I paid for pandora for a period. But now it wants to play the same songs all the time.

Moved to spotify. I can listen to an available playlist or to every album from an artist one at a time or make my own playlist and store it for offline use. Seems more natural and wide open.

I had (and still do in the vehicle) XM radio, which basically solves your use case. Radio with no adverts. Some stations do have hosts, but it's not a talk show.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are moving to Spotify. I myself never paid for either but have use both (using someone else's account on Spotify).

Being able to play offline + any song/album + similar artist play mode makes Spotify hands down the better service.

I think Pandora used to have something special with their Music Genome Project recommendation system but I don't think they really rely on it as much anymore as it now seems based off of the likes and other activity other online radio recommendation systems use.

I wish some one would do a open data version of the Music Genome Project that you could hook up to a personal playlist.

Honestly it has always wanted to play the same songs very often. I used to easily reach 40 hours of play per month on the free tier (back when 40 hours was the max).

Give it enough time and you wind up just hearing the same music. Sometimes I'd start a station with a very different style/genre and it'd still happen where they'd both cross as well. Too much repetition.

1. New company comes in with VC funding

2. Uses funding to operate at a loss and undercut and outperform existing players

3. Growth slows because there are only a couple billion internet users out there. Raises prices or decreases value to try to find a profit.

4. See step 1

It's hard to see this as an efficient method for finding the best product in a free market.

Repeat 1-4 enough times and you have yourself a bubble.

I did similar, but instead of Spotify, after a trial period with Google Play Music decided to keep it. Much happier with the stations and ability to play some full albums I'm interested in. Cancelled the digital portion of Sirius XM to help justify the cost. Pandora was good for a long period of time, but now I hardly ever listen to it.

Were you using the "I'm tired of this song" feature? It snoozes songs for 30 days and forces the algorithm to pick new songs. If you're not giving the station enough input of course it will stagnate.

If it plays the same songs, you need to remove your Thumbs Ups and add them as Song Seeds. Too many Thumbs Downs are also a problem. However I think their recommendation engine has slowly declined over the years (either that or I already discovered all the recommendations relevant to my favorites).

Have you actually tried any other music services though? Deezer for example is MUCH higher quality (noticeable even on cheap earbuds or car stereos) vs pandora and has tons of 'Mix' stations that are genre based, or any artist you choose can have a 'mix' station that's very similar to how Pandora works. I'm not saying Pandora is bad, but I've used a lot of services and I would put it far from the top. The only reason it's so popular in my opinion is because they've been able to exploit the free radio loophole for so long. Now that the rules have changed we're going to see a consolidation in the music streaming industry over the next few years; the only unknown is how quickly.

Have you listened to the paid subscription high quality streams from pandora?

Until that person decides they are sick of footing the bills for a company that isn't profitable...