If they offer a family plan that's price competitive with Spotify, along with feature parity with things like offline play, I'll get my friends and I to switch in a heart beat. The one thing Pandora has over Spotify is their fantastic radio algorithm, Spotify's radio stations are terrible. That alone is a huge selling point for me.
Even if they had an easy way to import all of your spotify/apple music/etc music and playlists, what's the benefit?
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I think rising Pandora from the dead is risky, Rdio was doing great.
But now I'm curious about what would they have to offer as a new experience and how would they help monetize it 🤔
Hard to beat Spotify when it charges the same price, while offering no advantage that I can see and only being available in 3 countries (US, AUS and NZ)…
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Unfortunately still only for US, and ANZ :( Any work arounds?
@wordofchristian According to The Verge, the service will roll out this Wednesday. So just two more days :)
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This seems like a smarter move than not for Pandora. If they were to come out with this service any later it would be too late.
I sense that many people reading and commenting are of the "millennial" mindset and understand streaming services. The largest segment of Pandora listeners is 35-44 year olds, people that don't exactly know what Spotify or Apple Music are or how they work. Pandora users use it because it's easy and it's music that they like.
If Pandora can successfully get their free(95%) or paid(5%) listeners to upgrade their accounts...then this will be a win for Pandora.
There is still a war going on between streaming services and a lot of markets to tap. Switching won't be hard to do.
IMO: I find that curated playlists, although nice, don't fit my musical preferences and play artists and/or producers that I don't like listening to. Pandora can win me and others like me over with their recommendation algorithm alone. Nothing comes close to Pandora's Radio.
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