In an unsurprising move, Pandora is now capping its mobile users at 40 hours of streaming per month. The company is blaming royalty costs that have gone up 25% in the past 3 years, and keep soaring. I’m sure many of you don’t use Pandora THAT much, but it is a bummer that Pandora is deciding to do this to it’s audience. Founder Tim Westergren took to his blog to announce the change:
This week we will begin communicating directly with a small number of our listeners as we introduce a 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening.
Most of you reading this will never hit the limit. In fact, it will affect less than 4% of our total monthly active listeners. For perspective, the average listener spends approximately 20 hours listening to Pandora across all devices in any given month.
It’s nice that he lets us know how many users will actually be affected, but, it’s just the feel of being limited which stinks. For those of you who choose to go over, it’ll only cost you $0.99 per month, or you can sign up for a Pandora One subscription which is $36 per year. Fun fact: Pandora actually tried this concept back in September of 2011, but it ultimately failed. Hopefully the same result happens again? What are your thoughts? Do you think you’ll try Spotify’s free Radio feature? Let us know in the comments below.
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