Last.fm have now announced that they will start a subscription based service for a large part of their user base which will go live on March 30, 2009. Users not living in the countries United States, United Kingdom or Germany will have to pay a subscription fee of €3 per month if they want to continue listening to Last.fm radio. All other parts of the website remain freely accessible for anyone. Users not accessing from the three countries listed get a 30 track free trial before they cannot listen to the radio streams anymore unless they subscribe to the service. It is unclear if that 30 free track trial resets each month or if it is only available once. It should be made clear that this does not affect song previews or full tracks that are listed on the website.

Nothing will change as well for existing subscribers. The Last.fm blog post where the announcement got posted is full of criticism about the move. One of the main questions asked is why those three countries are exempt from the fee. The reason is ad revenue next to a strategic decision which are considered key markets. Advertisement simply pays less if a user from India, China or South Africa views it or interacts with it compared to users from the mentioned key markets.

It still remains unclear why Last.fm made the decision. Most users who expressed their opinion think that either the Recording Industry or CBS has something to do with it. If the Recording Industry was the culprit it is most likely because of licensing fees while CBS might want Last.fm to run profitable or at least even.