The day the music died -- sort of

There I was, editing an article, listening to Bebe Neuwirth sing "All That Jazz" from Chicago (so I like musicals -- so sue me), when suddenly the music stopped. Annoyed, figuring it was Pandora wanting once again to make sure I was listening, I Alt-Tabbed to my Pandora window -- to find that I had hit a ceiling that I hadn't realized was there.

Pandora is a now-well-known music service that uses a series of algorithms to take examples of music that you like, and find other examples that you may not know about. The last time I wrote about it was over two years ago, when the Copyright Royalty Board tried to drastically raise royalty rates, to the point where many online music services, including Pandora, wouldn't be able to survive. A compromise was reached, and Pandora persisted.

However, what I wasn't aware of was that the compromise included an adjustment that was instituted about a year after I wrote my article -- a 40-hour monthly ceiling on free listening. Once that limit is hit, the user has two options if she wants to continue to use Pandora: Pay a 99-cent fee and continue to use the advertising-supported version for the rest of the month (the free version resets itself at the beginning of either month) or subscribe to the paid service, Pandora One, for $36/year. Or wait for the month to end.

Don't get me wrong -- I understand that these services need to be paid for, and I've thought about subscribing. But, being a child of the television age, the occasional advertisement doesn't bother me (although I would have liked it if the one about the old-age home came up a bit less often), and I felt that, by accepting the increasingly frequent interruptions, I was helping to support the service. I even clicked on a few of the ads that appeared on the Web page, more out of a sense of loyalty than anything else, and tried to purchase a few songs through Pandora's "Buy now" links (unfortunately, the songs I chose were usually not actually available).

 

Now, I'm wondering what to do. I could pay the 99 cents for the rest of the month, and try to use Pandora a bit more carefully in future (for example, I have the bad habit of muting my speakers when a phone call comes in rather than pausing the music). I could bite the bullet, and pay for Pandora's premium service (no ads and few interruptions), making it only the second Web-based service I think I've ever paid for (Consumer Reports being the first). Or I could simply use other services, such as Live365 or Grooveshark, until the end of the month rolls around.

(And yes, I know about the several hacks available to avoid the 40-hour limit. Let's just say that those go past my personal ethical boundaries.)

It's ironic that it's the little decisions like this one that are sometimes the most puzzling -- and the most interesting to think about. Part of the issue, especially with online services, is that unless you follow their blogs or Twitter feeds, alterations can often catch you unawares -- and leave you surprised and slightly resentful that something you were used to has changed.

So I'm going to crowd-source this one. Is it more responsible to pay for the premium version of a Web service that I use a lot, or is it acceptable to simply be more careful in future to avoid the fee?