Only one thing is holding back YouTube Music
I’ve been a member of YouTube Premium for a very long time. When I started, it was brand new and called YouTube Red. For $9.99 a month, they offered commercial-free YouTube and access to Google Play Music as well as the then-fledgling YouTube Music. In the beginning, YouTube Music was pretty bare bones. It was just a shell of a music streaming service with the most basic of options available. It was clear even back then that Google Play music was going to be phased out. Google Music stood out as one of the few services where you could still purchase digital music, as well as stream it. I experimented with YouTube music a bit during this time but mostly focused on Google Music to transfer my own digitally owned music over to the service. Google allows the transfer of up to 50,000 of your songs to Google Play music. Just as I completed this task of getting my music moved over to be able to stream (a task that took me several days to complete), Google announced that they were going to shut down the Google Play Music store and would only have YouTube Music as its music streaming service. I was ok with this for 3 reasons: 1. YouTube made the transfer of music from Google Play Music to YouTube Music very painless. 2. YouTube Music continued the function of being able to transfer music from your digital music library to YouTube Music. 3. Google offered me to be grandfathered into the then-existing price of $9.99 a month, as long as I kept my subscription going. I still pay $9.99 to this day, while newer subscribers pay $2.00 a month more. I think it is still a bargain to have unlimited music streaming and commercial-free YouTube for $9.99 a month. I watch YouTube more than television, and I stream a ton of music, so I plan on paying as long as YouTube keeps me grandfathered in (2024 update: Grandfathered pricing has now ended).
What YouTube Music is doing right:
Overall, I am pleased with YouTube music. It uses Google’s greatest strength, which is Artificial Intelligence in the cloud to recommend and create a customized playlist for you. The more music that you rate, the smarter it gets. I also like that you can give a like or dislike to a song anywhere in YouTube Music, including your playlists. Several other music streaming services only allow you to like or dislike music if you play their radio streaming stations. To me, this is a big deal, because one of the best features of streaming music stations (or all cloud streaming services really) is the ability for the radio stations to learn what you like to listen to and improve upon it. It is like having an ad-free DJ that only plays music that I like and music that I might like. For example, through the creation of a mix created by the Artificial Intelligence gurus at Google, I recently discovered the group Mazzy Star which as it turns out I like. Over time, I hope to teach my virtual DJ that I like some songs from some artists, but not to flood my playlists with music by that artist. I also learned that Milli Vanilli is still being offered as recommended music. Perhaps Artificial Intelligence knows something that the general populace does not, but I digress. I also like that from the beginning, YouTube Music has seamlessly integrated music videos with each song selection where it is available. Other music streaming services have now done this as well. YouTube Music has also added access to the lyrics for most songs. YouTube Music also deserves credit simply for being available on every device that has YouTube, which is virtually everything.
Where YouTube Music needs to improve:
So to recap, YouTube Music has a good monetary value, good features, and good A.I. integration. The one area YouTube Music needs to catch up with its competitors is in regards to streaming quality. The quality of the music setting can be upgraded to high, but as of this writing, this only corresponds to a 256Kbps AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) level of streaming audio quality. This level was adequate a few years ago when phone plans and networks were more limited. It sounds ok enough, but nothing special. Newsflash: now in 2022, 5G and Unlimited Data plans are a thing. Other music streaming services are taking advantage of this by offering much higher quality music streaming offerings.
I know that this may not happen, given the value that YouTube provides by offering a music streaming service that is adequate enough, and ad-free YouTube all in one. The target audience may not even care about having higher-quality music. But once you listen to the higher quality streaming on other streaming services that exceeds CD quality, it is hard to go back to listening to 256Kbps AAC quality music. Until this area of streaming quality improves, I can only offer a rating of 4 out of 5 stars. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
