[ackbarr]

I saw this announcement on Lifehacker today, it looks like Last.FM is making their radio service subscriber only on mobile and home theater devices.

http://blog.last.fm/2011/02/07/lastfm-ra...nt-devices

While they don't list the affected services, I would expect that this impacts XBMC users.

While I am currently a subscriber, this decision plus the one last fall to pull several stations including playlist radio and my loved tracks are making me reconsider.

So do you use Last.FM in XBMC? Will you continue to after this goes into affect on February 15th?

[blacklist]

I was just doing a bit of research on this. Frankly I think their subscription rate is too high to make me comfortable with the switchover. That being said, I'm a little shocked that they decided to go to a subscription-only plan - I'm very afraid its going to kill the community.

I was planning on a heavy last.fm integration into my WIP skin The Paper Street Soap Company, but this decision defintly cools my excitement for heavy integration.

[wayfarer_boy]

I've been a long-time Last.fm user and have until recently really appreciated the service. I've always known the risks involved in scrobbling my attention data to a service that offers no way of migrating or exporting, but have been happy to hand my scrobbles over in exchange for a few hours expanding my musical vocabulary.

However, the recent news regarding subscription fees have left me a little surprised, but reading about Last.fm's continuing profit-loss, I'm not surprised they're having to come up with more aggressive ways of getting the cash.

Looking around, there aren't really any better options out there. I'm afraid Spotify's adverts (or anyones come to think of it) drive me absolutely barmy and their £10/month subscription fee is pretty extortionate. £3 per month for advert free Last.fm (or less if you're in the UK and can pay in dollars - handy tip there) seems to be the best bet at the moment. Trouble is, if someone better comes along, you're gonna have to give up all that personal information and start all over again.

If the world suddenly changed overnight, Creative-Commons services such as Jamendo would rapidly increase their user and contributer-base and develop a native app for Android. But hey, that ain't gonna happen, so what ya gonna do?