What is YouTube Music, Youtube Music Premium and YouTube Premium?
YouTube Music, YouTube Music Premium, and YouTube Premium are new services that Google announced yesterday; they are Google's next, and maybe final, attempt at establishing a free and paid streaming service to compete with the likes of Spotify or Apple Music.
Google plans to release new applications for the new services that users can download and run on their devices.
YouTube, YouTube Music, YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium: which is right for you?
YouTube Music is available as a free service with advertisement and a paid service that is free of advertisement.
YouTube Music is a "reimagined mobile app and brand new desktop player [..] designed for music" according to Google. The service includes "thousands of playlists, official versions of millions of songs, albums, artist radio and more" and "all the music videos people expect from YouTube".
The new YouTube Music homescreen provides recommendations based on past listening activity.
YouTube Premium
YouTube Premium on the other hand is the new name for YouTube Red. Google promises that YouTube Red customers will be moved to YouTube Premium and will pay what they pay for YouTube Red right now.
Customers may reserve the YouTube Red price for YouTube Premium in countries where YouTube Red is available by joining YouTube Red (in other words, by subscribing to YouTube Red right now).
New subscribers, on the other hand, will have to pay more as YouTube Music Premium is now included in the offer.
Check out the bullet points list below for all essentials:
- YouTube -- free, advertisement
- YouTube Premium -- $11.99 per month, includes YouTube Music Premium, ad-free, play in background, YouTube Originals, downloads.
- YouTube Music -- free, advertisement
- YouTube Music Premium -- $9.99 per month, ad-free, listen in background and downloads.
- Google Play Music -- $9.99 for "all access" or $14.99 for "all access" for up to six family members.
YouTube Red customers are moved to YouTube Premium automatically once YouTube Premium becomes available.
Subscribers to Google Play Music get YouTube Music Premium added to their subscription without additional cost. Google promises that nothing will change for Google Play Music subscribers.
And if you use Google Play Music, nothing will change -- you’ll still be able to access all of your purchased music, uploads and playlists in Google Play Music just like always.
YouTube Premium rolls out in markets where YouTube Red is available in already and then later on to new markets (Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom).
Closing Words
Google customers get music and video streaming for $11.99 per month (or $9.99 if they have been migrated from YouTube Red), or only music streaming for $9.99.
While I'm not interested in the new services, I'm sure that users from around the world will find the services interesting. It remains to be seen if Google can get enough subscribers to make it worthwhile, and if the company manages to produce enough original content to keep subscribers entertained.
Now You: What is your take on YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium?
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The application forces you to log in, otherwise it won’t even let you past the splash-screen. Once I logged in, it told me music streaming is not available in my country. Great experience thus far.
Although I don’t know who would want YouTube-quality music. 128kbps MP3 sounds better. I’m not a FLAC person, but the audio (and video, although irrelevant here) quality on YouTube is rubbish. Not only that, but also inconsistent in both quality and volume throughout tracks.
0/10, will stick with PirateBay and RuTracker.
I don’t pay a cent and all youtube videos are ad-free. Downloading videos is easy as pie and if I wanted just the audio, I use mp4 Audio Extractor:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mp4audioextractor/
Also, this is the first I have ever heard of “play in the background”. For me, youtube videos have NEVER stopped just because I switched tabs or minimized the window.
The playing in the background feature is referring to the mobile app. You have to have the screen on and the app open in order to play video’s in the official youtube mobile app.
NewPipe for Android can do all this for free…
11.99 USD per month? If it is per year, I may consider.
“Music is in the air…” like the song says. Music nowadays fills the air. Fog music, everywhere. Too much for me already. So I wouldn’t moreover contribute to the pollution by paying for it.
Play less, sing less, talk less. Think more. It’s like if we were modern slaves forgetting our worries as black slaves in cotton fields in those sad old days, singing to forget.
OK…
Still can’t beat apple music.
Fail comment of the day. YouTube Music isn’t even trying to compete with Apple Music. Google Play Music is the one trying to compete with Apple Music.
10USD/month to use YouTube as music player without ads? HAHAHAAAA.
I can have it for free with NewPipe (Android) which can play YT videos in background, in floating window and as audio only too (also in background, even with scrren off, just like any other music player)…
shhhhhh we all know about NP, don’t jinx it! I’m sure sooner or later Google will send their lawyers after them and shut them down.