[kcodey]

Think of it like FM radio. It's free for us to listen but we have to sit through advertisements. XM and sirius said hey, let's have people pay to listen, so don't have to make them sit through ads. Basically just a different biz model. That model can work though because you don't necessarily need critical mass to have people consume your content. (Yes to a certain extent you do) But the critical mass needed for the next twitter like platform would require a huge critical mass for people to continue to pay for the service. Just my stupid opinion

[onedev]

But they're also SATELLITE radio. That is a huge value add over traditional radio service. I don't think users were only paying for sirius/XM because the services didn't have ads. It was because the products were technically superior.

[kcodey]

What is the huge value added over traditional radio? That it's not FM? In terms of quality you mean? I thought when it first came out that their big pitch was no ads. But don't get me wrong, I also think satellite radio is better because of programming, sound quality, AND no ads.

Although I think they are running ads in some markets... Guess they couldn't survive on the no ads model and are going hybrid?