I say screw-em. I don't listen to online radio anyway.
While local radio stations are still free (at least for now) to play artists music, there seems to be some confusion/greed as to why internet radio is a different beast. Does anyone know how much Clearchannel pays to play music over local airwave radio stations?
In the end, I have little sympathy or concern. I've already purchased hard copies of the music I like and loaded it on my own personal cloud. I'm able to stream random music or specific artists/albums from my home server to where ever I have internet access. I'm currently listening to my own cloud while at work/lunch.
Purchasing digital music online has less ownership, when Apple can wipe/cancel any account it chooses, without any recourse by its users. Read the Terms of Agreement.
With my own Cloud, I avoid the need to deal with ads or paying to listen to music I have purchased (not licenses as in Apple followers case) as Apple charges after 5GB Free limit is surpassed.
I can only hope that eventually the general public will realize that they can do lots on their own, if they just take the initiative.