I’ve been using Pandora for years, and when they announced in 2009 that they would be offering a pay-service for a standalone Adobe Air app, I was ecstatic. For $36/year you get 192kbps streaming audio, no commercials, and uninterrupted listening for 5 hours. The unpaid version requires some interaction to make sure that you are still listening, but as a member I can just turn it on and let it play.
The standalone Adobe Air application is nice too. It’s small (in size and in memory usage), nicely skinned, and allows quick access to the basic controls very easily. Since I’m a web developer, occasionally I’ll have dozens of tabs open at the same time - which eats up system resources. With the web-based Pandora player, that means additional browser resources just to play music. The Pandora Air app doesn’t run in the browser, so my music is safe from browser crashes.
I use Pandora every single day, it exposes me to great new artists, and it’s ridiculously cheap at just $36/year. For that cost, and as much as I use it, I figure I’m paying just about 1.5 cents per hour of music.
In my opinion, it’s worth every penny.
