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Pandora Premium vs Free
Pandora is a subscription-based music streaming service. Pandora uses the Music Genome Project to bring its users the “best, most personalized listening experience out there” (Pandora 2021). They believe that everyone has their own relationship with music, therefore, having the ability to let the customer have a unique experience with music is their goal. Pandora lets you do a lot and they do a lot for you, but this doesn’t all come for free. Pandora has 3 subscription options that get slightly better each time you upgrade.
Pandora has a free option; you do have to make an account to sign up, but it does not cost you anything. However, you do not get all the luxurious things you were to get if you had a subscription. Pandora must restrict its consumers in some way or else no one would ever get the bigger subscriptions because why pay the money when you can get it for free. With the free subscription, you still get personalized stations that are based on your listening history. These stations will include songs the company will think you like based on your past listening history. They will also let you listen to the podcasts they have available on their website. You also receive “unlimited” skips and can search and play what you want. These two things come with a price though. Even though they say you have unlimited skips this is restricted to only 12 skips per day. They get you by saying unlimited because technically you could skip 12 times a day every day, but it is not unlimited since you can’t skip 13 times a day. When it comes to searching for a specific song or playlist you can do this, after you watch a 15-second ad. Again, Pandora restricts its consumers from having unlimited skips and searching certain songs and playlists without a cost.
The next subscription option is Pandora Plus which is $4.99 a month. With this option, you get the same things as the free subscription except for this time you actually get unlimited skips. You are not capped at 12 a day. They still have the restriction on when you search for what you want to play you have to listen to a 15-second ad but other than that you are not restricted. With this subscription, you also have access to offline listening. Here you can download music so that you can listen when you are off WIFI or a cellular network signal. This allows users to stay connected wherever they are, so they always have access to their music and podcasts.
The last subscription is Pandora Premium which is $9.99 a month. With this option, you get everything with no catches. You get everything that’s been talked about above and this time you do not have to watch an ad when you search for a specific song or playlist. With this option, you also can make and share playlists. With this option you are also offered 3 types of discounts: family, student, and military. Pandora restricts these discounts to only the premium option, so it persuades people to go with this option.
Not only does Pandora restrict its consumers based on the subscription they have, but they also have an age restriction on its service. You must be at least 13 years old to register for an account. Pandora is also only available in the United States as of recently.
Overall, Pandora is a great streaming service for music and podcasts, but it does not come without its restrictions. To get the best from Pandora you must pay the most and even if you do pay that you cannot access it unless you are in the US.
Music and podcasts, free and on-demand. Pandora. https://www.pandora.com/.