but it is streaming radio that will help me get my death metal fix over the Iphone without using up precious hard drive space. Does it actually play the music, like Pandora, or does it just tell you similar songs? ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/11 "2009-12-22T20:22:04Z")
I listen pretty much every day at work and started paying by the year. It’s easily worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/12 "2009-12-22T20:26:11Z")
Am I understanding correctly that you could just pay 99 cents each month to listen for the rest of the month unlimited? If so, what’s the incentive to pay $36 a year? ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/13 "2009-12-22T20:26:30Z")
Last.fm makes one big station based off of your input instead of making lots of little ones. It does indeed play the music, and everything you listen to ends up in your “library” so you can go back and listen to it again if you like to, and it makes suggestions of new songs based off of what you’ve been listening to. You can also select artists and genres and “play” those “stations” so you can just put in, say, “Santana” and it goes off and plays music for you based on that. It’s free and really easy, give it a look and see what you think. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/14 "2009-12-22T20:28:17Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Am I understanding correctly that you could just pay 99 cents each month to listen for the rest of the month unlimited? If so, what’s the incentive to pay $36 a year? I was kind of wondering that myself–I think the “other features” are maybe fewer ads? HATE those. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/15 "2009-12-22T20:30:05Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Am I understanding correctly that you could just pay 99 cents each month to listen for the rest of the month unlimited? If so, what’s the incentive to pay $36 a year? If I understand it correctly the 36 account lets you have unlimited skips and stations, while the .99 one limits you to the 5 or so skips per hour per station and I think 100 total stations. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/16 "2009-12-22T20:35:40Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > If I understand it correctly the 36 account lets you have unlimited skips and stations, while the .99 one limits you to the 5 or so skips per hour per station and I think 100 total stations. Unlimited skips?! THE POWER! THE POOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWER!!! ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/17 "2009-12-22T20:53:33Z")
Unlimited skips… so that you can go back to the same 200 or so it seems to repeat daily? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/18 "2009-12-22T20:58:22Z")
Seconding what **KarlGrenze** said. They seem to replay the same songs over and over an awful lot. I listen to it all day as well, and if I had a penny for every song I heard repeated on a day to day basis…yeah. I wouldn’t pay. There are better sites out there (Like Nutsie). ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/19 "2009-12-22T21:03:36Z")
Nutsie? I’m…scared and intrigued. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206/20 "2009-12-22T21:08:54Z")
I loved it at first, but their library for long term listening isn’t very deep. Their library seems populated with “greatest hits” selections and singles. The more you fine tune your playlist seeds, the more restrictive and repetitive it becomes. You would never know, for example, that Bjork really has more than 3 songs. No amount of listening will ever let you discover that obscure import EP, or that rare John Peel BBC session. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worth-it-to-pay-for-pandora/522206.md?page=2)