So finally the 40-hour free listening limit per month on Pandora caught up with me. I had expected it already but still when it happened, I started to think about ways of wiggling out of paying the $1 for the remainder of the month or the $36 annual fee.
It's not so much about the money. I know nothing is free, but having grown up on FM radio I pay my dues by listening to commercials, not cracking open the wallet. In the end I opted to give Slacker a try. I chose the classic rock station and so far I'm impressed. The music is good and there is good variety. There are more commercials than Pandora, but I don't mind that.
Being a loyal kind of a person, I didn't make the switch lightly. I'd been listening to Pandora for over a year after switching from the Launchcast service by Yahoo. I had Pandora trained pretty well to play my kind of music, and recently I had noticed that Pandora was playing more variety which was a good thing.
I realize that Pandora has done its best to strike a balance between keeping its audience and paying its dues to the music industry, but in the end I decided that Slacker was a better option for me. I hope Slacker can continue with its current model to keep the music free and support itself on commercials. Maybe some day Pandora can do the same and win back some of the defectors, but for now it's goodbye to Pandora and hello to Slacker.
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