Google Kills Off Play Music In Favor of YouTube Music

[Deozaan]

Add another corpse to the Google Graveyard.

Google is killing Google Play Music in order to promote YouTube Music.

The change appears to be a downgrade in every way, so I'm taking it as the final kick in the rear I needed to move away from yet another Google service.

[wraith808]

I haven't seen any problems with it since I changed over to Youtube Music.  In what ways did it seem like a downgrade to you?

[Deozaan]

I may have exaggerated somewhat. What I mean is, it doesn't seem any better in any way, but it does seem worse in some ways. So feature parity appears to be either as good as or worse than Play Music. Here are a few ways in which it is worse.

• The Music store on Google Play will go away. It won’t be possible to purchase music on Google Play anymore, and all pre-orders will be canceled.
• With Google Play Music going away, you won’t be able to listen to podcasts there anymore.
• Background play is only available to paid users of YouTube Music.

[wraith808]

I've always been a paid user, so I guess I never noticed it.  All of the very few purchases I made have gone over to Youtube music.  My largest complaints went away, i.e. losing my playlists, and not being able to upload music.  The only problem that I have with it now is that it conflates your youtube and music accounts, so I have to keep switching.  But that's 1st world problems...

[Deozaan]

I never used the playlist feature so I can't say whether or not losing a playlist was a problem I experienced. But I uploaded a ton of my collection to Play Music, so I'm not sure what prevented you from doing so.

[wraith808]

I don't have any problems with it- I was saying that it moved my uploaded music over to my youtube music account without problem.  There was a period when they first release Youtube music where you couldn't upload music and you couldn't transfer playlists.  That's not the case now.

My only current problem is the one that I stated, i.e. it conflates your youtube and music accounts.

[Deozaan]

I don't have any problems with it

I see. I misunderstood you. I thought you meant the move from Google Play Music over to YouTube Music solved those problems, not that YouTube Music had those problems but now they have been resolved.

[app103]

My biggest problem with Youtube Music is that you'd think with all the data Google has on me already, they'd be able to recommend music that I might actually like. But no, they can't. Their "Endless Personalized Music" is chock full of pop & rap, and the occasional classic rock track. That's 2 genres I don't listen to, plus 1 that I only occasionally listen to, when I am in the right mood for it.

And they keep shoving country music at my husband. He hates country music. His tastes are what I call "classic rock party music." The kind of stuff that gets everybody singing along. (think George Thorogood)