Free Pandora mobile users have some bad news today. The company has announced that it will start capping mobile usage to 40 hours per month.
Pandora previously had this cap on both desktop and mobile usage, but dropped it in September 2011. Rising royalty costs have forced Pandora to reinstate this monthly cap.
The 40 hour cap will only apply to mobile app users this time around.
Pandora has claimed that this cap will only impact about 4% of mobile users but if you’re one of the 4%, you have little recourse than to move to another service like Spotify or pony up for a paid subscription to Pandora. If you hit the 40 hour cap that month, you can pay $0.99 to use the service the remainder of the month. A subscription to Pandora One will cost $3.99 a month or $36 for the year, which will get rid of the listening limit and ads.
Source: Pandora Blog