The commenters on this site have gotten quite ridiculous. A person isn't happy with being charged money on top of having to listen to ads, and they are called out for being a whiny cheap arse. Really? People are responding with "who cares what you think?" It's a thread about a specific topic... of course people are going to share their opinions about said topic. Instead we have a bunch of internet warriors who, behind the anonymity of their MACSUPERFANRIPSTEVEJOBS username decide to troll those that want to discuss why they are happy/unhappy with certain decisions a company makes and potential alternatives to a service.
For me, it's not about the extra couple of bucks, although with everyone raising prices "just a couple of bucks" here and there, it certainly adds up fast. I have very recently stopped listening to Pandora because during my daily 30-45 minute run I will get 5-8 ads. And I am talking 30-60 second ads. This can make up 20% of my listening. To add insult to injury, if I skip a couple songs in a row, it will take me right back to an ad, even if I just got done listening to one. If the issue is that Pandora's bottom line is too high, that is unfortunate, but that doesn't change the fact that, for me, the experience has dropped off in quality vastly.
Now if I wanted to continue using the service, and I used it for 40+ hours a week, I am told I have to pay. Another $4 gets rid of the ads (might I point out that we are approaching the monthly cost of streaming video content now?), but it does not let me skip as many times as I want. At that point, I may as well reach for a handful of other services that, for around $10, give me unlimited streaming, skips, AND I can actually pick the songs I want to listen to (if I want), rather than only get a random mix.
Perhaps Pandora's issue is that they aren't pulling in enough ads. Remember how I told you I was getting up to eight ads in a 45 minute timespan? I would hear the same (or similar) ads at least two times during that block of time. I can almost recite the Kum & Go (gas station chain in the midwest) ads for soda that kept repeating. It was like a broken record. Furthermore, we don't even live in the midwest anymore (we relocated eight months ago) and are nowhere near these places that are advertising to us, yet Pandora's system doesn't seem to be smart enough to pick up on that. This is a wasted ad impression, and I am sure the companies putting out these ads are aware of it, hence paying less than top dollar. The irony here is that ad impressions really could be tailored alms to the individual by location. Instead, they are tailored worse than standard radio.