johntotenhammer

I agree that it seems like a big misstep to discontinue the service so quickly. Given their relative size, there have to be hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers, and an order of magnitude more Free subscribers that are dedicated Rdio customers. That's significant. Why inspire all those people to go away and risk them getting attached to another competing service? Why not simply re-brand Rdio as Pandora for the time being?

I understand that there are costs associated with maintaining the Rdio application back-end; all the API services the clients use, databases, content delivery network, media storage, new music ingestion, royalty payment system, the mobile, auto, TV and set-top apps etc. It costs a lot of dough just keeping the lights on.

But how much does it cost to a) keep the lights on for say 6 months to a year versus b) what, develop your own product and market the hell out of it so you can start from 0 paying subscribers and try to work your way back up to where Rdio was? (is what Pandora has in mind? Can't believe they just wanted to snuff the service.)

But somebody must have done the math and said "yep, makes sense, kill it." Either because they just wanted to flush Rdio out of the way or because the math comparison was a no-brainer.

In the meantime, I'm going to join you in continuing to enjoy the best, and most beautiful on-demand streaming service available.

(not sure about the comments regarding buggy mobile streaming. At 320 it may drop in the countryside, but dial it down to 192 or lower and you're fine. Yeah I like high grade audio too, but I prefer lower grade music to no music at all.)