I know Pandora wants to make money. Should I give it to them?
August 23, 2011 8:50 PM Subscribe
Is the Pandora One subscription worth the money? -or- How do I get rid of the ads?
Does anyone have a Pandora One subscription? After a couple years of thumbs-upping, thumbs-downing the music that pops up I'm pretty happy with the music played on my stations so I don't care about being able to skip songs; it's just the popups. The popups are killing me (I'm OCD about screens). Do they go away if I pay for a subscription?
Does anyone have a Pandora One subscription? After a couple years of thumbs-upping, thumbs-downing the music that pops up I'm pretty happy with the music played on my stations so I don't care about being able to skip songs; it's just the popups. The popups are killing me (I'm OCD about screens). Do they go away if I pay for a subscription?
I have it and I've been happy with it. I stream it in the office and in my car. I would like more skips for my money, though. I have extra but sometimes it's not enough.
posted by michaelh at 8:59 PM on August 23, 2011
posted by michaelh at 8:59 PM on August 23, 2011
Best answer: I literally cannot think of anything I pay for that is more worth the money. I listen to it all day, every day at work. No ads whatsoever, and you can download the little desktop app which is super cool. You get six skips per station per hour, which I hardly ever use up.
posted by drjimmy11 at 9:21 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by drjimmy11 at 9:21 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: For $3 a month, I don't get the ads any more, and when I stream it on my cellphone to my car stereo, the quality is up from "gee-this-sounds-tinny-and-bad" to "hey-this-is-as-good-as-my-satellite-radio-maybe-even-better." So yeah, totally worth it.
posted by davejay at 9:39 PM on August 23, 2011
posted by davejay at 9:39 PM on August 23, 2011
note: I listen in the car about 5% of my total listening hours, but I have it on at home via Logitech squeezeboxen for the other 95%
posted by davejay at 9:40 PM on August 23, 2011
posted by davejay at 9:40 PM on August 23, 2011
Best answer: Yeah no ads of any sort if you pay. You can skin the browser player which I didn't think I'd care about, but it's nice. 99% of the time I use the desktop app. Do it.
posted by zeek321 at 9:42 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by zeek321 at 9:42 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Knowing there are no ads is such a relief. I was being pessimistic about it, I guess. I figured 'most' of the ads would be gone but I'd still have to see some of them. Three bucks a month is cheap to maintain my clear screen obsession. Thanks for the answers.
posted by JV at 9:56 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by JV at 9:56 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]
If you have a Mac, getting a Pandora One subscription lets you "record" streamed music at a higher bit rate on PandoraJam -- totally worth it. Like way way way way worth it. Plus, I guess, no ads.
Pandora One still doesn't let you skip that many songs. Maybe like 10 per station. That's just incidental, since you said you don't care about that.
posted by bluesky78987 at 9:58 PM on August 23, 2011
Pandora One still doesn't let you skip that many songs. Maybe like 10 per station. That's just incidental, since you said you don't care about that.
posted by bluesky78987 at 9:58 PM on August 23, 2011
Pandora One still doesn't let you skip that many songs. Maybe like 10 per station.
They don't publicize it that much, but the number is exactly six skips per hour* per station. Given that I have 30 or 40 stations, the odds of me getting stuck listening to something I hate are pretty negligible.
*Not 100%, but pretty sure this means hour of total listening time, not chronological hour.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:02 PM on August 23, 2011
They don't publicize it that much, but the number is exactly six skips per hour* per station. Given that I have 30 or 40 stations, the odds of me getting stuck listening to something I hate are pretty negligible.
*Not 100%, but pretty sure this means hour of total listening time, not chronological hour.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:02 PM on August 23, 2011
I love it, listen to it all day at work and in the car on the commute. Well worth the money.
And yes, the skips are kind of limited, but AFAIK thumbs-down are totally unlimited, and still skip the song. At least, between skips and thumbs-downs, I have never hit any kind of limit. (And you can always later edit your station and remove any thumbs-downs you didn't really mean.)
posted by xedrik at 10:47 PM on August 23, 2011
And yes, the skips are kind of limited, but AFAIK thumbs-down are totally unlimited, and still skip the song. At least, between skips and thumbs-downs, I have never hit any kind of limit. (And you can always later edit your station and remove any thumbs-downs you didn't really mean.)
posted by xedrik at 10:47 PM on August 23, 2011
I inadvertantly got rid of the ads because I live in China and use an anti-firewall software (which was free). The firewall software is called Freegate. After using it, I no longer get ads on Pandora. I am not sure of the exact reason.
Also, when my skips are up I just reload the page and it plays a new song- does no one else do this?
posted by bearette at 5:11 AM on August 24, 2011
Also, when my skips are up I just reload the page and it plays a new song- does no one else do this?
posted by bearette at 5:11 AM on August 24, 2011
Response by poster: Forgot to specify I'm mainly using it on my iphone. I don't know if there's anti-firewall software I can install on it or whether it would work with the Pandora app.
Yeah, mentioning I'm using it on a phone seems to make the clear screen obsession a bit clearer. I appreciate the answers and I'm going for the subscription.
posted by JV at 6:04 AM on August 24, 2011
Yeah, mentioning I'm using it on a phone seems to make the clear screen obsession a bit clearer. I appreciate the answers and I'm going for the subscription.
posted by JV at 6:04 AM on August 24, 2011
you might want to check out the other services first. i paid for slacker for a couple years. i like their music selection more (seemed to have more weird, off the wall stuff, as well as all the normal stuff) and there are no limits on skips and no ads if you pay.
posted by nadawi at 7:50 AM on August 24, 2011
posted by nadawi at 7:50 AM on August 24, 2011
Response by poster: I checked out the Slacker app. It has some cool features but the interface somehow feels weird. Having music interrupted by news is also a bit off-putting. It definitely gave me some variety I wasn't getting in Pandora though.
posted by JV at 6:14 PM on August 24, 2011
posted by JV at 6:14 PM on August 24, 2011
you can turn the news off and you can control if it plays more obscure or more common - it'll even let you pick if you want things from bands early, mid, or late careers.
one of my favorite features is "never play this band/song again".
posted by nadawi at 7:52 PM on August 24, 2011
one of my favorite features is "never play this band/song again".
posted by nadawi at 7:52 PM on August 24, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by nel at 8:54 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]