Pandora is no longer purple

Thanks to my friend Nick and the article on WIRED we learned that Pandora radio will now have ads.
It would be fun to discuss whether or not have ads on the radio, but in this economy we know that money is tight. So facing an ever tightening budget our friends at Pandora have turned to something tried and true- ads.
This is where the Purple Cow that was Pandora suddenly loses all his color. Pandora was (is) a revolutionary way to listen to music. As part of the Music Genome Project a user can type in a song or an artist and Pandora will play music that has the same qualities as that song or artist. And they tell you why they are playing that song and how it is similar.
Truly unique, truly purple. I don't know of a single radio station that does that.

So it boggles my mind why Pandora, with its revolutionary delivery method, went with a traditional answer to its financial struggles! Sure they added the premium service, which now allows users to skip the ads. And for many people ad free radio is worth paying for. Look at how long Sirius and XM have survived. Pandora should have looked at their financial problems and approached them with the same vigor and uniqueness that they approached their music-- create something revolutionary. It would have been true to their brand and embraced by their users.

If I was Pandora I would have approached my problem with the same process that CVS Pharmacy did a few years ago. Back then the CEO's of CVS realized that a pharmacy and its profit margins were forever bound to the prices the drug manufacturers charged. Feeling like they were no longer in the drivers seat they began a massive switch in their inventory to a house brand. After all, many consumers purchase items along with a prescription. Now they are in control of their profit margins and their stock price reflects it.

Back to Pandora. They could have taken their knowledge of music and applied it even further. Perhaps creating a label for small artists needing help getting their name out there. They could loop in the artists music with their current radio and offer to sell the listener a digital copy. Kind of like how Amazon is getting into the publishing business.

My point is this. When the internet first came along we treated it like television. We placed ads on it and assumed consumers would keep buying. Then we found out that the internet was not television, that users interacted differently online they did with the boob tube. With a revolutionary idea like Pandora why go back a step to a model that takes your uniqueness away?