Pandora is to music as Google once was to web searching, several generations ahead of the competition. Even with Google regressing it is still way ahead of the pack. I haven't tried Spotify but I read you or your friends pick what you want to hear. It MIGHT be one step up from the radio. Pandora can fairly accurately predict what you would like to hear, introducing you to unknowns. Pandora is several magnitudes more accurate picking winners from unknowns than the labels. If the labels had any whit at all they would pay Pandora to tell them who should be promoting. If they did they might even become profitable again.