Does Pandora charge money now?

[rcrush]

I just got an email

You Are Approaching Your Free Listening Limit

We wanted to let you know that you are approaching your monthly free listening limit. Pandora gives you 40 hours of free listening per month.
Why is free monthly listening limited?

If you'd like to listen more, you have three options. We hope that one of these works for you:

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 July. 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.
Learn more about Pandora One


3. Pay Nothing. If neither of the above options is right for you, simply come back in August to start listening to your stations again.


The Pandora Team


When did they start doing this?

[realisticphish]

1. that would suck if they did

I mean yeah, it's a business, etc, but it would still suck

[rcrush]

2. Just checked my pandora account

Theres now a window that says I have 4 free hours left this month. I guess I'll just break down and get the Pandora 1

[grace0418]

3. Well, I guess I can understand. And really, that seems pretty reasonable. Especially

considering the amount of music I've found through listening to Pandora. I love it! I guess I don't listen enough to get that warning, but there have to be some months where I come close.

[rcrush]

4. I usually leave pandora on when I'm falling asleep

And have it on almost all the time. I guess I can pay the 36 bucks for the year and have it not time out anymore.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. This just started recently, because of the record labels

There was a demand for increased royalties. So...in order to stay in business...Pandora decided on the new "pay" plans.