I use last.fm and while it has some cool features and I've discovered a lot of new bands, it just doesn't play very good songs on the actual radio.
I've tried making stations around all kinds of different bands, genres, or set ups, and it still seems to consistently pick mediocre tracks. My girlfriend found the same thing. I remember Pandora being a lot better in that regard.
Having said that, I think this is a load of horse manure. I don't think that charging some, but not others is very fair. Also, isn't there and Internet adage that says once you release something for free, you can't turn around and charge for it? Or have I been reading too much SvN?
In any case, $6/month (CAD) for myself and the same amount for my wife is not worth it.
edit: Also, this makes a good case for proxy software. If I'm able to set up a proxy that makes it appear to Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, etc. that my IP is from the country they accept, I will still get free music.
Am I wrong in that conclusion?
I've considered creating EC2 instances and using ssh tunneling to get hulu and some other US-only sites from Canada. I'm not sure if the TOS allows it (of Amazon; I'm pretty sure the TOS of hulu doesn't allow it). I'll try it out when I get back to Canada.
And not to get too off-topic, but since you and the above poster are Canadian also, I feel I have to mention CBC's music podcasts which are pretty good if you find one that fits your musical taste: http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/
Limiting content based on geography is terrible but you really can't get many people to care because American's get everything and they're the biggest market.
3 pounds is roughly $4.40 USD. The cheapest EC2 instance is $0.10/hour, which would give you 44 hours for that price.
I don't know what bitrate last.fm streams at, but assuming it's 128 kbps, 44 hours would be about 2.5 GB transfer, or $0.25. edit: actually, $0.50 because the data goes in and out of the servers. I'm going off the top of my head here, but I think the rate is $0.10/GB
I figure I've listened to about 65 hours of music in the last month, so if I replaced half of that with last.fm (For example, I can't use last.fm from the gym), I'd come out ahead.
Of course, it wouldn't be worth the hassle for last.fm (killing and starting instances every time you want to play music? not for me). I may try it with hulu though, just for fun.
Just out of curiosity, what isn't fair about it?
I'm not using last.fm radio-streaming enough to warrant paying for it, and I sure as hell refuse to pay for a service inferior to what others get for free, simply because I'm not born in the "right" country.
And as some ex-last.fm staff member comments down there, there is no way advertising alone can subsidize the US, UK and German markets, so in effect the rest of the world will be subsidizing the G3 countries, which also gets the best service, for free.
Absolute bullocks and I refuse to support it.
I rarely use the streaming radio, save for times when I don't have my iTunes library close by. My main use of last.fm is the statistics and play counts it keeps. I know I get that for free, but for €3/month it's a small enough amount to give them something for creating a great service that I use daily.