Calm Before The Storm

Since the mid 1800s, it seems people have been calling for "a little peace and quiet" (link below), and right now, thanks to Pandora (link below), I'm getting to experience just that. As that proposal might come off as somewhat of an oxymoron, let me clarify. Though I've always been aware of its existence and partaken in its service from time to time, lately, my dependence thereon has grown exponentially. About half the time that I find myself near my computer in the least, I open up a new browser tab, create a station to suit my mood, and wait as Pandora's internet radio service fires up the tunes. This afternoon, after a mere two tracks, the music stopped, and I had to investigate. I thought it may have merely frozen or been stuck on one of its prompts to ensure that I was still listening, but I was mistaken.

The rest of the screen seemed to disappear as my eyes focused on the sad sentence Pandora had cast me. Apparently, I had reached the limit of air time Pandora allows for its non-paying users, forty hours per month, and I had three options. Though not listed, the first option would be to stop listening until next month, but they also presented me with two other options, a reduced sentence if you will. I could either pay ninety nine cents to listen for free for the rest of the month or I could drop thirty six dollars and enjoy a years worth of their service with unlimited access and a desktop application. After sitting there, confused, for a couple minutes, I realized this was something I had to ponder, and closed the window.

Of course, there is always the option of using the application on my phone or creating another account, but I'm not a fan of abusing a privilege through such circumvention. Realizing that, I had to explore the reasoning behind the limit, and the explanation proved pretty simple. Apparently, Pandora pays royalties for each of the songs it plays. Though they insert advertising every now and then, after forty hours, at which point they lessen the amount of ads displayed, they have found it isn't economically responsible. Now that I realize Pandora is paying royalties on top of providing users with the amazing benefits of their music genome project, I can't help but feel requesting payment would be justified. That did, however, lead me to ponder something else.

Though I may have touched on it before, the internet has encouraged society to place a lower value on goods and services, and it's getting somewhat out of hand. We expect more and more, and we want to pay less and less. It's that simple. Now, with the amount of things we expect for free, I feel it has reached rock bottom with respect to responsibility. The only way I think that bottom could drop out is for people to expect to be paid for using quality goods and services, and I really hope we never stoop so far as to expect that. There are ads and such out there that balance the amount of content we can receive for free, but I feel there should be somewhat of a financial obligation and commitment to what we use. On the production end, money is being put in, and we are reaping the rewards. If we choose to continually partake therein, after some interpretation of a trial period, it's only fair that we pop open our wallet and show our appreciation.

I guess I should consider the forty hours of free music as a trial period to determine if I should continue enjoying the service, and reaching the limit revealed two things to me. First, reaching the limit puts me in the top ten percent of users in terms of usage time, and that's something with regards to which I feel a touch of pride. It feels like I completed an endurance race, and, honestly, I still feel fresh. The second thing it caused me to realize was that the choice of whether to continue or not has practically been made for me. The cost is pretty low, and, if I enjoyed it for forty hours, I think it's proved its worth. It would also make me feel less guilt about being a freeloader.

So, It only took a few minutes of that supposedly glorious silence to realize that it wasn't all its cracked up to be. It may be nice from time to time, but, after a while, it feels like it could stop a clock. In those few minutes between when it stopped and I fired up my iTunes, everything felt so slow and boring. Since I'm sure I want to continue with Pandora, all I have to do is decide which route to take, but that might take a few minutes. Soon, Pandora will, once again, pummel my computer's speakers. Just think of my iTunes collection as the calm before the storm.

Links:
Peace And Quiet: Idiom
Pandora Internet Radio: Website